Stephen Hobbs

Bio

Stephen Hobbs graduated from Wits University with a BAFA, in 1994. He was the curator of the Market Theatre Galleries (Johannesburg) from 1994 to 2000, Co-Director of the purpose-built Gallery Premises (2004-2008) at the Joburg Theatre. Since 2001 he has codirected the artist collaborative and public art consultancy – The Trinity Session. And since 2004 has co-produced a range of multi-medium urban and digital network-focused projects with Marcus Neustetter, under the collaborative name Hobbs/Neustetter. In 2017 Hobbs joined the Graduate School of Architecture at the University of Johannesburg, as Unit Leader and resident critic. Since 2002 The Trinity Session has provided curation and coordination services for various urban regenerative and public art programmes for the City of Johannesburg, Durban and Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

Artist Statement

For the past 25 years, my art practice has been underpinned by three core interest areas: architecture and the built environment, art and war (with particular interest in the role that artists play in creating deception in the battlefield) and anatomy and the body, in relation to my own complex medical history. Until my recent move to Ireland (December 2019), these study areas were heavily informed by the violence of apartheid spatial planning in South Africa and Johannesburg in particular, where I was born and have lived most of my life. It is important to note, that my practice within the international context, has always been informed by the very distinct and varied conditions experienced through working in urban spaces, throughout South Africa and on the continent of Africa, west and sub-Saharan Africa in particular.

Moving to Ireland thus offers a new set of challenges in terms of my new perceptions of home, space and body, issues I started to address during my speculative three week residency at Cill Rialaig, in 2017.

As per the selection of works in my portfolio, my practice ranges from drawing, print and book making to sculpture, installation, collaborative performance, mural painting, building and landscape design. And the breadth of this work is as much informed by my interest in scales of form and making – between studio, gallery and urban space, as it is in a material and process lead approach to thinking and making.

Website www.stephenhobbs.net

Previous Work www.thetrinitysession.com / www.davidkrutprojects.com/

Membership: Backwater Artists Network