STEPHEN BRAMELD & JAY STAPLES
3 - 26 April 2025
INTRODUCTION.
Mirri Leven
Art Leven is proud to present ‘New Works By’, a solo exhibition by Walyalup (Fremantle) artist duo Stephen Brameld and Jay Staples, who were the recipients of the 2024 Art Leven award as part of the Paddington Art Prize.
Even in the form of a grainy thumbnail image among scores of other paintings, a beautifully composed work by Stephen Brameld and Jay Staples can captivate your attention. This was my experience, at least, when I was first introduced to the duo’s work in the Paddington Art Prize online judging portal. In the subsequent research I was floored by their ability to collaboratively create such a natural sense of balance in each work. When I finally saw the work in person, ‘Freshwater Bay’ was cemented as the natural choice for the award.
The evolution from Cooee Art to Art Leven in 2023 marked a new chapter of collaboration, transparency, and expanded artistic dialogue. As part of this vision, New Works By is presented within our Project Program—a platform designed to foster open and meaningful exchanges between artists of diverse backgrounds, united by a shared engagement with materiality, process, and place. Rather than centering on an artists background, the Project Space explores artistic approach—how the world we inhabit is expressed through each artist’s unique brushstrokes and process.
By presenting New Works By, Art Leven invites a broader conversation about creative collaboration and the layered ways artists engage with their work. While our primary focus remains on First Nations art, this exhibition reflects our commitment to facilitating new perspectives and deepening the dialogue between artistic practices.
INTRODUCTION. Mirri Leven
ESSAY. Samuel Sterneborg
ARTWORKS.
The Moon, the Boy and their Shadow
Studio Curtains
Waltz Down Slip Street
Football Guernsey
Plum Bird
BLK 12OZ
Blue Dots
Pork Loin
Kicking Cans
Platform on the Ocean
NOIO
Perfume Bottle
Chinatown Handbag
ESSAY.
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.”
*’canvas’ used here in the broader sense, considering the variety of media used **in reference to ‘Football Guernsey’, 2024, p.12-15
STEPHEN BRAMELD & JAY STAPLES
The Moon, the Boy and their Shadow, 2024
123 x 184 cm
oil, acrylic, enamel, wood stain, pigment & timber on board
DETAIL. The Moon, the Boy and their Shadow, 2024
STEPHEN BRAMELD & JAY STAPLES
Studio Curtains, 2024
205 x 242 cm
oil, acrylic, charcoal, fabric on masonite
STEPHEN BRAMELD & JAY STAPLES
Waltz Down Slip Street, 2024
117 x 197 cm
oil, acrylic, charcoal & enamel on board
STEPHEN BRAMELD & JAY STAPLES
Football Guernsey, 2024
140 x 110 cm oil & acrylic on board
“This painting has evolved through multiple incarnations, its eventual resting point, a product of many workshop-like processes explored within our collaboration. Originally, two found wooden panels, painted separately, combined and framed. This now singular painting was re worked as a timber and metal assemblage and given an additional frame. It was then exhibited, returned to the studio, pulled apart and worked back into. Processing concluded with a circular saw run through the middle of it, leaving an object that wears the scars of its evolution.
This process of regeneration and distillation has resulted in an image that almost seems ubiquitous, like maybe you’ve seen it before, reminiscent of a football guernsey. Rendered down to a point of simple expression, clarified like a consommé.
This artwork speaks to the clarity provided by perseverance, the benefit of working through something. It tells us not to be afraid of destroying something you might value, especially if it stands in the way of something more virtuous or robust.
STEPHEN BRAMELD & JAY STAPLES on Football Guernsey, 2024
STEPHEN BRAMELD & JAY STAPLES
Plum Bird, 2023
152 x 122 cm
oil, acrylic, timber & fabric on board
STEPHEN BRAMELD & JAY STAPLES
BLK 12OZ, 2023
121 x 151 cm
acrylic, fabric, wood stain & plastic on board
STEPHEN BRAMELD & JAY STAPLES
Blue Dots, 2024
101 x 192 cm
oil, acrylic, pigment & fabric on board
STEPHEN BRAMELD & JAY STAPLES
97 x 154 cm
oil, acrylic, timber, iron & pencil
Pork Loin, 2023
SIDE VIEW. Pork Loin, 2023
STEPHEN BRAMELD & JAY STAPLES
Kicking Cans, 2024
135 x 124 cm
oil, acrylic, aluminium & fabric on board
“Two kids stand clutching chalk between their hands pounding noughts and crosses into the pavement, there is reading of electricity running through the pair as they anticipate the others next move. the beginning and the end of a thread, adjusting each other’s intellect, moulding each other and their sand pit minds. It’s a strange choreography, it seems rehearsed but then... not at all.
