Stephen Feather Art

I’m fascinated with finding urban forms and I recently started a project using them as starting points. Here's a little piece about the project;

Urban Forms Urban Forms are intriguing shapes, patterns or textures found on buildings, streets and furniture of a city or…

Vincent Van Gogh’s life and work have had a huge influence on my appreciation of art and my own art practice. Here I've written about two of his paintings which seem to speak to Vincent's creativity and state of mind.

Van Gogh’s Passionate Process The painting’s edginess surprised me. Vincent had only just been released from hospital in Arles, France when he painted the picture. The painting’s edgy exuberance feels like it….

Tropical Tea, 2024
Acrylic paint and collage on paper
42 x 29.7 cm

I made this landscape mash-up to juxtapose two rural scenes and to experiment with lines and forms over a collage which includes packaging and stylised illustrations of rural Brazil and England. Taking key motifs and colour combinations I wanted to expand these into a painting with gestural marks and brush strokes. As with my other paintings in the fragmented landscapes series I’m experimenting with gestural painting, language and landscape in this picture.

Check out my new website. I'll be adding updates on progress and projects here;

Stephen Feather Art Contemporary Art

I had a lot of fun using oil sticks on this project. They are really good for starting with line drawing, spreading colour and moving the pigment around. They kind of blur the practise of drawing and painting which is very exciting for me. I tried to capture the visual rhythm of the rooftops and the elegance of the leaning trees.
I really enjoyed developing the forms and colours and found some surprising results in these series of pictures.

Absolutely love the bold simplicity of Japanese design. The clear lines and areas of vibrant colours in garden and print design have been a major inspiration for me. I’ve always felt a creative and spiritual connection with these and in the work of my all time favourite artist; Utagawa Hiroshige.

Ripped, torn, rubbed out, patched up and reworked again. Frank Auerbach. The Charcoal Heads at The Courtauld

Frank Auerbach. The Charcoal Heads @ The Courtauld Gallery This exhibition features portraits made in charcoal and chalk from the early stages of Frank Auerbach’s career. The drawings are dark and expressive. They have been…

Really enjoyed the variety of approaches to drawing in this show at the British Museum Check out a mini review here;

https://featherblend.wordpress.com/2024/01/16/gesture-and-line-exhibition/

Gesture and Line Exhibition enjoyed the works on display and the way they highlight contemporary approaches to…

A short blog post about a recent art project exploring empty billboards and street signs. It's ongoing.

New Signs I keep coming across empty advertising boards and distorted street signs. There is something dystopian about them. They are totemic and monumental but they are also rusted, weathered, faded, distor…

Folkestone rooftop sketches, 2023.

These are a new series of ink on paper sketches made with a bamboo pen and a paper straw. I was inspired by Philip Guston’s ‘Drawing No 2 (Ischia)’ in the new show at Tate, last photo. He made the work rapidly with a reed and a bottle of ink.

It was really tricky to use the bamboo pen and the straw because the flow of ink was unpredictable and hard to control but I enjoyed their resistance to making the marks I wanted. At times it seemed like I was only scratching the paper but the lack of control helped me to loosen up and enjoy the unexpected lines and marks.

The magic of silhouettes. I've written a new post about an awesome display of artwork I recently found at the NPG.

Silhouettes I love the boldness and directness of silhouettes but what inspires me most is the way a silhouette reduces a form and abstracts it into something graphic and fascinating. I find the ambiguity of a…

I was really inspired by the new Philip Guston show at Tate Modern. I've written a short review with some of my highlights and thoughts here;

Philip Guston at Tate I was really inspired by the Philip Guston show at Tate. The exhibition is filled with paintings, drawings and prints from across Guston’s career which are….

I've written about the background and location of my recent painting; 'Em Cima' in my latest blog post. Check it out here;

‘Em Cima’ ‘Morro da Penha, Santos’, 1944 by artist Dario Vilares Barbosa I recently discovered the painting ‘Morro da Penha, Santos’, 1944 by artist Dario Vilares Barbosa. I was drawn to the work by the vibr…

I’ve been working on a new series of portrait or head form paintings. I’ve taken the basic shape of a head and used it as an abstract form and layer in the picture. They could be masks or frames but I like the bold, ambiguity of the shapes. Each one has some element which is personal to me or something I identify with. This makes them work as a kind of series of portraits or self portraits. It could be the urban environment, the countryside, a colour or a form. Using the shape of a head as a starting point I’m aiming to explore identity as complex and evolving.

