Stuart Semple | |
---|---|
Born | 12 September 1980 Bournemouth, Dorset, England |
Nationality | British |
Field | Painting |
Training | Poole College, Painting and Printmaking, Bretton Hall College |
Movement | Pop Art, Contemporary Art |
Works | A Pounding Outside Poundland, HappyCloud, Kurt Lied, This land... Was built for you and me |
Patrons | Philip Niarchos, David Roberts, Langen Foundation |
Stuart Semple (born 1980) is a contemporary British artist and curator, based in London and Dorset. Semple's practice addresses ideas sparked by immersion in popular culture and combines contemporary figurative painting with pop art.[1]
Contents |
Stuart Semple was born in Bournemouth, Dorset. He has a sister called Victoria. He studied Advanced Art and Design at Poole, and Painting and Printmaking at Bretton Hall College[2] in Yorkshire. In 2000 Semple nearly died from a peanut allergy [3] This experience gave him the motivation to dedicate his time to painting.[4] In 2004, art dealer Anthony d'Offay flew his portfolio to New York.[5] In 2005 Semple was appointed to the Design and Artist's Copyright Society creators’ council. Semple has spoken for The Institute of Ideas and in 2010 spoke for Jerwood Visual Arts.[6] In 2011 he presented for the BBC's Art & Design series [7]
Semple took the persona of "nancyboy" after his near death experience and produced over 3000 works of art between 2000 and 2003 that were sold via eBay each night at a set time creating an early online community.[1] In 2002 he had his first major London show at the A&D Gallery.[8] It was called Stolen Language – the art of Nancyboy. It incorporated fragments and images that he identified with within popular culture and remixed into a personal narrative consisting of large paintings, screen prints, sculptures, t-shirts and panels.[9] 10 final nancyboy's were created in 2009 and auctioned once again via eBay with all proceeds donated to the UK charity Mind.[10][11]
Semple created a memorial artwork RIP YBA with debris collected from the 2004 Momart warehouse fire.[5] Semple packaged them in 8 plastic boxes under the title Burn Baby Burn. The boxes had slogans in pink lettering, including "RIP YBA", which referred to the Young British Artists, by whom much of the destroyed work had been created. Semple stated that amongst the debris collected there were fragments of Tracey Emin's artwork, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995 ("the tent").[12]
In 2005 Semple produced an exhibition of his works in an abandoned warehouse in London, England, called Post Pop Paradise. Also that year he included a painting into the Saatchi Gallery which included the words "British Painting Still Rocks" as reaction to Charles Saatchi's comments that the YBA artists would be nothing more than a footnote in the history of art.[13][14][15][16]
In 2006 Semple's exhibition "Epiphany" at Martin Summers Fine Art in London questioned the role of religion in modern life [17] in a series of in-your-face paintings that alluded to popular culture, graphic media, advertising and social issues.[18]
In 2011 Stuart Semple was made an Ambassador for mental health charity Mind[19] and is initiating a Creative Therapies fund within the organization.[20] Semple also supported MTV's Re:Define exhibition at The Goss-Michael Foundation in 2011 with auction proceeds donated to MTV Staying Alive Foundation which enables inspirational youngsters to fight HIV and AIDS in their local communities. He has also supported the Africa Foundation via Art for Africa with Sotheby's, Macmillan De'Longhi Art Auction at Bonhams and the medical foundation Freedom From Torture's art auction. In 2011 Semple will be featured on postcards for the Anaphylaxis campaign and has created artworks for the Freedom of Expression Campaign for Amnesty International.
In 2007 Stuart Semple co-curated and featured in the 'Black Market' at the Anna Kustera gallery in New York with Just Another Rich Kid. Showcasing their collaborative installation piece 'Team Dream Chaos' depicting a provocative teenage girl's bedroom.[21] Semple has curated exhibitions "Mash Ups, post pop fragments and détournements" at The Kowalsky Gallery in 2008 for the Design and Artists Copyright Society [22][23] and 'London Loves The Way Things Fall Apart' (2009) and "This Is England" (2011) for Galleria Aus18, Milan.[24]
Semple's exploration of British cultural themes have also been seen in the exhibition "This Is England" (2010) initially held at The Aubin Gallery which he directs in association with Aubin Wills and Shorditch House featuring artists Sarah Maple, Nicky Carvell, David Hancock and Richard Galloway [25]
In 2011 Semple curated the Mindful exhibition in 25,000 sqft Old Vic Tunnels featuring artists including Jake and Dinos Chapman, Tracey Emin, Mona Hatoum, Mat Collishaw, Sebastian Horsley, Sarah Lucas, Barney Bubbles, Liliane Lijn, Tessa Farmer and Semple himself. It coincided with a gala dinner at The Imperial War Museum hosted by Stephen Fry and Lord Melvyn Bragg to raise funds for the Mind creative therapies fund and explore the relationship between creativity and mental health.[26][27]
Stuart recently sent over 2000 happy clouds up into the sky over London and Milan [28] to raise the mood and was quoted; "I know at times like this it’s easy to make creativity a low priority, but I want to show on a very human level that an artistic idea might be able to do something important, even for a fleeting moment." [29]
In 2007, when interviewed for Trebuchet Magazine Stuart describes how his early experience of pop influenced his approach to art "When I was growing up in the 80s these things (cultural icons) were - I don’t know if it’s quite right to say they were aspirational, but they certainly gave me my first feelings of something larger. But as you get older you get more jaded so now when you look back at these ‘nostalgic’ things, you have lost something. Here I’ve tried to look at them again in such as way as to rediscover that sense of feeling" [30]
In an interview with Doug McClemont he purports to the mimetic industries of mass-production; which has been a running critique in Semple's work. He discussed the "idea of taking the mechanization out the pop stuff. Because I find a lot of it non-emotive."[21] He also alluded more to his studio practice; "I used to paint alone when I had a tiny studio middle of nowhere. It had mice and was freezing. Now I have assistants who help me paint, because I'm doing massive, massive stuff, right now. It's not the same..."
Eric Bryant debated Stuart Semple and contemporary Pop Art in a seminal ARTnews feature 50 years after Richard Hamilton had defined the movement. "While earlier generations of Pop artists exhibited a similar love-hate relationship with consumer culture and glamour, this group takes on fear and violence."[31] Semple's relationship with current culture, politics and imagery has put him at the forefront of the next generation of debate, where artists now tackle the current climate of fear; "his often disturbing, even sinister works also feature guns, pills, and frequent references to suicide."[31]
In 2007 Semple exhibited "Fake Plastic Love", an exhibition of billboard scale paintings housed within a blacked out environment of East London's Truman Brewery.[1] In 2009 He held his first New York solo exhibition "Everlasting Nothing Less" at Anna Kustera Gallery involving large scale paintings and sculpture.[32] "The Happy House", exhibited in London 2010 with Morton Metropolis built on themes explored in earlier collections, but for the first time touched on more personal than cultural issues.[33] His self portrait 'A Pounding Outside Poundland' captures the moment of an assault.[34]
Solo Exhibitions