Jonathan Callan

Jonathan Callan, ‘Rolling up the dark Empire’, Paper and screws, 69 x 66 x 30 cm, 2024 (Side View).jpg

Jonathan Callan, Red Books on Plinth, Tearing, Punching... Install.jpg

Jonathan Callan, 'The Antiquaries Journal 1972 - 80’, Paper and screws, 48 x 25 x 28 cm, 2024

The Narrows - Installation View 5 - Detail

Jonathan Callan’s work ranges across a diverse set of mediums, methods and materials. It is linked by a preoccupation with the limitations of language. Deeply fascinated with the dominance of literature in British culture, his work questions what is overlooked when we rely too heavily on words to convey experience. Callan often works with texts, books, maps, and photographs. Much of this information is sourced and filtered from secondhand books. The work can be both small and intimate and also expansive, sculptural installations that occupy whole spaces.

For Callan, books symbolize Western culture. His interest in the transformation and decline of Western culture is reflected in his manipulations. The sculptures, though made from industrial materials, resemble natural forms, symbolically returning books to their original form as tree trunks. For his recent series of works, Callan poignantly uses editions of The British Empire magazines, a series about the Empire's history and influence, presenting it uncritically and sympathetically that would not be possible nowadays.

In Jonathan's words, "Most of my work is derived from a fascination with materiality. I'm interested in fluff, dirt, dust. I'm interested in things breaking down. I'm interested in that which cannot be said but can only be shown. Most objects to me are not real until I can find what is inside. Which presents a paradox, since we can only ever see the surface of things. The real interior of any object is seen as a series of surfaces beyond and behind which are only more interior surfaces. This is a morbid inclination. Perhaps implying that things can only be understood after having been broken down or destroyed, suggesting that the attainment of knowledge is an invasive procedure, no gaze or observation leaving its subject unmarked."

Patrick Heide Contemporary Art was pleased to present a Solo Exhibition by Callan entitled The Narrows in February of 2024. The artists' first solo exhibition in London for 19 years presented a body of work that marked connections between the experience of artists’ progressive hearing loss and the profound readjustment the artist sees taking place within Western culture as it comes to terms with its relative decline in a world being remade.

Jonathan Callan was also featured in a group show entitled Tearing, Punching, Squeezing, Drilling in the Summer of 2024 at Patrick Heide Contemporary Art. Callan exhibited a range of his sculptures, made entirely from collected books, which he squeezes and twists, recharging or obliterating their original content. The sculptures, though made from industrial materials, resemble natural forms, symbolically returning books to their original form as tree trunks. For his recent series of works, Callan poignantly uses editions of The British Empire magazines, a series about the Empire's history and influence, presenting it uncritically and sympathetically that would not be possible nowadays.

Jonathan Callan's work is included in major museum collections including The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The British Museum, London, The Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK, South London Gallery, London, Whitworth Gallery, Manchester, UK, The British Council, The Ferens Art Gallery, Hull, The High Museum Atlanta, GA, The West Collection, Pennsylvania, The Leopold Hörsch Museum Düren, Germany, Princeton University Art Museum, New York, Progressive Art Collection ’Ohio and JP Morgan Chase Bank, New York.

Exhibtions at the Gallery

Lost for Words, 2025 (Group Exhibition)

The Narrows, 2024 (Solo Exhibtion)

Tearing, Punching, Squeezing, Drilling, 2024, (Group Show)