Paul Stephenson’s exhibition at Stolen Space is worth catching if you get the chance. Comprising three bodies of work, ‘Watermark Paintings’, ‘Internet Paintings’ and ‘Reflection Paintings’, each explores our relationship with art in the digital age – specifically how we choose to view it using the tools now available to us.
Evolving from his ‘Sous Rature’ series, which saw the artist remove elements of existing works in order to give them increased significance – purposefully selecting only those made by renowned painters – Stephenson continues to create ‘forced collaborations‘ as a means of experimenting with our interpretation of imagery.
In Internet Paintings, Stephenson recreates well-known works, as seen through platforms such as Google Arts Culture’s virtual tours. Producing ‘distorted’ versions of the originals, he highlights our capacity to accept and adapt to new technologies – often without realising what is being asked of us, or how this influences the way we look at life. In Reflection Paintings, Stephenson works the viewer and their surroundings into existing, original pieces pieces he has purchased at auction – drawing attention to the screens that have become integral to how we now all view the world. In doing so, he again explores our relationship with art, making us once removed from it and reminding us of our own existence. In Watermark Paintings, Stephenson takes his exploration one step further, again using bought pieces, but this time ‘placing’ them behind the screen before recreating the effect of viewing them through that medium. The artist has submitted selected paintings to Shutterstock, which are uploaded to their image banks and branded – creating a visual and fiscal wall between the viewer and the art. Stephenson then imposes these watermarks back onto the original paintings. His process is an open acknowledgement and affirmation of the meta nature of the work, which now exists both in the real and virtual worlds.
Forced Collaboration runs at Stolen Space Gallery 17 Osborn Street, London E1 6TD until August 28th 2016
www.stolenspace.com/paul-stephenson-forced-collaboration
About The Artist
Artist’s statement:
“A painting is the sum of its destructions.
I live and work in London. After studying in New York I began painting outside in the early 2000’s. In 2010 I went into a Bonhams Old Masters sale, bought a 200 year old oil painting and set about erasing it. My work is concerned with erasure, creative destruction, censorship, and how images are transformed when viewed on screen.
I take original artwork (not prints or multiples) created by other artists and change parts of them. The result is both destructive and creative; a forced collaboration, iconoclasm and graffiti. It is deconstructive painting; ‘additive subtraction’. The subject of the painting is given significance by its absence – or the alteration of the original. It was a painting, now it is a painting.
Most recently I have started to paint celebrated pieces as seen through the screen, a tool which enables us to access previously inaccessible work – and at the same times distorts it in its own act of destructive creativity.”Categories
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