Dan Fern / On The Horizon
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A monograph of Dan Fern’s work from 1996-2017, titled ‘On the Horizon’ will be launched at the Coningsby Gallery on November 6th, 2018, and an exhibition of Fern’s work will be for sale in the gallery throughout the week November 5th - 10th. The 200-page book charts Fern’s work over the past 20 years using painting, drawing, collage, photography, sculpture and poetry to express ideas about landscape and the nature of things both seen and invisible. With a foreword and essays by leading visual arts writer and critic Rick Poynor, the book is designed by Munich-based art director and designer Nerina Wilter.
Dan Fern is an award-winning graphic artist and an influential teacher. A graduate of the Royal College of Art in London, Fern has worked extensively across all areas of visual communication; his commissioned graphic works have been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in Kyoto, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, the Joan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, the Smithsonian Institute in New York and London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
Dan Fern started teaching at the Royal College of Art as a part-time lecturer in the 1970’s, going on to become Head of the School of Communications in 1994. After retiring in 2010 he was made Professor Emeritus, and retains his links with education as a lecturer and research supervisor. Throughout his long academic career Fern has been a lecturer, external examiner, research supervisor and/or academic consultant at more than 50 colleges and universities of art and design throughout the UK, USA, Europe, China and Japan. He was Chair of the RCA’s International Advisory Group from 2000 - 2010. In recent years he was made a Fellow of Munich University following a successful teaching residency there in 2014; a similar residency at Konstfack in Stockholm followed in 2017, and in the same year Fern was invited to join the international advisory panel at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
Since the mid 90’s Dan Fern has also worked in video, producing films in collaboration with musicians for performance at the South Bank Centre in London, the Bath International Music Festival, the City of London Festival and the Hamburg Philharmonie.
Alongside his successful career as a commercial graphic artist, Fern has regularly exhibited non-commissioned, self-authored work in galleries in London and overseas.
With a long-standing interest in mountaineering, Dan Fern’s work as an artist and film-maker for the past 10 years has been focused on the landscape of the Vercors region of south-east France, where he has a studio.