Vigo is proud to announce our first selling solo exhibition of new paintings by Stephen Chambers, our second collaboration with Stephen the first being his presentation of The Court of Redonda[1] previously shown at the Venice Biennale in 2017 and exhibited last year at Hastings Contemporary.
“The Outliers, are images of real people, some more well-known than others, whom I have a particular interest in. They are all affirmative, humanitarian, singular thinkers. They each have their own ‘voice’ and are/were not afraid defend their world view. Many are renowned whilst others are more off the radar. They could be seen as Mavericks although Maverick [2] is unfortunately a term loaded with stigma.
I tend to be interested in those people who intellectually belong nowhere, and don’t ‘toe the line’. These paintings, I coyly hesitate to call them portraits, though that is what they are, are my reverential conversations with these characters. By making paintings of them I get to know them better. Even if it’s a one-way discourse.”
British painter and printmaker Stephen Chambers lives and works in London and Berlin. He has won many scholarships and awards, including The Mark Rothko Memorial Trust Award. Besides his usual practice, Chambers has also collaborated on three dance projects with the Royal Ballet. Chambers’ most significant public project to date was The Court of Redonda, a large series of 100 portraits shown first during the 2017 Venice Biennale, subsequently at The Heong Gallery at Downing College, Cambridge and most recently at Hastings Contemporary. Other exhibitions include The Big Country & Other Stories at the Pera Museum in Istanbul (2014) and The Big Country at the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2012). In 2015 he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship by Downing College, Cambridge University and in 2005 he was elected Royal Academician, Royal Academy of Arts, London. His work is held in many major national and international collections, and he is a Trustee of both The Koestler Trust and The Bryan Robertson Trust.
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[1] The Court of Redonda; 101 imagined members of a society that existed as an idea of an alternative political system, the portraits of the court’s members were characters invented by Stephen,
[2] Thomas Maverick was a cattle rancher who identified his cattle as ‘any cow without a brand mark’, thereby claiming all the strays.
