Mr Doodle! Museum Mayhem

Bath—The Holburne Museum in Bath is proud to present the first ever UK museum exhibition of internationally renowned artist and internet sensation, Mr Doodle. 

While his 2.9 million Instagram followers are familiar with Mr Doodle’s graffiti art of his clothes, car and home, inside and out, few have seen his personal sketchbooks which are overflowing with his extraordinary doodles.

The selection of Mr Doodle’s sketchbooks, going back to his teenage years, will provide the starting point for a show that will fill the gallery and spread across the walls, floor and ceiling of the Holburne Museum and beyond.

Primarily characterised by black ink on a white background, Mr Doodle’s graphic style conjures up a mesmerising world of quirky creatures and anthropomorphic forms, using ink pens and spray paint to intricately weave together what he describes as “graffiti spaghetti”. These free-hand doodles emerge from Mr Doodle’s pen with a fluid, hypnotic rhythm, filling sketchbooks and canvases with his imagined land, and when these surfaces become too restrictive, the doodles spill out to cover the surfaces of the world. 

His work builds on the narrative of DoodleLand, telling the story of Mr Doodle’s life and his doodle family, including his evil twin Mas (aka Dr Scribble) and the Anti-Doodle Squad who intervene in his attempts to achieve his ultimate mission to doodle over the entire planet.

Part of this mission includes doodle interventions that will appear throughout the museum’s permanent collection, temporarily replacing a number of paintings and decorative objects with doodled canvases and 3-D sculptures inspired by their surroundings. These new works will open a dialogue between the museum’s historic collection and Mr Doodle’s distinctive drawing style, enabling visitors to see these artworks in an entirely new context. Doodles will also pop up throughout the rest of the building in unexpected places including in the lift and along the café windows.

The exhibition will also spill into the wider city. Mr Doodle will be creating new site-specific work to occupy some of the main thoroughfares, including Milsom Street and Union Street. Visitors to Bath may spot the characteristic doodles on a phone box, bench seating and banners overhead. These doodles, scattered throughout the city and the museum, will help Mr Doodle get a step closer to achieving his goal to cover the planet in doodles, spreading the wonder and playfulness of his world around Bath while encouraging adults and children alike to follow in his footsteps and join him in DoodleLand. 

Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle says, “My intention has always been to create a universal doodle language that can relate to and attract people from all over the world.” 

Dr Chris Stephens, Director, Holburne Museum says, “At the Holburne we are working hard to present a wide and diverse range of artistic practice, and I am delighted to be the first museum in the country to present the extraordinary world of Mr Doodle.”

Mr Doodle! Museum Mayhem
Holburne Museum, Bath
Friday 3 May to Sunday 1 September 2024

Open daily 10am – 5pm (11am on Sundays and bank holidays)

Tickets £12.50 / £7 concessions
www.holburne.org

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Visitors to Bath will also be able to get a glimpse of his work as they explore the city:

From Thursday 18 April until 1 September | Art on the Streets 
Look out for doodles on the street furniture in Kingsmead Square, on the planters of Union Street and overhead in the Milsom Quarter. Mr Doodle’s artwork will appear throughout the city centre, commissioned by Bath & North East Somerset Council and funded by the West of England Combined Authority.

Friday 19 April | Mr Doodle Live Performance – SouthGate Centre | 2pm
Catch Mr Doodle’s live performance as he doodles a phonebox in SouthGate shopping centre. The phonebox will remain on display outside Zara until 1 September.

Thursday 2 May | Animated projections on the Holburne Museum | 9pm
The iconic Regency façade of the Museum will be lit up by animated doodled projections on the eve of the exhibition opening. 

Saturday 4 May | Mr Doodle Live Performance – Holburne Museum | 10am – 12pm
Join us at the Holburne to see Mr Doodle finishing his installation on the glass walls of the Holburne’s Garden Café. Families can join a FREE drop-in workshop from 11am – 1pm, to create their own stylish doodled accessory. 

Art on the Streets
The installation by Mr Doodle in Kingsmead Square, Union Street and Milsom Street will be on display from 18 April to 1 September 2024. Art on the Streets is grant funded by West of England Combined Authority.  

SouthGate Centre
The phonebox will be decorated live by Mr Doodle on Friday 19 April at 2pm* and will be on display outside Zara until 1 September 2024.
*The performance is weather dependent

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Mr Doodle! Museum Mayhem is supported by Mr Ming Hsieh and Mrs Eva Hsieh, Dr. Junning Lee, Mrs. Xiaojun Lee and LexenPharm Limited, Mr Danny Fok and Mrs Ming Fok, and Mr Jihyuk Im. Supported using public funding by Arts Council England.

About The Holburne Museum

The Holburne Museum, Great Pulteney Street, Bath, BA2 4DB
Daily 10am to 5pm (Sunday and Bank Holiday 11am to 5pm). 

01225 388569

enquiries@holburne.org

The Holburne Museum’s mission statement is ‘Changing Lives Through Art’, signalling its commitment to opening up the enjoyment of art to people of all ages and from every walk of life. The Holburne was founded in 1882 with the gift of Sir William Holburne’s collection of 16th and 17thcentury Italian and Dutch paintings, silver, sculpture, furniture, porcelain and diverse objets d’art of national and international significance. That founding gift has been augmented with a collection of 18th-century paintings by such artists as Gainsborough, Lawrence, Ramsay, Stubbs and Zoffany. Set within the historic Sydney Pleasure Gardens, the Museum reopened in May 2011 after ambitious renovations and with a new, award-winning extension by Eric Parry Architects. The Holburne has since secured a national reputation as an outstanding museum which holds critically acclaimed exhibitions. Its programme of exhibitions, commissions and events sets out to bring to Bath great art of all periods and from around the world, seeking to set the art of the past in dialogue with contemporary practice in exciting and dynamic new ways. More at https://www.holburne.org/