Holly Stevenson makes fluid ceramic forms that explore Sigmund Freud’s favourite ashtray and last cigar as an analytical metaphor. Her vessels diligently embody the ashtray and cigar as though they were two gendered male and female forms, the yonic ovular dish and the cylindrical phallic cigar, as she reconfigures them into a material language of her own. Holly graduated from Chelsea College of Art and Design Fine Art MA in 2011 with the generous help of the Stanley Picker Trust and was awarded the MFI Flat Time House Graduate Award, supported by the John Latham Foundation. Recently she took part in Frieze Sculpture 2023, curated by Fatoş Üstek, where she showed a new ceramic installation titled The Debate.
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EDUCATION
2011 Chelsea College of Art and Design, MA FA
2001 University of Glasgow MA Hons, History of Art
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2023 Frieze Sculpture, curated by Fatoş Üstek, London, UK
2022 Shoppers, Shoes & Sacks, AWITA x J W ANDERSON, offsite Sid Motion Gallery, London, UK
2022 ANOTHER MOTHER Public sculpture commission, The CoLAB, Temple, The Artist’s Garden, London, UK
2021 READING BETWEEN THE LINES: Holly Stevenson, Sid Motion Gallery, London, UK
2020 What does it mean to Mother? NEW COMMISSION, Procreate Project, London, UK
2013 <OPEN>,Window Project, Graduate Award, Gazelli Art House, London, UK
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 Suppose You Are Not, curated by Selen Ansen, 01-19 - 12-29 2024, Arter, Istanbul, TR
Caroline Gray & Holly Stevenson, Salon Show II, Caroline Fisher Projects, London, UK
Loose Ends, Thames Side Studios Gallery, London, UK
IWD Auction, Art On A Postcard, selected by CURA Art, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation, London, UK
2023 Body Poetics, GIANT, Bournemouth, UK
Decentering in Ceramics, Laboratorio Piramide, Richard Saltoun Gallery, Rome, IT
Preconscious Landscape, Ainalaiyn Space, Exposed Arts Projects, London, UK
Let Them Eat Fake, Bad Art Presents at Brushes With Greatness, London, UK
‘I’m All For Yellow’ Commissioned riso print, edition of 100, Ellipses Prints Against the Patriarchy made at London Center for Book Arts. Exh. Shoreditch Arts Club, London, UK.
2022 HAND-HELD: Itinerant exhibition with guest artists, curated by Ingrid Bethon-Moine & Holly Stevenson, London, UK
An Ode to Orlando, curated by Marcelle Joseph Projects, Pi Artworks, London, UK
STILL LIFE / LIFE STILL, OHSH Projects, London, UK
Georgia Szmerling X Holly Stevenson, Peer/Peer, Art et al. Season One Cromwell Place, London, UK
Body en Thrall, GIRL POWER and Marcelle Joseph Projects, Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, UK
Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! Nadir Project Space, Brighton, UK
BORN FROM EARTH, Richard Saltoun Gallery, London, UK
A Space for Healing, The Healing Collective, GIANT Gallery, Bournemouth, UK
Bag, Pedestal, Rabbit, Potato, Staffordshire St, London UK
Art et al. X APA: Intersect 3-25 September 2022 | Collingwood Yards, Melbourne, AU
2021 CERAMICS: THE CENTRAL CORE, Part II, Richard Saltoun Gallery, London, UK
Les Danses Nocturnes, East Contemporary, Milan, at the Spread Museum, Entrevaux, FR
In Momentum, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK
PROCREATE PROJECTS, Violet Costello & Holly Stevenson Art Basel: OVR Portals, Richard Saltoun Gallery, UK
2020 Small Is Beautiful, 38th edition, Flowers Gallery, London, UK
Mother Art Prize 2020, Procreate Project, Cromwell Place, London, UK
The Collector’s Room, curated by Karen David, JGM Gallery, London, UK
Thanks A Pot: Anja Lubach & Holly Stevenson, The White Box Gallery, London, UK
Lydia Hardwick & Holly Stevenson, Caroline Fisher Projects, Norwich, UK
