Feature Artists | Stephen Brameld and Jay Staples

Stephen Brameld and Jay Staples have mastered the practice of collaborative painting. Though extensively exhibited on the West Coast, this will be the artists’ first solo presentation in Gadigal (Sydney), hence the the show’s simple title - ‘New Works By’, although the name also carries an element of tongue-in-cheek.

“This exhibition has not been produced lineally or intensively, but rather the collection has revealed itself to us over the last 4 years. These are heavily processed objects that have had many previous incarnations. There’s always many works in circulation that get pulled in and out of the painting frame, some works have been in the system for close to five years.”

A common pitfall for painters working collaboratively is a tendency to overcrowd an image with distinctly separate stylistic elements. The imagery ist often jarring as composition buckles under the weight of warring egos. Conversely, much of ‘Australian’ First Nations art has traditionally been a largely collaborative practice. Not only were the subjects and stories shared and guarded within community groups, but, before being commodified, their execution, too, was often a collaborative endeavour. Even now, most artistic practices still pursue goals separate from personal gain (more often than not, funds are quickly distributed among communities) or creative credit and fame. If anything, elder artists are revered for the breadth and depth of their cultural knowledge rather than something as abstract as a painting ‘career’. The stories and figures in these artworks are collectively owned and their depictions are intended to share this knowledge. As in many other aspects of society, these practises foster an environment of connection, commonly placing value on community over the self. In this context, the creation of art is collaborative by definition.

In comparison, Western culture will largely elevate the individual over the collective. Art-making especially, is framed as a lonely pursuit. Yet, collaborative creation necessitates a degree of separation from the ego.

Brameld and Staples, too, aim for something outside of themselves. “[…] we feel like we are working towards common ground, a shared vision doesn’t emerge per se, but it feels as though we are able to work off each other towards a collective vision.”

Up close, their process can appear almost violent. Where some painters may take turns approaching the easel, making a few marks, and yielding to the other, Brameld and Staples set upon their canvas* simultaneously and with swift, almost frantic movements, at times breaking into furious flurries of relentless brushstrokes. “Processing concluded with a circular saw run through the middle of it[…]”**

With no set goal, the path can be a battle of attrition, requiring patience as well as sacrifice (it is common for a project to be destroyed, sometimes for its parts to be rearranged, or to become an organ donor to the benefit of other works). “They speak to the clarity provided by perseverance, the benefit of working through something.”

While much gets buried under paint or covered with debris, cut out or turned inside out, nothing goes to waste during the act. Every absence is a meaningful element of the work, and the evidence remains visible in the richly layered and deeply scarred surfaces. Yet, from the chaos emerge

delicately balanced compositions that can appear almost minimalist.

To say that the two artists mirror the act of conversation in their practice can feel, to some degree, reductive. In the process of a work’s creation, the two artists’ brushstrokes gain the immediacy of a thousand half-formed notions and budding ideas flowing freely between two minds unburdened of the constricting process of assigning them names. Not only do they seemingly translate the act of thinking into a physical act, they turn it into a dance of conscious and unconscious thought. “There’s never an obvious solution, it needs to sneak up on you, and somehow we both see it.”

– Essay by Sam Sterneborg

*’canvas’ used here in the broader sense, considering the variety of media used

**in reference to ‘Football Guernsey’, 2024, p.12-15