Bethany Stead is an artist working across drawing, painting, sculpture and textiles. She makes visual stories, imagery, and objects to form re-imaginings in response to social barriers using clay, pencil, paint, paper, textile and wood.

Bethany’s practice attempts to explore the uncomfortability and awkwardness of inhabiting bodies, both biological and artificial, the history of bodily health, the human connection to clothing and costume, notions of worship and religion, and our relationship with the non-human sphere through the lens of class. 

Metamorphic, animalistic and anthropomorphic, drawings and sculptures stand as beings, residing within unsettling or idyllic spaces. Symbolism and archetypes thread through the work, influenced by intergenerational storytelling and personal writing as therapy, drawing on psychoanalysis, magical realism, science fiction and folklore. Embodying a reconnection to forgotten worlds and ideas, she moves beyond visual escapism, aiming to embrace complicated experiences to do with class, gender, sexuality, health, ecology, technology and grief.

CV

Education

​2020 – 2021, Collective Studio Programme, The NewBridge Project, Newcastle upon Tyne
2015 – 2019, Bachelor of Fine Arts, First Class Honours, Newcastle University
2018, Bachelor of Arts in Sculpture, Erasmus, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey

Solo exhibitions

​2022, Dip Your Wick, ‘The PUBlic Window’ (Solo) RePUBlic Gallery, Blyth
​2019, Saggy, (Duo) with Matilda Sutton, The Ex Libris Gallery, Newcastle University

Group exhibitions

2023
CRAWL SPACE, The Crypt Gallery, St Pancras, London
Gatherings, SET Woolwich, London
Hypha, Church of St John, Healey, Northumberland
Now That’s What I Call Art 2, Newcastle Contemporary Art, Newcastle upon Tyne

2022
Collected, 36 Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne

2021
Loose Time, Vane, Newcastle upon Tyne
BALTIC Open Submission, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead

Selected projects and professional experience

2023 –
Belonging Commission, Pink Collar Gallery
Studio and Administrative Assistant, Claire Morgan Studio Ltd.
Project Coordinator and Artist Assistant for artist Lady Kitt
Artist Assistant for artist Hazel Brill

2022 –
Art Tutor, teaching ceramics and sculpture at Newcastle Arts Centre

2020 –
Facilitator, various organisations: Curious Arts, Durham University, The NewBridge Project

Skills & Experience

  • Animation
  • DBS Checked
  • Project management
  • Proofreading
  • Technical: exhibition build
  • Technique tuition: ceramics
  • Technique tuition: painting
  • Working with schools (primary)
  • Working with schools (secondary)
  • Workshops (family / general)
  • Workshsops (adult)

Bethany Stead, 'Watchful Feather II', 2023. Gouache and coloured pencil on handmade Do paper, hand-built and stained pinewood pentagonal frame, 100cm x 66cm.
Bethany Stead, 'Man'
Bethany Stead, 'Pearls of Milk', 2023. Tempera on greyboard, 15 x 10.5 cm.
Bethany Stead, 'Sow, Smoke, Spill'
Bethany Stead, 'Spinster', 2023. Ceramic stoneware, glaze and underglaze.