Dave Stephens (sculptor)
Dave Stephens first came to public attention in the mid-1970s as a performance artist. After leaving Leeds Polytechnic where he studied Fine Art under Jeff Nuttal, Roland Miller and John Darling he joined John Bull Puncture Repair Kit and toured Britain and Europe. On leaving John Bull he teamed up with Ian Hinchliffe to form an ongoing performance relationship which was like a visual and verbal tour through the absurdist imagination of the two performers. By the late 70s Stephens had broken away from other performers to concentrate on his career as a solo performer. Often credited with being one of the forerunners of what was to become innovative alternative comedy his solo work was typified by unique and expressive monologues that had foundations as much in science fiction and Edgar Allan Poe as in the theatre of the absurd and Samuel Beckett. Stephens performed in well over 100 venues throughout his career and toured most of Europe as well as Canada and the USA.
Giving up performance in the mid 80s, Stephens turned his attention to the more formal elements of sculpture. The work from this period and into the 90s explores the interaction between everyday objects such as furniture with the makeshift structures that are created by such creatures as wasps. Largely the work was made up of large structures created from huge piles of small wood chips. He had solo exhibitions at such spaces as the Laing Gallery in Newcastle, Worthing Museum and the Economist Building, London.
Recent work has been concentrating on the way that surface pattern can affect the overall structure. There is a breaking down of the piece into a series of small sections but the surface pattern reunites these. His recent work has been described as exploring "the tensions between incidental encounters and economies of dispersal, which are increasingly relevant in a globalised world".
Throughout Stephens' career there has been a constant concern about how the small and the large are dependent on each other for form, structure and texture. In his original work as a performance artist in the 1970s, words were used to brush the air into monologues that had both literal and abstract meaning. Throughout the 90's his wood chip sculptures used the premise that a structure was born out of a necessity to support itself. Similarly his new series of work looks at the way that mysteries can be associated with clues as a way to punctuate their form.
Alongside his sculpture work and solo projects Stephens has worked on a series of collaborative film projects with Matt Page and the experimental musician Steve Beresford. Experiments have looked at stop motion animation and real time film. These films often explore the production of an art work. The films take the form of an amorphous visual experience that records an object's creation and development.
Stephens continues to work and exhibit with regular exhibitions centring on his base at Phoenix Brighton.
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