UK-based artist Stephen Sutcliffe (b. 1968, Harrogate) works with film, collage, wall painting and photography, drawing on an extensive archive of materials collected since childhood alongside items from institutional collections.
His work often reflects on British culture, identity and class, blending literary and visual sources to create poetic, melancholic and satirical compositions. Through careful editing and layering of found and self-generated material, Sutcliffe subverts dominant narratives, offering alternative readings of cultural authority and memory.
Recent solo exhibitions include Psychopomp at Moon Grove (2026), You Can Come In But You Won’t Like It at Rob Tufnell (2023), High Windows at Dead Birds, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2019), Sex Symbols in Sandwich Signs at Talbot Rice Edinburgh (2017), and Going Over at Rob Tufnell, London (2015). Notable collaborations include No End to Enderby (Manchester International Festival, 2018) with Graham Eatough, which won the Contemporary Art Society Award. Sutcliffe has been shortlisted twice for the Jarman Award and won the Margaret Tait Award in 2012. His publications include At Fifty (Sternberg Press, 2019) and Much Obliged (Book Works, 2019), alongside curatorial projects such as the Herbert Read Archive exhibition at Leeds University. In 2024, he presented Memories of the Five Administrations, a joint exhibition with Simon Bedwell at Beaconsfield Gallery, London.
