Stephen Wickham

Start Light…Go Dark

August 9th – 26th, 2023

This small exhibition includes several working drawings from 1980’s -1990’s and recent paintings. Over the years, the little drawings have informed larger works on paper, etchings and paintings.

They reflect my long-standing interest in Suprematism, Constructivism and the work of modernist Dutch artists.

The Ukrainian and Russian Ivan Vasilievich Kliun, Kazimir Severinovich Malevich and Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin remain at the centre of my studio practice as do Natalia Sergeevna Goncharova, Sonia Delaunay and Lyubov Sergeyevna Popova.

It was during the recent COVID-19 pandemic that I applied for and gained my Austrian passport and citizenship. So perhaps it is no surprise my work is influenced by the artists originating in the blood lands of middle Europe.

The current European war largely negates Francis Fukuyama’s forecasting as set out in The End of History and the Last Man. It is a curious circumstance that the work of soviet era artists can still have currency in today’s free market society.

And yet here we are.

Stephen Wickham, August, 2023