Stephen Richardson's work incorporates both the physical and cognitive expression of ideas. His art practice is broad-based spanning the traditional to the contemporary. He enjoys making small assemblages, using bricolage and sculptural techniques; he also creates text, video, and performance works that stretch the viewers’ expectations of the visual art experience. Stephen’s wider art practice questions what the viewer brings to an artwork, positing the work as a transactional relationship between artist and viewer.








It is reasonable to suggest that art audiences generally expect that a visual artwork exists, or has existed, in one form or another as an object, artefact, or performance. These cognitive visual artworks investigate the existing interdisciplinary assumptions about the production and consumption of art.








Strange Thoughts is a collection of small-scale three-dimensional assemblages incorporating bricolage and found objects. The works appear witty and whimsical while posing interesting questions and ideas. These thoughts are delivered as gentle whispers that prompt a dialogue between our interior worlds and the reality of the outer world, inviting engagement through reflection and contemplation.









What if we build a drawing machine without controls: random, unpredictable, chaotic, and relentless, without sentiment and devoid of human meaning. Could the drawings be works of art? Can art exist without human intent?



This is a 5-minute film artwork with an original music sound track. Imagine we build a machine to make drawings. We plug it in and it starts, but we give it no instructions and there are no controls. It does what it does, all we can do to stop it is pull the plug. Random, unpredictable, chaotic, and relentless, without sentiment and devoid of human meaning. Watching it is mesmerising and intriguing. What would that drawing look like? Without human intent can it be art? Here is your chance to see. The film is accompanied by a sound track, Empty Music for Two Pianos, by artist and composer Stephen Richardson.







Mechanical drawing machines themselves are not new, however my interest in making this body of work was not in the machine as the artwork, which it seems is usually the case, but rather the validity of such drawings as legitimate works of art. If they are, why; if not, why not? My particular interest then is focused not on the machine per se, but in the curatorial intervention of the maker and the audience.