Practice
Working across sculpture and photographic print objects, Amy Stephens’ practice is concerned with the origins, histories and material properties of stone. Her work draws on the poetic potential of re-siting geological artefacts in new contexts, often using found pieces of rock or surplus from the quarrying process. Stones intersect and form unexpected relations with metal armatures and frames, or are carefully placed atop images of their original locations, forging a sensibility which is both sculptural and ecological. Many of her recent projects have been produced at scale, bridging architecture and art, highlighting the importance of interaction and playfulness. Rooted in landscape, Stephens’ process-driven practice invites viewers to reconsider their own bodily relationships to the land under their feet.
- Text by Anna Souter, Writer and Curator (August 2025)
Biography
2019, Awarded Fellow of the Royal Society of Sculptors, London (FRSS)
2008, MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London
2006, Postgraduate Diploma (Distinction) Fine Art, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London
2001-2005, BA (Hons) Fine Art, University of Reading
Selected solo exhibitions Nature’s Stage, Art Seen by Maria Stathi, Nicosia, Cyprus (forthcoming 2025); Permanence of Space, Galerie Kandlhofer, Vienna, Austria (2024); Persistence of Land, Bo Lee and Workman Gallery, Bruton, UK, (2023); fig-futures, Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, UK (2018); fig2, 35/50, ICA Studio, London, curated by Fatoş Üstek (2015).
Selected group exhibitions Lovington Sculpture Meadow, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London (forthcoming 2025); Waking Matter Frieze Sculpture 2023, Frieze, The Regent’s Park, London (2023); If Not Now, When? Generations of Women in Sculpture in Britain, 1960 – 2022, Saatchi Gallery, London and The Hepworth Wakefield Gallery, UK (2023); New Things, Grundy Art Gallery, Blackpool, UK (2023); Psychotropics, New Art Centre, Roche Court, curated by Iwona Blazwick OBE (2020); Synergia, Museo Federico Silva, Mexico (2019).
Selected Awards include Mtec Bursary Frieze Sculpture, UK (2023); The Henry Moore Foundation Research and Travel Grant, UK (2022); NiMAC Artists' Residency, Nicosia, Cyprus (2022); Awarded funding by the Arts Council England, UK (2020). Villa Lena, Artists' Residency, Italy (2015); Triangle Award to Muscat, Oman with Gasworks Gallery (2013); Irish Museum of Modern Art Artists' Residency, Dublin, Ireland (2011).