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Artist Details
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Biography
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Born in Wolverhampton, UK in 1966. Lives and works in Cork

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Stephen Brandes was born in Wolverhampton, UK in 1966 and now lives and works in Cork after moving to Ireland in 1993. He has exhibited extensively in Ireland and internationally including solo projects 'Travelogue' at Rubicon Gallery Dublin 2005, ‘Ways of Escape’ Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin 2004 and recent group exhibitions ‘Cross the Line’ Conrads Gallery, Duesseldorf Germany 2006; ‘Permaculture’, Project, Dublin 2003; ‘Necessary Journeys’, Temple Bar Gallery and Studios, Dublin 2003; ‘The Retreat’, City Limits, Melbourne, Australia 2004; ‘C2’, Crawford Municipal Gallery, Cork 2005 and numerous international Art Fairs with Rubicon Gallery. He represented Ireland at the Venice Biennale 2005 as part of ' Ireland at Venice'. His work is represented in the Irish Museum of Modern Art Collection and the Office of Public Works, Ireland and Private Collections in Ireland, Europe and USA.. He has worked as a curator of independent art projects, most notably ‘Superbia’, and ‘Superbia2’.

Brandes' current body of work stems from a visual diary he made in 1999 during a recreation of his grandmother's flight through Europe to escape from the pogroms in Romania in 1913. His work has since developed into a series of elaborate visual fictions in various forms, from small scruffy paintings to vast highly detailed drawings on unexpected surfaces (like used floor vinyl or straight onto the gallery wall), which interweave this history with his own experience and invention. Using the pictorial language of European fairytales, American comics and medieval cartography, his large graphic works represent fantastical, dysfunctional landscapes that suggest the imagined places of history and fairytales, while the smaller paintings often embellish on details which occur in these graphic works.

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CV
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Selected exhibitions
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2008
Rubicon Gallery Dublin Ireland (Solo)

2007
‘Why Travel? Right here is Fantastic’, ‘Rabid A’/Ardbia Gallery Galway Ireland (solo)
Pulse New York Art Fair, USA (with Rubicon Gallery Dublin)
Maco Mexico Art Fair (with Rubicon Gallery Dublin)
Dubin Art Fair (with Rubicon Gallery Dublin)
Girl Power and Boyhood, Stavanger Kulturhus, Norway
‘[C]artography – map making as an arform’, Crawford Municipal Art Gallery Cork Ireland
'Your Position as Much as your Environment', Model Arts and Niland Gallery Sligo
Fenton Gallery, Cork Ireland

2006
Klutz Paradiso, RHA Gallagher Gallery, Dublin Ireland (Solo with catalogue)
Chutzparadiso, West Cork Arts Centre, Cork Ireland (Solo)
Cross the Line, Galerie Conrads, Dusseldorf , Germany
Girl Power and Boy Hood, Kunsthallen Brandts, Denmark
Arco Madrid Art Fair, Spain (with Rubicon Gallery Dublin)
Pulse New York Art Fair, USA (with Rubicon Gallery Dublin)
FIAC Paris France Art Fair (with Rubicon Gallery Dublin)
Art Cologne Art Fair, Germany (with Rubicon Gallery Dublin)
Pulse Miami Art Fair, USA (with Rubicon Gallery Dublin)

2005
On Leaving and Arriving, g39 Gallery Cardiff‘, contemporary temporary artspace
live’, Interim.Projekte, Frankfurt Germany (with Nina Canell, Theresa Nanigian, Alex Rose,
Curated by Rene Zechlin of Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork)
Irish Pavillion, 51st Venice Biennale, Italy
‘Travelogue’, Rubicon Gallery, Dublin (Solo)
‘Vinyl’, Sullivan’s Quay Christian Brother’s School, Cork, Curated by Simon Cutts and
Coracle Press for Cork 2005 European City of Culture
‘Superbia 2’, Douglas, Cork. For Cork 2005 European City of Culture (S. Brandes Co-Curator)
'C2’, Crawford Municipal Gallery, Cork.
EuroJet Futures “05, RHA Gallery, Dublin
FIAC 2005 Art Fair, Paris France (with Rubicon Gallery)

2004
‘Ways of Escape’, Temple Bar Gallery, Dublin. (Solo)
‘Tir na n”g’, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin.