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I am an artist and writer working in London and France. Reader in Fine Art at Sheffield Hallam University, I am also a Research Associate of the Centre for Freudian Analysis and Research, London. I have exhibited widely in Europe and North America. Publications include A Case of Hysteria, Book Works, London, 1999. Filigrane Editions, France, published a small book on my work Le bonheur des femmes, a work that began in the perfume departments of the grands magasins of Paris, where I retreated after walking the streets in pursuit of Marx and Freud, in the shadow of Lacan, and this is still a work that haunts me. My practice is one of stupid refinement, trapped in archives, libraries, the arcades, and the intersection of public political action and private subjectivity.

I am following Sigmund Freud on holiday, and I have dreamt of Rome, been melancholy in Trieste, and had a disturbance of memory in Athens, which can be traced in Freud on Holiday. Volume I. Freud Dreams of Rome (information as material 2006) and Freud on Holiday. Volume II. A Disturbance of Memory (information as material, York, with CUBEARTEDITIONS, Athens, 2007). I have forgotten my shoes on the steps of the Freud Museum, London, and I thought of witty and amusing remarks too late on the stairs of the Freud Museum, Vienna, and these events are recounted in L'esprit d'escalier and An Agent of the Estate
(information as material, 2007 and 2008).Forbes Morlock and I worked on Freud and the Gift of Flowers in 2009 (information as material, once again). The small book Afterwards, although published by Warwick Arts Centre (2009) may be considered to be part of the same series. Recently I have started a new series of modest booklets in which I recount railway-related scenes and incidents in the works of Freud, under the title Reisen. A third holiday book,entitled The Forgetting of a Proper Name, in which neither Freud nor I quite manage to get away from it all, has just been published by CUBEARTEDITIONS and information as material.

I was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London, where I was happily translating the Freudian canon, with particular attention to typefaces and the three essays on sexuality, from 2007 to 2011. In early 2008 I exhibited at Sleeper, Edinburgh, for which I worked hard on my embroidery and my worst traits,and at Feriancova Contemporary/ Bastart, Bratislava, where I took Rousseau to task on natural education.In November of the same year I exhibited a new series of works at CHELSEA Space, which insisted on a relation between fashion and revolutionary moments in the history of France.There are more works in this series, some of which were shown in Pont-Aven in October/November 2009, including a stuffed vixen holding the PUF edition of Marx's Capital in her jaws. I have had solo shows recently at AMT_Project, Bratislava, DomoBaal, London, and the Ideas Store, London, in which I exhibited works that drew on my collections. FRAC Bretagne has acquired several works for its collection, as has Penguin Books.

I have been working on some rather amateur water colours, copying old postcards from memory, which gave me great pleasure, despite their talentless inadequacy, but I think these may now have come to an end. I have re-photographed the smoke of steam trains, the flat, limpid waters of mountain lakes, and the snow on Alpine peaks (some of these were shown at Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer in 2009, some at DOMOBAAL and at at AMT_Project in 2011). Somewhat to my surprise, these have turned into three very short films, which were screened in New York and St Petersburg in autumn 2011. Painstakingly I have sketched women modelling lingerie (and copied quite beautifully their textual descriptions), while thinking of nothing. I was painting women's faces, but have had enough of this (some were shown at AMT_Project and some in my exhibition at DOMOBAAL in 2010), so am back to lingerie, silk, and perversion (same old, same old). I have drawn in a sanguine Conté pencil on papier de soie the passionate descriptions of silk given by his kleptomaniac patients to Dr Clérambault. I have noted the weather of Freud's holidays, the meals (good and bad) he ate while on holiday, and the train times of his journeys – the two former are now appendices in the series Freud on Holiday and the last is the second book in the Reisen series. I paid my son an enormous amount of money to fill old school exercises books with handwritten lines (as though it were a cruel punishment), which are the indexical references to mother/son relations in Freud's works, and these were exhibited at the Freud Museum in 'Les paris sont ouverts' in the summer of 2011.

I am eliminating horizons on old postcards of various kinds of sea views, having last year spoilt many postcards of Rome in my attempt to turn them into negatives. I draw bridles, bits, stirrups, saddles, and dressage movements, while thinking of 'Little Hans'.I continue to rewrite Zola's novel Nana, from a number of positions, most recently as descriptions (I call this work 'Nana. Ghostwriter', and soon, in French, it will be 'Nana. Négre'). I embellish rather grubby vintage collars of crochet, lace, cotton, with etiquettes declaring that 'je suis une petite charmeuse' (and I am, sometimes), and associate these with some adorable stuffed squirrels.

I had a solo exhibition at Galerie des petits carreaux, Paris, for which I assembled a rather odious display of feminity(for some people, at least, though others may feel quite differently, as did Bernard Géniès, writing in the Novel Observateur, in a review in which he was kind enough to assign me two stars), in November 2012, and my show at DOMOBAAL, London, has just closed. This exhibition is entitled Reproductions II, and I echo a previous show there. It is accompanied by two lovely essays by Steve Pile and Jan Campbell, available as a small publication, and on the closing day, Sarah Sparkes hosted a séance, with the presence of Birgitta Hosea, Peter Suchin, and Forbes Morlock (who kindly stepped in to channel Sarah Wood at the last minute). Nick Thurston presented two new appendices to the series Freud on Holiday– Freud's Hotels and Freud's Shopping (exquisitely designed by James Brook).The gallery has launched a new subscription series, with the gift of the small yet elegant booklet Femme du monde/Women of the World for early subscribers.

Opening soon:
Ulysses, l'autre mer: Celebrating 30 years of FRAC Bretagne, France, curated by Marcel Dinahet, Catherine Elkar and Jean–Marc Huitorel, Frac Bretagne, Rennes, Brittany, France. I will exhibit works at the FRAC, Rennes, at the Musée de compagnie des Indes, Lorient, and the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Saint–Brieuc, Brittany, France.

I will have a solo exhibition at Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, in June, though we are still thinking about what will be shown and as yet have no title. I will exhibit new works in Resort at Transition, and at Five Years, London, in September, 2013. My exhibition Un vent de révolution (Centre d'art Passerelle, Brest, 2012), will be expanded as work develops for future exhibitions in Germany (dates and places to be confirmed -- forgive the present secrecy), and London (Café Gallery, September, 2014).

Represented by:
Domo Baal, London
Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf

Do see also the website of Documents d'Artistes Bretagne, which has a very nice dossier on my work in English and French.

Reproductions III
Du Monde/Of the World


Domo Baal and Sharon Kivland are delighted to announce a new subscription series, following the success of Reproductions I in 2012 (with many satisfied customers). The next series is subtitled Du Monde/Of the World, and if you will forgive a perhaps grandiose notion, the artist has been thinking about Maurice Merleau–Ponty's account of vision and visibility (that we are looked at, in the spectacle of the world), and Jacques Lacan's commentary thereon (that the world is not exhibitionistic, it does not provoke our gaze, but when it does, the feeling of strangeness begins). But enough of that!

There will be twelve books in the series, which is limited to an edition of 50, with an additional thirteenth book offered free to early subscribers (Femmes du Monde). Each book, between 16 and 36 pages, draws on the artist's collections of postcards, magazines, cuttings, and other printed ephemera, in another attempt to organise, catalogue, and archive. There is little text, apart from the title and usual colophon material. The books are black and white, printed on an ivory 120gsm Munken paper, stapled with a square spine, each: 19cm by 15cm. Subscribers will receive one book each month.

At its completion, the series will be neatly and attractively housed in a handsome bespoke slipcase, made by Book Works studio, and potential subscribers should budget for this (we cannot confirm the cost at this point, but we imagine somewhere around £50 – this is offered at cost price). The cost of subscription for the full set of books alone is £125 and this price includes post and packing to the UK and Europe. What an enticing bargain!

Titles may include: Femmes du Monde/Women of the World, Hommes du Monde/Men of the World, Rosièristes du Monde/Rosegrowers of the World, Barmen du Monde/Barmen of the World, Amants du Monde/Lovers of the World, Philosophes du Monde/Philosophers of the World, Arrangements floraux du Monde/Flower arrangements of the World

For Un vent de révolution, I produced a high-street line of my work Noms propres (ma pétroleuse), making this attractive yet provocative necklace available to the woman in the street or at the barricade at an affordable price. The term, the source of which lies in the Paris Commune of 1871, means a woman who speaks her political views too stridently, but can also imply a cockteaser (what a naughty tease). In an edition of ten, each necklace, in fine quality sterling silver, comes in a presentation gift box, stamped in red with title and date, and lined with red silk. The edition is produced by Passerelle in collaboration with Domo Baal, London, and during the exhibition is available at the modest price of 75 euros. It is, we think you will agree, the perfect gift for that special revolutionary woman. There are only three remaining, I must signal.

Pour Un vent de révolution, j'ai produit une ligne d’objets dérivés de mon travail Noms propres (ma pétroleuse), rendant cet attrayant et pourtant provoquant collier disponible pour la femme dans la rue ou sur les barricades à un prix abordable. Le terme, dont la source provient de la Commune de Paris en 1871, désigne une femme qui affirme ouvertement ses opinions politiques, mais peut aussi désigner une allumeuse (quelle coquine!). Edité en 10 exemplaires, chaque collier, en argent de fine qualité, est livré dans un coffret cadeau, estampillé en rouge avec le titre et la date, et doublé de soie rouge. Cette édition a été produite par le centre d’art passerelle en collaboration avec la Galerie Domobaal à Londres, et vendu durant l’exposition pour la modique somme de 75€. C’est, et vous serez d’accord avec nous, le cadeau idéal pour cette femme révolutionnaire spéciale.

Recent exhibitions and projects include:

Reproductions II
DOMOBAAL, 3 John Street, London WC1N 2ES
18.01.13 – 16.02.13

Ma Nana (encore), autres filles et quelques petits explosions
Galerie des petits carreaux, 43 rue des Petits Carreaux, 75002 Paris
17.11.12 – 5.01.13

Screening of Sharon Kivland: Reisen, three very short films: The limpid waters of mountain lakes, The snow on alpine peaks, The smoke of steam trains, in ‘Freud’s Holiday’ at Freud’s Dreams Museum, St Petersburg, Russia; an event to commemorate twelve years of the museum’s  work, which opened on the 100th anniversary of The Interpretation of Dreams (4 November, 1899).
www.freud.ru

'Why do I keep reading the same books?', AMT_Project, Bratislava, July to September 2011, curated by Petra Feriancova, exhibiting David Raymond Conroy, Dorota Kenderová, Sharon Kivland, Jirka Thyn, Jaro Varga, and Anabela Zigová.

'Les paris sont ouvertS, Freud Museum, London, July to September 2011, curated by Caroline May, exhibiting Dimitris Dokatzis, Maria Finn, Eve Fowler, Sharon Kivland, Lindner, Jeff Ono, and Paul P.

'Text and Image', Galerie Bugdahn und Kaimer, Düsseldorf, June to August 2011, exhibiting Robert Barry, Peter Hutchinson, Sharon Kivland, Jürgen Klauke, Marie-Jo Lafontaine, Thomas Ruff, and Ingolf Timpner.

'Sequences', 2011, Johan Deumens Gallery, Haarlem – a group exhibition in a beautiful house (so I am told) in Herengracht, Amsterdam.

Solo exhibition at DOMOBAAL, London, 5 March to 9 April 2011: I am sick of my thoughts.

Solo exhibition at AMT_project, Bratislava, 10 February to 2 April 2011, curated by Alberto Matteo Torri: Reproductions
Guest artist: Benjamin Swaim
See the following http://artycok.tv/lang/cs-cz/reproductions/7226 for a short interview.

'Encounters', group exhibition at Galerie Bugdhan & Kaimer, Düsseldorf, February to March, 2011.

Le cri de la soie, artist's project for Cahiers intempestifs, 2011, St-Etienne, France.

'The Perverse Library', Shandy Hall, Coxwold, Yorkshire, September to October, 2010, curated by Simon Morris.

'elles@pompidou, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, June 2009 to June 2010, curated by Camille Morineau.

'Super Farmers' Market'
Handel Street Projects, 18 June to 17 July 2010, curated by MaryAnne Francis and Lucy Heyward

'Sophisticated Boom Boom (in B& W)', D OMOBAAL, London, May to June, 2010

'Time is a sausage', September 2009 to January 2010. Group exhibition at domobaal, London
Solo project and book: Freud and the Gift of Flowers (with Forbes Morlock) in 'Time is a Sausage', November to December 2009 , in which I showed the floral tributes Freud did not receive and five Freudian riddles and their five answers, sadly unrelated.