It is trust It is letting go It is free form”
ARTIST JAMES DRINKWATER on ‘Their Sand Pit Minds’ 2024
STUDIO. William Street Fremantle
STEPHEN BRAMELD & JAY STAPLES
Platform on the Ocean, 2024
125 x 139 cm oil, acrylic & pigment on board
STEPHEN BRAMELD & JAY STAPLES
NOIO, 2025
131 x 191 cm
acrylic & collage on board
STEPHEN BRAMELD & JAY STAPLES
Perfume Bottle, 2024
123 x 143 cm oil, acrylic, charcoal & felt on board
STEPHEN BRAMELD & JAY STAPLES
Chinatown Handbag, 2024
123 x 179 cm oil & acrylic on board
ARTIST CV & BIO.
Stephen Brameld & Jay Staples 1990 & 1990
MAJOR COLLECTIONS
Artbank (2024 acquisition)
AWARDS
2023: Fremantle Print Award (Second Prize)
2023: Lester Prize (finalists)
2024: Mandorla Art Award (finalists)
2024: Paddington Art Prize (Art Leven Gallery Award Winner)
MAJOR COMMISSIONS
Lawson Flats
16 metre artwork for the Lawson Building, Perth/
Boorloo: Dec 2022
RESIDENCIES
Fremantle Art Centre, 2025
WRITINGS
2021: Painting in Synergy and Harmony, Professor Ted Snell Am Citwa, Artist Chronicle
2021: Stephen Brameld & Jay Staples, Alexandra Quick, Fabric Quarterly
2023: Peer Inside, Stephen Pollock, Fremantle Herald
2023: Mod Dogs, Liam Blackford, Exhibition Catalogue
2024: Flowers, Emma Pegrum, Exhibition Catalogue
2024: Flowers, Annika Kristensen
2024: Their Sand Pit Minds, James Drinkwater, Docker Grease Catalogue
2024: Critic’s Choice, Kelly Fliedner, Art Collector Magazine
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
Summer Salon
Straitjacket, Newcastle NSW: Dec 7 2024 - 31 Jan 2025
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
Salon
Current Gallery, Fremantle/Walyalup: Feb 14 - 23
Docker Grease
Straitjacket, Newcastle NSW: Nov 9 - Dec 1, 2024
August
Kamile Gallery, Perth/Boorloo: Aug 9 - 29, 2024
Flowers
Stala Contemporary, West Leederville, Perth/Boorloo.
Feb 3 - 24, 2024
Mod Dogs
PS Art Space, Fremantle/Walyalup. June 10 - 25, 2023
The Birthday Party
L.Bokrr, Fremantle/Walyalup: Feb 11 - 19, 2023
RECESS
L.Bokrr, Fremantle/Walyalup: Oct 1 - 9, 2022
Reent Toont Teent Toont Teent Toont Teenooneenoonee
PS Art Space, Fremantle/Walyalup: Aug 13 - 29 2021
Observatory Klesh
Whitespace, Fremantle/Walyalup: Dec 13 - 27, 2019
Current Gallery Annual Fundraiser Exhibition
Current Gallery, Fremantle/Walyalup: Sep 6 - 8, 2024
Mandorla Art Award Exhibition
Holmes a Court Gallery, West Perth: 24 May - 15 June, 2024
Hee Haw
Lawson Gallery, Perth/Boorloo: Dec 14, 2023 - Feb 2nd, 2024
The Lester Prize Exhibition
Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth/Boorlo: 22 September – 26 November 2023
FAC 46th Print Award Exhibition
Fremantle Arts Centre, Fremantle/Walyalup: August 5 - October 22, 2023
Yoowarl Koorl Djinang / Come Look See Wadjemup Sculpture Museum, Rottnest/Wadjemup: June 9 2023 - June 9 2024
The Pink
Stala Contemporary, Perth: May 13 - June 17, 2023
Modern Holiday
Kamile Gallery, Perth: Nov 2021 - Feb 2022
WhereLunga Bushfire Fundraiser Exhibition
WhereLunga Gallery, Highgate: 18 January 2020