AMY STEPHENS
Welcome to Common Room Projects. We are an art consultancy and gallery space based in the old Station Master’s House at Welwyn North Station in Hertfordshire.
About The Artist
Amy is a London based artist who studied at the renowned Chelsea College of Art & Design. Her work is held in international collections and she has been highlighted as an artist to watch by Kate Bryan, Head of Collections at Soho House.
Amy reclaims objects and imagery from the native landscape. Predominantly intuitive, assemblages range from wood, plaster, metal, fabric and Perspex that are suggestive of urban living. She constructs geometric frameworks that respond to existing architecture, visual and literary influences. Throughout her work, there is a continuous movement from sculpture to architecture and then back to sculpture.
Using both natural and city scape materials she offers the viewer site specific ‘communicative landscapes’ that retain and later reframe contemporary architecture.
“Underpinned by geology and travel, the main focus of my practice is to reuse, recycle and re-appropriate found objects or imagery from the native landscape. Exchange is essential both in terms of the conversations and collaborations within each place I visit, but also the concerns, ideas and artworks I carry between them.
Assemblages range from wood to plaster, fabric to metal. Each material is carefully sourced to create a precise balance and specific narrative. The work evolves through a series of stages, from photography to print to three dimensional structures with successive layers gaining density until the final form emerges.
The objects I create go beyond a simple celebration of nature. They are rooted in a complex conversation within the various environments we construct and move through. It’s a call to be attentive to the minute details, to be aware of our place within the world and to be respectful. ” – Amy Stephens, 2021
For Amy’s CV please click here
something. anything. everything , 2018
Archival Pigment Print
Edition: 10
£2,200/ £2,500 framed including VAT
This archival pigment print depicts a mineral called ilmenite. The artwork started as a physical object bound with fluorescent tape for an exhibition at the ICA in London. The artwork relanded as an image during a solo show at the Grundy Art Gallery in Blackpool in 2018 supported by the Art Fund and Arts Council England.
This image has become an iconic symbol of Stephens practice highlighting her concern with the reclamation of natural objects and the transferability of form via appropriation.
Sakarya, 2001
Archival Pigment Print
Edition: 25
£400/ £575 framed including VAT
Part of the ‘Isolation Rock’ series, this photograph was taken by the artist in Cyprus at one of the World Heritage Sites located near the ancient town of Paphos. The artist’s signature tape has been applied to the surface of the image to create a contemporary montage. It also alerts the viewer to this natural wonder that should be preserved and treated with respect.
Turkish Cypriots called the village Kukla until 1958, when they adopted the alternative name Sakarya.
Magic Monolith IV, 2022 (pink top)
Magic Monolith V, 2022 (teal top)
Magic Monolith VI, 2022 (light green top)
Cement, wood, fabric
Unique works
£550 (inc VAT)
These sculptures were created as part of the artist’s solo exhibition
‘A Stone is a Rock Out of Place’ at Zuleika Gallery in Oxford,
to celebrate the Rollright Stones, a stone circle dating back to
the Neolithic and Bronze ages.
The series of colourful mini-monoliths create a playful interaction
and evoke architectural forms, a stark contrast with the static
oolitic stones.
Source I Resource (Green) 2019
Archival Pigment Print, black frame
Edition: 10
£1,500 including frame and VAT
Source I Resource (Blue) 2019
Archival Pigment Print, black frame
Edition: 10
£1,500 including frame and VAT
The artwork depicts a repeated photographic image of a single tree taken by the artist found at the Paphos World Heritage Site in Cyprus. A geometric coloured form is present in each of the 7 images whilst the tree makes reference to the idea of resisting the ossifying force of nature. The artist continually reuses materials and objects, allowing them to land and re-land. It is a gesture built upon preservation and longevity, principles at the heart of her practice.
Birch in Space, 2010
Bronze
Edition: 6
168 x 3 x 3cm
£12,000 including VAT
“‘Birch in Space’ was inspired by my time in Iceland whilst on an Artists’ Residency. It displays my interest in the natural world and the result of human intervention through appropriation. One singular aesthetic form is made up of eight separate casts from a piece of Birch tree that I acquired during my time there.”
Golden Billet, 2020
Bronze
Edition: 15
14.5 x 15.5 x 5cm
£8,000 including VAT
“When I create work, I think about highlighting the tension between the natural world and artificial methods of production. I look for my assemblages to occupy a space between the abstract and the associative, and between seduction and control. In this way I can explore the symbiotic relationship between nature and human agency and draw attention to their tenuous interrelationship through the creation of objects.”