DIRK STEWEN

Dirk Stewen’s work combines photography, sculpture, drawing and painting. Photographs from his own archive are incorporated into his works on paper and combined with overlapping materials, surfaces and mark-making to create a series of layered and subtle works.

‘It only takes a second and next to nothing to create a picture - if you trust the unpredictable. But when things happen pretty fast the desire for control will also grow. In my work I try to make these elements compete with each other - it stimulates the mind. By translating images into very different surfaces I am trying to find a place of openness and balance and that place is also full of secrets.’ –Dirk Stewen, 2023

Dirk Stewen (b. 1972, Dortmund, Germany) lives and works in Hamburg and Amsterdam. Stewen’s work has been shown in numerous international institutions including Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, Germany, 2018; Kunstverein in Hamburg, Germany, 2015; Landesgalerie Linz, Austria, 2015; Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria, 2013; Aspen Art Museum, Colorado, USA, 2011; the Von der Heydt Museum, Wuppertal, Germany, 2009; CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, San Francisco, California, USA, 2008; Arnolfini, Bristol, UK, 2007; the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, Germany, 2006. In 2022 he was Artist in Residence at Tarabya Cultural Academy, Goethe-Institut in Istanbul, Turkey. Dirk Stewen will be included in the forthcoming survey publications Vitamin C+: Collage in Contemporary Art, Phaidon, released in April 2023, and Drawing in the Present Tense, Thames & Hudson, released in May 2023.

PAPER MOONS is also the title of a portfolio of heliogravure etchings which will be published to coincide with the exhibition.