Luminous Portraits

STEPHEN PRICE
SEPTEMBER 2021

Stephen Price, born in 1995 in Palermo, spent the first 19 years of his life living in Italy after his parents emigrated there from Ghana. Since 2014, he’s lived in Birmingham working as a painter and artist. It was in the UK he found his love of art and drawing which pushed him to study Art at college, he went on to graduate from the University of Northampton with a BA in Fine Art painting and drawing in 2020. Stephen makes work with a combination of abstraction and representation. Choosing to work from sourced images and photographs, this static subject enables him to create simple yet highly emotive portraits that unpack his personal narrative and identity. He explores and combines imagination and memory. In his own words:

“I believe my work is helping me to express my Black identity, specifically in celebrating the beauty of Blackness through those materials, which allow the work to be closer to my own reality and experiences.”

Through the use of raw materials such as charcoal and layers of acrylic, Stephen creates a physicality of texture that is rough and tactile, expressing a ‘smokiness and blurriness’ that communicates the artist's emotions.

Stephen’s work is subtle, and in its elegant simplicity, powerful. Yellow is the colour of the sun, full of hope and positivity. It encourages optimism and interaction from the viewer. This series of portraits held softly by the warm ochres, warm greys allow the almost cameo appearance of the faces to be truly seen. There is a tenderness and a sensitivity in his work. It's not confrontational, it simply exists in pure innocence and grace. Warmth.

It is a privilege for Gallery at Home to be an ever-evolving platform for emerging artists. We are a space for diverse artists to reclaim their narratives and celebrate their identity with our community. It is an honor for Gallery at Home to champion and display Stephen’s moving and important work.