2019 Turner Fringe Prize The Walpole bay Hotel and Museum, Margate, UK
STRUCTURES THAT CO-OPERATE GET PAID! Cubitt Gallery, London, UK
2018 Window Project 2012-2018, Gazelli Art House, London, UK
Waiting Room, curated by Karen David Wimbledon Space, UAL, UK
2017 IN QUOTES, curated by Ann-Marie James, East Gallery NUA, Norwich, UK
Window Sill, curated by Karen David, Griffin Gallery, London, UK
Pivots and Spins, Access Gallery, Vancouver, BC
2016 The shift: MFI Conceptual Yard Sale, Eight Years of Flat Time House. London, UK
The First International Emei Contemporary Art Exhibition: Curated by Jia Fangzhou, Emei Mountain, Sichuan, CN
2015 WISH YOU WERE HERE? Jeremy Cooper Postcard Collection, Art Circuit touring exhibition, UK
La Tua Libreria Ed I Suoi Segreti, curated by Oliver Griffin, Mahler–LeWitt Studios, Spoleto, IT
2014 Library Interventions: Sharon Kivland, Leeds College of Art, UK
The Postcard Is A Public Work Of Art, X Marks the Bökship, London, UK
2013 Artlacuna Prize, selected by Sonia Boyce, London, UK
2012 MINITS 4, PAMI (Peckham Artist Moving Image), Flat Time House, London, UK
Bringing Home The Art, Deptford X Fringe, London, UK
Creative Cities Collection, The Barbican Arts Centre, London, Olympic Museum, Beijing, CN
2011 MA Fine Art Degree Show, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, UK
2010 Parallax, Woodmill Exhibition & Project Space, Bermondsey, UK
VHS, Sunshine Frère & Holly Stevenson, Tenderpixel, London, UK
Tenderflix: Experimental film, Rushes Soho Shorts, London, UK
Magmart/Video Under Volcano Palazzo delle Arti Napoli, Naples, IT
Feeling Nature, Gongju International Art Festival, Limlip Art Museum, KOR
Video Art – Group Screening Exhibition, Oblong Gallery, London, UK
PERFORMANCE AND PUBLISHED ART WRITING
2023 EGGISM: How Would You Eat Yours? The vegan egg project, performed in 3 Egg Acts with Huma Kabakcı, Frieze 2023, London UK
2022 A cigar is never just a cigar written for Morley ed. Scot Mason, published by renaro press on behalf of Two Queens, Leicester, UK
2021 Wait Like Penelope written for The Waiting Place, curated by Ann-Marie James & Emily Godden, The Art Station, Saxmundham, UK
2016 Worse Than Usual written for INVASION MANUAL, Ed. Anna Salmane & P. Mulligan, Latvian State Capital Foundation, Art Lacuna, London, UK
2014 CRITIC: IV. Guest critic for Artishok Biennale Mūkusala Art Salon, Riga, EE
Neo-Truth Work,commissioned fiction, a final account in formation: Scott Mason, MK Gallery, UK: Renaro ISBN 978 0 9929838 1 9
Tear to Care, MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE. ISBN 978-1-908452-31-3
2013 A History Of Getting Smashed performed for Sex, Death & Cocktails, ArtLacuna, London. AND Public. ISBN 978-1-908452-31-3
AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
2024 Jane McAdam Freud Artist Residency
2022 Laboratorio Piramide Fellowship, Rome, IT
2021 1:1 Fund, Jerwood Arts
2021 DYCP Award, Arts Council England
2020 Mother Art Prize Finalist
2020 Project Grant, Arts Council England
2020 New Commission Award: Procreate Project and Arts Council England
2013 Gazelli Art House, Window Project Graduate Award
2012 MFI, Flat Time House Graduate Award: John Latham Archive and Foundation
2012 UAL Graduate Fellowship
2012 Art Catlin Guide
2010 Stanley Picker Bursary
COLLECTIONS
Numerous collections: My work is currently on show or can be accessed in these collections Chelsea College of Art and Design, Library Special Collection, Huma Kabakcı Collection, Jeremy Cooper Postcard Collection, Leeds College of Art Special Collection, Marcelle Joseph Collection, Ömer Koç Collection, The Artists Garden: The CoLAB Collection, University of the Arts, London, Permanent Collection.