membership / artist member

Amy Stephens

http://www.amystephens.co.uk
download cv here

Amy Stephens received her MA from Chelsea College of Art and Design, London in 2008. Recent solo exhibitions include Restless Nature, Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin, Ireland (2011); This Urban Silence, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland (2011); The Rise of the Wapiti, Other Gallery, Banff Centre, Alberta, Canada (2010). Recent group exhibitions include Piece of Paper, Madder139, London (2011); The Threadneedle Prize for Painting and Sculpture, Mall Galleries, London (2011); Line, Poppy Sebire, London (2011); No Soul For Sale - A Festival of Independents, Tate Modern, London (2010); Meet Pamela, John Jones Project Space, London (2009); 195 Miles, Project Space Leeds in collaboration with the Whitechapel Gallery, London (2008).

With an elemental sensibility to form, Stephens explores shifting patterns of meaning and potential for narrative in the grouping and re-grouping of found, man-made and natural objects through sculptural assemblage. Unique compositions of hybrid materials inhabit the space offering a playful elegance whilst questioning notions of performance, value and beauty.

There is a strong sense of architecture and form as the work transforms the physical space into an exploration of line, plane and volume. Coloured flock fabric often acts a surface material adorning singular lines of wood that cut through the space in horizontal, vertical and diagonal formations. Pared-down to a formal minimalism, these architectonic structures become coded within the work creating an interplay of seduction and control.

Wooden outlines of geometric shapes display an affinity to drawing and awaken our fundamental instinct to critically engage with form and colour. Each component of a structure relies heavily on another with found materials adding critical mass and support to the work forcing the viewer through and beyond the mini portals both defined and imbued by the artist.

The works reflect Stephens’ passion for travel and her interest in the appropriation of nature. Fragile structures juggle between the secure and the precarious revealing the notion of equilibrium, that tense and very fine line between that which we know and that which we fear, at the centre of her practice. On closer inspection she reveals the construction of a delicate symbiosis between form and materials focusing our attention on the physical representation of nature with precise execution and form.

With a mesmerizing tension, the work captivates the artist’s own experience of the world and her private thought processes, which are played out through the physical properties of the materials offering the viewer a confident aesthetic.

http://www.imma.ie/en/page_212345.htm

http://www.poppysebire.com/exhibitions/2011/Line.htm

http://www.amystephens.co.uk/pdf/2011-09-bbc.pdf

http://www.zabludowiczcollection.com/collection/artists/amy-stephens