CHRIS STEVENS


Chris Stevens was born in 1956, he studied Fine Art at the University of Reading.  He is a figurative painter who has exhibited regularly since graduating in 1978. 


He always uses figures in his paintings and uses them to challenge the preconceptions we have about people due to media stereotyping. The paintings are concerned with identity, class, race, gender within their particular environment. This narrative is an essential element in his work. He is however also concerned with the language of paint and the abstract nature of the process. He is not concerned with traditional portraiture as the people he paints are like actors on a stage depicting a type rather than an individual identity. He does however know all the people that he paints be it that they are friends, family or ephemeral acquaintances. This is the element of the painting that transforms the subjects from anonymous stereotypes to people with an individual identity.
The figures are set against sparse backgrounds which are usually reminiscent of a decaying urban environment. There are also additional images introduced which juxtapose with the central characters to help to create the narrative.





His solo exhibitions include Beaux Arts, London, The PM Gallery, London, Smelik & Stokking and Galerie Rademakers in Amsterdam, the GlynnVivian Museum & Art Gallery, Swansea and the Howard Gardens Gallery, Cardiff. Group shows include The Poetry of the Real, at Beaux Arts with David Hockney, Frank Auerbach, Walter Sickert and David Bomberg, REALITY, with artists such as Lucien Freud, David Hockney and Walter Sickert, at the Sainsbury Centre and The Walker Art Gallery, Fussball in Der Kunst, with Andy Warhol and Marcus Lupert in Germany, the BP Portrait Award at the National Gallery London, and Heads at Flowers East, London. He has been a prizewinner in the BP Portrait Award, 50 over 50 and more recently in the Painted Faces exhibition organised by the Saatchi Gallery. He has also undertaken Arts Council residencies at Sunderland Football Club and Birmingham International Airport.  He has work in public and private collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum, The National Gallery of Wales, Unilever, Galerija Portreta, Bosnia & Hertzegovena and many private collections in UK, South Africa, USA and Europe.

He always uses figures in his paintings and uses them to challenge the preconceptions we have about people due to media stereotyping. The paintings are concerned with identity, class, race, gender within their particular environment. This narrative is an essential element in his work. He is however also concerned with the language of paint and the abstract nature of the process. He is not concerned with traditional portraiture as the people he paints are like actors on a stage depicting a type rather than an individual identity. He does however know all the people that he paints be it that they are friends, family or ephemeral acquaintances. This is the element of the painting that transforms the subjects from anonymous stereotypes to people with an individual identity.

Studio Les Courtals, Caunes Minervois, France

Beaux Art
Singleart