Underwater, oil painting by Stephen Roberts
Stephen Roberts
Dip in the Pool No.7
© 2007


About the Artist

Stephen Roberts is an Australian artist who lives in Canberra. He attended school in Berkshire, England and Geneva, France while mostly growing up in the New England district of New South Wales. In Sydney, he graduated in medicine and, after completing his internship, took advantage of a year spent in Canada to swap the lens from zoom to wide angle. As a result, he decided to abandon medicine altogether and, on his return to Australia, began painting full time. His interests include lucid dreaming; the books of Charles Fort, Arthur Schopenhauer and Michel de Montaigne; unorthodox histories of the world; chess; recursive geometries and paradoxes; newspaper clippings of unusual phenomena; the cartoons of Michael Leunig.

Exhibitions

Aarwun Gallery, continuous exhibition, Canberra  2007-2008

Michael Commerford Gallery, group exhibition, Rushcutters Bay NSW   2008

Gold Creek Gallery, continuous exhibition, Canberra  1990-2005

Hill on Hargreave Gallery, Paddington NSW 2003

Artefact Gallery, Melbourne 2001

Ansett Golden Wing & Executive Lounge, Canberra Airport 1999-2001

Canberra Centre, solo exhibition, 1997

Mosman Municipal Council Art Prize and Exhibition 1990

Awards

Award of Merit for Outstanding Artistic Achievement, Manhattan Arts

   International 9th Annual Cover Art Competition, 2000

Finalist, New Art Showcase, International Exhibition, Limner Gallery,

   New York 2000

Finalist, Slowinski Gallery International Art Competition, New York 1998

Highly Commended, Liverpool Art Prize 1997

Publications/Media

The Weekend Australian  December 29/30 2007, front page, business section, "Reaching the summit of London banking."    [ Inset photograph, see below, features triptych, Sunshine Blue, by Stephen Roberts; CEO John Fraser sits in the foreground. As shown, it hangs at the London headquarters of global Swiss bank, UBS International.]

Direct Art, Volume 4, SlowArt Productions, New York 2000

New Art International, Volume 4, Book Art Press, New York 1998/99

The Canberra Times, "Centre censors 'upsetting' work of art", 1997     

Interviews with WIN Television and TEN Capital News on Canberra Centre

   Exhibition 1997

 

Collections

UBS International London UK

PricewaterhouseCoopers, Melbourne

Royal Canberra Golf Club, Canberra

Morgan & Banks, Canberra

Numerous Australian, European and North American private collections

Excerpts

"The impish humour, searing wit and canting perspective of Stephen Roberts' haute pate canvases are demarcations which position him intellectually as a kind of Ambrose Bierce of pigment. The robust fervor of his orchestration brings an earnest passion to his sly, analytical adjustments and resounding vitality to their uncompromised essence."

                                                                New Art International , Vol. 4