howard selina & michael zelenkus

(a brief) history
past works & exhibitions current work
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1: In the beginning...

Although we were both born in Leeds in West Yorkshire in 1948... we didn't actually meet until 1981... - at The King's Head, in Islington...

h s :
I moved to London in 1966 to attend St. Martin's School of Art... and then moved on to the Royal Academy in 1969, leaving in 1972 to spend the next few years mainly in Denver and New York, before settling back in London in 1976...

m z :
I moved to London by way of Brighton and Midhurst... ending up in Walthamstow in 1967 (in the shadows of William Morris and Ian Drury)...

So - although we met in 1981... we didn't actually start working together until 1994...

h s :
By that time I'd made quite a few exhibitions in London, and had work in a mixed show in Zagreb...

m z :
And I'd sold two pieces in consecutive Royal Academy Summer Shows - with my surname spelt wrongly in the catalogue on both occasions..!

2: And as time went by...

Initially the 'colaborations' between us were just conceptual and playful... but it gradually dawned on both of us that we might each 'escape our personal artistic uncertaincies'... by allowing our related - but very different voices, to work together...

h s :
At first we tried working on (literaly), one piece of work as a two-man team... - but that was a total disaster..!

m z :
So we gradually evolved a way of working where we shared ideas and doodles (and wine), about what the project might represent and how we might deal with that... - and then we would both go off and develop our (half) of the idea quite independently...

h s :
And having each developed 'our half of the idea'... we would then get together to put it together - as one piece... - tweeking whatever needed tweeking to get it to 'work'...
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