Nature the Creator.

Check out a new post I wrote about finding some of the most amazing sand patterns.

Nature the Creator I was thrilled to find these fascinating forms on the beach. They made me imagine the elongated tentacles of squids reaching out from the sea, jagged bolts of lightning, contours from a map and sta…

A few new recent studies from my series of Dusk Paintings project.

I’m really enjoying making studies of landscapes and buildings just when the light is fading and the colours start to drop and become much deeper. It’s really exciting to try to capture the forms in the landscapes at a point where they are becoming abstracted by the lack of light.

Works include;

Study for Rooftops, Haydons Road.
Study for Dark Trees, Garfield Rec.
Study for Dark Slopes, View from Monte Serrat, Santos.
Study for Dark House, the Porch.

All acrylic paint on paper.

Hairy trees and purple leaves. Some recent painting sketches of tropical flora and forna.

Study of Santos Port.

Graphite and pastel on paper.

Recently visited the top of Monte Serrat in Santos to sketch out some of the incredible views of the port. As soon as I arrived the sky darkened and a strong wind brought in huge clouds and a fierce rain storm. I only had a few minutes to get a first sketch down. The storm hit fast but I tried to stick it out and get something down while standing in the oncoming gale. I got a few scribbles down which captures some of the energy. It was an exciting experience to be put under that kind of pressure in those conditions. Loved it 😆

I had a great time working with Smart Artist Hub to create the new online exhibition; Euphoria.

Euphoria brings together a group of contemporary artists to explore the theme of happiness and the complex blend of emotions that exist alongside it. The artists in the show present artworks which reflect personal responses to the theme and explore how euphoria can be found and experienced in a variety of ways including in the joy of movement, the love of the natural world, the brilliance of colour and the creative process itself. The artists present a striking selection of artworks which have been created using a wide variety of techniques.

In the show, Cristian Diez-Sanchez presents a series of sculptures which explore the emotional relationship between the human form and its environment. Elisa Velasquez creates sublime, abstracted landscapes with fields of bright, vibrant colours, textures and brushstrokes. In her work, artist Julie Waas, expands joyful organic and geometric forms with interweaving lines, dots, stripes, circles, triangles, leaves, zig-zag’s and undulating lines. Manuel Salazar’s paintings of energetic, swirling forms generate multiple perceptions. Mónica Acedo explores a love of the natural world and nostalgia in her paintings.

The show is now on until the 2nd of September;

EUPHORIA — Smart Artist Hub Guest Curator: Stephen Feather.

Painting studies of the Ilha do Mel, Brasil.

Acrylic paint on paper.

Fascinated by the contrast in light and how the darkest spots become so mysterious and foreboding.

Feels great to have completed three new woodblock prints of urban landscapes all featuring basketball courts in London. The series includes; Back of the Court, Nothing But Net, Raven’s Court.

The project started as an experiment to make a woodblock print from an old piece of wood which had actually been an old shelf. But I loved the holes, gnarls and imperfections of the old wood. I wanted to incorporate these and combine these with an image of a place I knew to create a new picture. They are as much pictures of these places as they are of the grain of the wood itself.

I love basketball and basketball courts seem to represent the urban environment and community well. I come from and live in the urban environment so I wanted to explore its gritty, brutal and sometimes depressed beauty. I also wanted to use bright coloured paper for all three to give them an other worldly feel and make the lines and marks pop.

Making them involved some physical labour and working in stages to explore the effects of the cutting knives. I enjoyed this as an experimentation and investigation into registering marks and gestures so much. I wanted to add my image but also follow the grain and let the wood show me the way. Anyway, great fun 😁

I had lots of fun making this new film exploring Tate Modern and its collection of modern and contemporary art. Check it out here;

Exploring Tate Modern In this film, I went on a trip to explore Tate Modern in London. The museum is housed an old power station and incorporates some amazing architectural featur...

Back on the block! Check out this short film I made about making a woodblock print from an old piece of wood 😅

Printing a Woodblock Here I made a woodblock print from an old piece of wood.

Brand new print; Back of the Court, 2022. A/P. Woodcut on yellow paper.