Bryan Biggs
Liverpool Artist and Director of Bluecoat Arts Centre.
Born 1952, Barnet, Hertfordshire, UK.
Studied at Barnet College (1971-72) & Liverpool Polytechnic (1972-75).



He ran the Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool before becoming Director of the Bluecoat Art Centre (1994), where he continues to work. In parallel to arts administration and curating (most recently the international Liverpool Biennial in 2002), he has maintained his own drawing practice.

Exhibitions include In Comparison, Galerie Berners, Cologne (2001) and Nervous Kingdom, Bluecoat Gallery (2000). 

With no narrative intent, the drawings are nevertheless a sort of diary; daily doodles done in response to our culture of capital, intolerance and political expediency. The works title Entitled is a twist on the more familiar, disengaged Untitled, whilst its parenthesised subtitle is lifted from an early 20th century collection of drawings by Liverpool architecture students. Measured: carefully considered, deliberate. personal.

Entitled (Liverpool Portfolio of Measured Drawings) 2002 Ink and Spit 67cm x 142cm

(Liverpool Portfolio of Measured Drawings) consists of twenty-seven pages from a large and evolving body of sketchbook drawings. Quickly and intuitively drawn, each starts with a few tentative marks before something recognisable, invariably a human face, emerges. I let the drawings – distressed by chance effects of spittle, splattered ink, smudges, or disrupted by scrawled words, fragments of song lyrics and puns- take on an improvisatory life of their own.

He has contributed drawings and writings to numerous publications including Responses: Intercultural Drawing Practice (cair, Liverpool School of Art and Design, 2001. Aspects of Elvis (Sidgewick and Jackson, 1994). Independent Practices: Representation, Location and History in Contemporary Visual Art, Editor (Bluecoat, 2000); Live From The Vinyl Junkyard: The Ultimate Mix (Bluecoat, 1998). Trophies of Empire (Bluecoat, 1994).

Eight Days A Week

Liverpool Group

>> basement Project, History into basement, Liverpool, England

>> Bryan Biggs, Artist and Director of the Bluecoats Art Centre, Liverpool, England.

>> Dave Bixter, Artist and Co-Founder of Dying Frog, Liverpool, England.

>> James Buso, Artist and part of Royal Standard, Liverpool, England.

>> Pete Clarke, Artist and Head of Fine Art at UCLAN (Preston), Liverpool, England.

>> Alan Dunn, Artist and associated to Tenant Spin and FACT, Liverpool, England.

>> Lin Holland, Artist and Lecturer at Liverpool Hope University, Liverpool, England.

>> Julie Jones, Artist and affiliate to Arena Studios, Liverpool, England.

>> Tony Knox, Artist and Curatorial Researcher for Podgy, Liverpool, England.

>> Paul Luckraft, Artist, Liverpool, England.

>> George Lund, Artist and Founder of Animal Utopia, Liverpool, England.

>> Susan Leask, Artist and Co-Curator of basement, Liverpool, England.

>> Geoff Molyneux, Artist and Lecturer at Liverpool Community College, Liverpool, England.

>> Neil Morris, Artist and Lecture at Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, England.

>> Margaretha Schoening, Artist and Co-Curator of basement, Liverpool, England.

>> Gaynor Evelyn Sweeney, Artist and Founder of Transvoyeur, Liverpool, England.

>> Adam Webster, Liverpool Musician and part of Frakture, Liverpool, England.

Cologne Group

>> Georg Gartz, Artist, Cologne, Germany.

>> Jurgen Kisters, Writer, Art Critic and Journalist, Cologne, Germany.

>> Veronika Moos Brockhagen, Artist, Cologne, Germany.

>> Kolner Stadt Enzieger, Cologne, Germany.

>> Tine Wille, Artist, Cologne, Germany.

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Website Design: Tony Knox