Stephen Melton

Passionate about ecology and humanity’s relationship with the natural world.

My works are primarily sculptures and installations in mixed media, including bronze, resins and found objects.

My work is purposefully paradoxical, aiming to challenge the viewer’s perceptions and assumptions, forcing them to form opinions. I engage audiences with complex moralities that arise through our day-to-day lives. Through the presentation of my ideas, I ask the question: “is this acceptable or not?”
When encountering my work I hope to encourage my audience to then take some form of action, be it changing personal choices and habits, through to passing on the messages and participating in activism.

I work for an interdisciplinary creative fabrication studio that is actively developing and sharing a model for a fully sustainable practice. We create artworks as individual artists and as a collective, that speak to the ecological crises. We also make work for other organisations and artists, helping them to achieve sustainable solutions for their ideas.

Certificate of Education, 2003.
Study of Kiln Building Techniques, Japan, 1990.
Study of Foundry Methods, Sri Lanka, 1990.
Study of Casting Techniques with the Tuareg, Morocco, 1988.
Diploma in Foundry Practices, RCA Dip Cire-Perdue, Royal College of Art, 1988.
Degree: Fine Art BA (Hons) (Sculpture), Camberwell School of Art, London, 1984 -1987.
Foundation BTEC National Diploma, Barnsley College of Art, 1983.

Animals & Us, Turner Contemporary, Margate, 2018
In Here Out There, Chapter House, Canterbury Cathedral, 2014
Shop ’Til They Drop, Updown Gallery, Ramsgate, 2014
Art14, Kensington Olympia, London, 2014
Not Just For Christmas, Updown Gallery, Ramsgate, 2013
Bee Museum, Updown Gallery, Ramsgate, 2013
Thanet Fish, Updown Gallery, Ramsgate, 2013
Ghost of Gone Birds, ONCA Gallery, Brighton, 2012
Ghosts of Gone Birds, Rochelle School, London, 2011
Red List Exhibition, Canterbury, 2011
Turner Contemporary Open, Margate, 2009
Art and Ecology, Margate Rocks, 2008
North East Kent Coastal Research Conference, Pfizer, Kent, 2008
The Cube, Folkestone, 2008
The Ideas Factory, Sir Peter Blake Gallery, Dartford, 2007
Cooper Gallery, Barnsley, 2006
Stockport Art Gallery, Lancashire, 2006
For and From, Metropole Galleries, Folkestone, 2005.
Manchester Academy Open, Manchester, 2005
Moore Inspired, Sidney Cooper Gallery, Canterbury, 2005.
Queen Bertha, St Augustine’s Abbey Museum, 2005.
Decade, The Metropole Galleries, Folkestone, 2004.
King and Queen Exhibition, St Augustine’s Abbey Museum, Canterbury, 2004.
Manchester Academy Exhibition, Salford Museum and Art Gallery, Lancashire, 2004.
Artists and Galleries, Georges House Gallery, Folkestone, 2003...