David Austen & Hisham Matar: The Boys: an Adventure

Published on the occasion of The Boys: an Adventure, an exhibition at Ingleby from 15 April - 10 June 2023. The Boys: an Adventure is the result of an unusual correspondence between two friends, the artist David Austen and the writer Hisham Matar. The words and pictures are published as a two volume artist book.

It began in March 2020, as London closed down, with the exchange of a drawing and a chapter via WhatsApp. Three years later, the conversation has grown into two distinct yet connected bodies of work: a novella from Hisham and a suite of 73 gouache drawings from David. The relationship between text and image is not illustrative; rather, the two share a temperament, and a sense of unfolding momentum.