Stephen Clarke (b.1962) is an artist and writer based on the Wirral. He studied Fine Art and photography at Newport College of Art in South Wales and then, as a postgraduate, Fine Art Printmaking at Winchester School of Art in Hampshire. He has previously exhibited his photographs and photomontages in a solo exhibition at Oriel Colwyn in 2012/2013. Titled ‘Shifting Sands’, these pictures presented his family holidays in Rhyl from the 1960s to the 1980s.
In the mid-1980s, Stephen lived in San Diego, Southern California. During his stay in the city, he photographed the landscape extensively. This archive of negatives has been the starting point for a number of exhibitions and publications. In 2020, his photographs of California were exhibited in a solo show titled ‘Alien Resident’ and a smaller selection were exhibited online as ‘Drive Thru’, a Virtual Reality gallery created by Aaron Tonks.
Stephen has published his photographs of Rhyl and San Diego as photobooks with Café Royal Books. He has also worked with other independent photobook publishers including Out of Place Books, who published ‘NYC-19XX’ in 2020; these photographs of New York are the inspiration for the exhibition ‘Stars, Stripes and Steam’ currently exhibiting at Oriel Colwyn. Stephen is currently working on two new publications: photographs of New York with Café Royal Books and photographs of Midwest USA taken in the late 1990s with Fistful of Books.
Stephen Clarke is Senior Lecturer in Art and Design: Critical and Contextual Studies at the University of Chester, UK. He teaches on the undergraduate courses in Photography, Fine Art, and Graphic Design. He has an interest in tourism and the Heritage Industry; New Topographics and documentary photography; photomontage and collage.
The talk is being held on Tuesday 5th November to coincide with the US Elections – Stephen’s exhibition in the gallery will close for good after the talk, leaving you in a state of limbo as to both the unresolved results of the presidential elections and the direction of US politics.
Untitled – New York © Stephen Clarke
Untitled – Rhyl © Stephen Clarke
Crowd of Palms, © Stephen Clarke, 1987
TALK PHOTO is a fortnightly evening social event in Oriel Colwyn’s gallery space, where invited speakers are here IN PERSON to share presentations and insights about their work or projects, with a friendly intimate audience.
Talks start at 7pm (doors open 6.30pm) with tickets issued on a first come, first served basis.
If you are in a position to contribute towards the talks then please choose a donation option – this will directly help Oriel Colwyn and the continuation of these events going forward.
If you would prefer not to donate, please choose the FREE Ticket option.
Due to space limitations, we will be capping the audience to 30 people and are happy to offer a FREE option to remove any financial barriers to attend.