ABOUT ME

ARTIST LIVING IN BEDFORDSHIRE, UK

After 21 years in London I moved to Bedfordshire in 2015 to breathe some fresh country air.

Biography

Stanley is a Lancashire lad who relocated to Devon in the mid 1980s to study Fine Art at Exeter College of Art & Design, then on to Newcastle for an MA, with two international residencies in between. After a brief 22 years in London he finally settled in Bedfordshire.

Drawing became the backbone to all Stanley’s work following traditional teachings in the life room at Art School. What he then procured from sculpture and painting he applied to his drawing; form, texture, layering. Stanley continues to push boundaries with his drawing techniques applying them to new multi-media works.

Following the loss of his son in 2020 Stanley’s work has become a reflection of his personal journey, a search for meaning and purpose in a world that can often feel disconnected. He aims to inspire others to explore their own spirituality and hidden depths of consciousness. Through his creative process he seeks to transmute the concept of spiritual transformation into something tangible and visible.

Stanley’s new body of work has gained two solo exhibitions, an ever growing number of UK group exhibitions and had several works featured in four consecutive exhibitions in Italy, touring between Milan and Turin, completing the tour at Galleria d’Arte La Conchiglia, Torino. Most recently Stanley’s work was featured in the Chaiya Art Awards 2023 Winner’s exhibition at Bargehouse and OXO Tower Gallery.

In 2022 Stanley gained an International Achievement Award for drawing from Camelback Gallery, USA.

Studied Fine Art @

The University Of Northumbria at Newcastle Upon Tyne: MA Fine Art – 1995
Exeter College Of Art & Design: BA (Hons) Fine Art – 1987
Blackpool and Fylde College of F & HE: Fine Art Foundation – 1984

Associations

Member Artist of ArtCan – artcan.org.uk

Residencies

Villa Montalvo, Saratoga, California
Rotterdam Academie van Beeldende Kunsten

“…exposing and emotional sense of a life unknown but reachable!”

SANDRA L

“Transformation of energy and hope.”

JACKIE

“Three dimensional drawings of great power.”

JOHN AND LIZ

Drawing is an essential part of my practice

Drawing has always been an essential part of my artistic practice making use of pencils, charcoal, pastels and oil pastels. I have also added to my arsenal of drawing implements, an electric eraser, and it changed the game. I enjoy pushing materials to their limits and creating multiple layers; applying chosen mediums and pulling back white paper with the electric eraser and then reapplying…  rubbing the medium into the surface with fingers, cotton wool, smudge sticks and even cotton buds.

As a student life and still life drawing taught me plenty about form and light and this laid the foundation for my love of drawing. Maybe I am old school but I see drawing as fundamental – and the basis for any developing idea.

Artist’s statement

2023

In June 2020 I lost my son, Louis. This, understandably, had a profound impact on my life and subsequently my art. As I continue to grapple with my own traumatic experience and awakening I investigate how, often in great despair we may reach out into the darkness in an attempt to seek and seize hold of the fading echoes of our losses. My grief, compounded with a lifelong struggle with bipolar, is all too familiar with periods of depression like an old steadfast friend but my new body of work emerges as an illuminant for hope. Symbols or references to transformation are like metaphysical gateways.

My work frequently eschews colour in order to focus on the complex relationships between light and darkness, both physically and symbolically, and how it can allow us to peer from our place within the everyday world to a world that might lie beyond it, beneath it, or even within it. The idea of illumination and animation through energy, set against deep black voids, crackling with life, is conjured up through stark and powerful motifs that refer to music, faith, light, and the fundamental archetypes of the soul. It’s an emotionally charged exploration into the concept of spirituality and transformation as a view to immortality, and as I dismantle the boundaries between life and death, my work resides somewhere in the space between.

Statement pre 2020

My drawings have been described, appropriately, as: menacing and mischievous, serenely melancholic, sexual, dark and sinister, but playful and humorous.

The multi-layering of oil pastel and pencil creates depth and attempts to emulate the marks and surfaces achieved in materials like paint, clay or plaster. The images often take on a biomorphic quality as scratches reference marked time and inevitable scarring of the epidermal layer.

When three dimensions become two, references to scale often become ambiguous. A background might become a backdrop when objects cast vertical shadows upon it. The images, with prop-like objects, seem more like dioramas, scenes waiting for further content, or long forgotten stage sets. The narrative is, essentially, misleading.

Water, or fluid, is a recurring element in my work, appearing as puddles, ponds or streams. This ‘water’ is always depicted dark and the scratched, reflective, surfaces do not reveal the true depth or what may be lurking beneath. I like to tease, often hiding an alternative narrative in plain sight. Allegory plays an important role, as does the absurdity of our existence.

In a series of drawings, collectively titled, ’Nests’, I weave a mass network of branch or capillary-like structures often with tangled ladders. These stark, black, networks create unknown, menacing, depth. They become sinister traps as much as they represent, by title, somewhere homely and secure. A recent development of these drawings produces a more organic feel, creature-like forms emerging from the twisted mass.

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