Ithell Colquhoun, Gorgon, 1946. Photo Richard Shillitoe. Courtesy Dr and Mrs Richard Shillitoe. Image reproduction courtesy: The Samaritans, The Noise Abatement Society and Spire Healthcare Group.
Living Stones: Learning from Ithell Colquhoun
Christie’s Education – British Artist-Animist-Magician, Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988) maintained that visual art is a powerful prospecting or divining tool that can trace and translate vital energies moving ‘between worlds’. She celebrated the agencies of Cornwall’s “granite, serpentine, slate, sandstone, limestone, chalk and the rest”, proposing, “the inner life of a region depends on its geological substratum” (Colquhoun, 1957). Over the past decade, Colquhoun’s work has been the subject of increasing critical and curatorial interest. A major retrospective of her work was launched in Tate St Ives in January 2025, then reconfigured for Tate Britain between June and October 2025. This lecture considers how Colquhoun’s work has become contemporary, generating creative conversations with artists and eco-critical thinkers. The lecture focuses on Colquhoun’s interest in the animism of geophysical forces and her creation of a radical aesthetics that can stimulate enchantment and ‘unknowing’ (Roelofs 2014). I propose that such an aesthetic cultivates alternative modes of perception and relational thinking, tools we urgently need now as a ground for planetary ethics.
Date: 17/09/2025 to 17/09/2025
Time: 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
Organisation: Christie's Education
Type: Online
Free booking required: see booking link below