Christopher Stead (b. 1974, UK) lives and works in London.
Tangled, torn, popped, squeezed and then hung in spaces of other, the work exists to evade the paradigms of commercial obedience, white cube boredom, and the polarities regimented by cultural hegemony. Informed by Thatchers dystopian Britain and her Acid House love child, the work explores free movement in spaces without borders.
The paintings are made on the beaches of Spain. Some are made in the sludge of a low tide River Thames. Others were born on the Northern coast of Germany next to the Baltic Sea. They seek new places to hang. Inspired by Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, solace is found in spaces of otherness. Informed by a youth growing up painting graffiti on the trains, a youth that bled into adulthood. 20 years painting within the freedom of the dark. Surrounded by fences, along the train tracks, in and on derelict buildings. Places of abandon and neglect. Hetrotopias of deviation. Again, the work finds itself back in its familiar territory.
In 2016 Stead graduated with a First Class BA Hons in Fine Art at the City and Guilds of London Art School, London, where he received the Painter - Stainers Scholarship Prize and Brian Till Art History Thesis Award.