Despite the fact that Steven Wilks is interested in the search for high truth in art, every one of his works deals with contemporary reality – from everyday things to urban structures, the depths of the earth and oceans, climate change, the experiences of a small individual or big politics. He draws inspiration and ideas from long walks in the city or the countryside. According to the artist, raising everyday phenomena into something unexpected and poetic is the great mission of art.
“Wolf walks the labyrinths of the city to capture fleeting moments and clothe them in poetry and politics, irony and drama,” Written by Raj Kamal Jha.
Steven Wilks is a sharp observer with a good sense of humor and deep knowledge of world culture. Gifted with a good sense of material, the artist plays with their various properties and the associations they create. Any material turns into art in his hands.
Steven Wolf invites the viewer to reevaluate their beliefs about how we think and see, reawakening a sense of wonder. The artist is convinced that everything changes when we change our perspective on things.
Steven Wilkes’ atypical travels around the world began in 1999, when the artist sewed his first donkey: a large, life-size ragdoll made of gray fabric, with a tail, mane, large button eyes and a zippered belly that doubles as a bag. The first ragged donkey, named Balthazar, became a constant companion of Stephen Wilkes on walks around town. He borrowed the name of his companion from French director Robert Bresson’s 1966 film ” Au hasard, Balthasar”, whose main character, the donkey, is a metaphor for a creature that has to endure cruelty, ingratitude and lack of attention. Over time, Baltazar was joined by six other donkeys, who started their own, somewhat independent life from the artist, traveling all over the world and replacing one temporary owner with the next. In the process, a rhythm of departure, arrival and parting is formed, and there is a constant alternation between public and private space. During trips, donkeys’ bellies are filled with notes, photographs, sketches. Encounters, memories, individual realities are carried forward with the continuity of the journey. Donkeys turn into mediators and creators of social intersubjectivity.
So far, Stephen Wilkes’ donkeys have been in Moselle, Paris, Marseille, Bremen, Berlin, Barcelona,Amsterdam, Beijing and Tokyo. In May 2022, a completely new donkey, sewn by Steven Wilks, went to Latvia, who chose Riga as the destination of his first trip to fill his belly with new impressions and adventures.
” Autobiography and “danse macabre” seem like strange partners in achieving an active artistic life. But the nature of Stephen Wilks’s performances, sculptures and paintings confirms them as atypical, emotional companions in the English artist’s work […]
Traveling with a “donkey on his back” in the case of Stephen Wilks is not only a regional English expression, but also an inverted use of black humor. The donkey is given a dominant role in his works as a wandering squire, an animal associated with the poor and the outcast.
The autobiographical aspect of the work is the idea of the artist’s ability to associate and identify, to see the world from a “different” position, from an opposite point of view. Humor becomes even more important because it criticizes the unjust conditions of the modern world. The donkey is so closely associated with Spanish and Latin American cultures that it is tempting to think of Wilkes as a modern Sancho Panza, whose artworks are often ironic comments, modern “sanchissimo” or proverbial “laugh while holding your stomach” jokes based on darkly humorous observations about the world. A contemporary Cervantes hero (rather, an anti-hero) fighting the windmills of modern injustice, ” Mark Gisborne, 2009.
Stephen Wolf was born (1964) in Bridgwater, Somerset, England. Studied English literature at Canterbury University; fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris and the National Academy of Arts in Amsterdam. In his work, he focuses on various forms of art – drawing, graphics, painting, sculpture, photography and ceramics. Since 1991, he has held 43 solo exhibitions and participated in more than 100 group exhibitions around the world.
Steven Wilks’ works are included in more than 20 public art collections in the world: French National Foundation for Contemporary Art – FNAC (Paris, France), Regional Contemporary Art Foundation FRAC PACA (Marseille, France), National Center of Photography (Paris, France), Collection Lambert (Avignon , France), Champagne Vranken Pommery(Reims, France), Ludwig Museum (Cologne, Germany), State Museum Berlin (Berlin, Germany), Berlin Gallery (Berlin, Germany), NBK- Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (Berlin, Germany), Bielefeld Art Museum (Bielefeld, Germany) , Berlin Academy of Art Collection (Berlin, Germany), Winterthur Photo Museum (Winterthur, Switzerland), JK Van den Broek Collection (Arnem, Netherlands), Soho House Dean Street Art Collection (London, United Kingdom), Soho House Miami Art Collection (Miami , USA), ACAC – Aomori Contemporary Art Center (Aomori, Japan), AGSA – Art Gallery of South Australia (Adelaide, Australia), Society of Chinese Artists (Beijing, China), Collection Azcarraga (Mexico, Mexico), etc.
Stephen Wolf lives and works in Berlin, Germany.
