Stephen Powlesland

Artistic background

ABOUT ME
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I am an artist working in the Modernist and Expressionist styles. I paint in acrylics, but I also sometimes use water colour, pens and pasted paper collage. I work on good quality cartridge paper, card, canvas and canvas board.
My paintings vary in size from not much bigger than a CD cover, up to 50 by 60 cm. My subject matter is quite eclectic, I often introduce elements of chance to my work, for example, using playing cards to make decisions for me.

I am a disabled artist suffering from: Dyslexia, Autism spectrum disorder & Chronic fatigue syndrome. Wether I should regard my self as a disabled artist (as apposed to an artist who just happens to be disabled) is unclear to me. However my disability’s do effect my work. An example being that I work from a mixture of photographs, sketches (sometimes) and imagination, as I seldom feel well enough to paint outside.

Childhood and education.

Art has all ways been my main drive and what has motivated me. As far as I can remember, I have all ways been an artist.

I was born in Kent, but have lived mostly in South East London, prior to 2016, when I moved to Bradford on Avon in Wiltshire.

From 1974 to 1984 I studied fine art, painting and art history (mostly modern) at:
1974 to 1978. Kingsway, Princeton college, London:
1979 to 1980. Wimbledon college of art, Wimbledon, London:
1980 to 1984. Ravensborn college of art and design, Kent:

Exhibitions:

Group shows:

2006. The toads mouth cafe open exhibition, South East London
2009, 2010, 2011. Dulwich open studios and Art Dog London group shows, South East London

One man shows:

1985. Greenwich theatre gallery, Greenwich.
2007. The Albany coffee shop, Deptford, London
2008. Lewisham library, Lewisham, London
March to December 2009. Rotating exhibition staged in three local pubs, Deptford, Forest Hill, Sydenham, South East London.
2016. Bradford on Avon tea rooms. Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire.

Art fairs.

2013: Landmark art gallery summer arts fair, Teddington.
2014: Untitled art gallery summer arts fair. Chelsea, London.

gardens or “Little Gardens” (because a lot of them were literally small) seem to be a very good subject, enabling my personal approach to colour and form. However most recently I have found abstraction and abstract painting to also be interesting.
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In 2019 I joined the trend towards posting copies of my work online. regularly, since then, I have pasted my work on Facebook.