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Dilys Finlay-Stephens

Place of birth New York
Country of residence United Kingdom

The processes underlying extinction of any species in the wild invariably involve the devastating effects of continuing loss of habitat, trafficking, pollution and our ever-increasing appetite for consumerism. In this new century we are all left to question more deeply than ever before our own role in the play of all of this.
I have always been interested in depicting displacement, freedom, migration and escape in my paintings. I make references to the photographic image, particularly of moving subjects. Abstract feathered masses are pressed against glass, or neatly positioned and stored in a drawer, like the preserved skins in a museum that eminent zoologists brought back from exotic lands. My paintings display a contest between motion and stillness, like life and death. The chromatic intensity and blown-up detail suggest trapping or pinning down, and the states of suspension, transience, and metamorphosis. They invite you to become acquainted with the strange and the familiar.
When I was a child a bird accidentally flew in through the window and proceeded to chaotically bash itself against panes of glass, under the illusion that they were escape routes in its desperation to free itself. This memory is very powerful to me.

Dilys Finlay-Stephens portraits are very much influenced by her grandfather, the American portrait painter Thomas Edgar Stephens, who painted the entire Eisenhower cabinet and the last life portrait of Winston Churchill as Prime Minister. Her portraits, full of humour and life, concentrate more in depicting her subjects as products of their urban environment.
Finlay-Stephens looks to Dutch Masters and also colour photography for her influences, particulary when painting subject from the natural world.
Feathered shapes are pressed against glass and here sometimes the contest between motion and stillness, like life and death, seems to suggest trapping, and the states of suspension, transience, and metamorphosis. A further dimension is given with sections represented out of focus or in movement as if photographed with a slow shutter speed. These atmospheric colourful paintings, with their play of darkness and light, combine an evocative awareness of light sensitive almost photographic colour with organic qualities of painted canvas.
Exhibitions:
2007: 'Start Your Collection!' Contemporary Art Projects, Shoreditch.
'Of Birds And Men' solo show, Rainbird Gallery.
2006: 'Return Of The Birds' solo show, Institute of Mechanical Engineers, Bird Cage Walk, London, .
Group Show, Rainbird Gallery, London
St Pancras Hospital Conference Centre, London, ‘Icons’ 6 artists in multimedia group show funded by Camden Primary Care Trust.
'Closer' solo show, Horniman Museum of Natural History and Anthropology, London.
2005: ‘The Bestiary’ group show, Jill George Gallery, London, including works by Paula Rego, David Hockney and David Mach.
‘Zoo-o-logical’, Knapp Gallery, Regent’s College, London,
Festival of Art and Light, Denbighshire, Wales

Exhibitions Start Your Collection 2008!, 01.Aug - 21.Sep.08, Contemporary Art Projects, 00' Nature Part 2, 15.May - 14.Jun.08, Contemporary Art Projects, Start Your Collection 2007!, 01.Aug - 30.Sep.07, Contemporary Art Projects, Of Birds and Men, 01.Mar - 24.Mar.07, Rainbird Fine Art, Summer exhibition 2006, 17.Aug - 03.Sep.06, Contemporary Art Projects, Fosterart Summer Exhibition 2005, 06.Jul - 10.Sep.05, Contemporary Art Projects

Links Contemporary Art Projects (Collections)

 

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