Roger Robinson
Runner’s World

In the twenty-first century, the running footmen have been noticed as a possible art form. British artist James Steventon offers what he describes as “running based performance”.

Athletic bodies have long been represented in figurative art, but sustained performative explorations of the act and action of running are a more recent phenomenon.

We saw some hope in the figure of the boundary-crossing running-messenger epitomised by James Steventon.

Others tap into drawing’s ability to offer a more immediate, less filtered connection between mind and action, allowing for something akin to a stream of consciousness to spread across the page. James Steventon’s 13 Hours with Weighted Vest (BST) (2017) takes this concept a stage further; the piece being the end result of a private endurance-based performance in which the artist ‘drew’ the patterns of his breathing whilst wearing a weighted vest (mixing drawing as action and noun).