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Steve Wright is a contemporary painter based in London. Born in Bath, England in 1975, he studied Fine Art at Wimbledon School of Art and Newcastle University, gaining his MFA in 2001. His work has been included in exhibitions around the UK and in the USA. Solo exhibitions have taken place in London, Leeds, and Cambridge, including ‘Perpetual Motion’ in August 2025.
Recent paintings are ‘cosmic abstractions’, transforming found objects and images into intensely coloured motifs that evoke astronomical phenomena. Inspired by the slow spinning motion of spiral galaxies and space stations, recent works employ rotational symmetry and looping shapes to create a sense of movement, contraction and expansion. The images produced through a gradual process of abstraction convey an ambiguous sense of scale. Shapes derived from architectural details, 20th Century decorative ceramics, and children's fidget toys lose their original size and might simultaneously suggest microscopic or molecular activity and vast, cosmological events. The square format accentuates the centered quality of these compositions and implies that they could rotate about this central point. It’s a compositional strategy derived from the ‘target’ paintings of Kenneth Noland and Jasper Johns. Dispensing with the earth-bound sense of ‘up’ and ‘down’ common to landscape, portraiture and still life painting allows the artist to connect with the expanded field of the cosmos. Earlier works depict vehicles and other objects, in relation to the space around them or the ground plane, creating a sense of suspension in place and time. |
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