Stephanie Douet Norfolk, United Kingdom

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Stephanie Douet lives and works in rural Norfolk, and read Art History at UEA and Fine Art at NUA. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally, including V&A, Modern Art Oxford, Istanbul Art Fair, Creekside Open, the Museum of Legacies, Jaipur, with a solo exhibition at the Croatian Embassy in London in 2024. Douet was shortlisted for the Contemporary British Painting Prize in 2019.

I make highly coloured wooden, cloth and clay sculptures that offer the viewer an absurdist theatrical encounter. Each piece is lifesize, each iteration of them is a unique arrangement , installed in a flurry of improvisation that is a response to the architecture of every new site.

Each sculpture adds to an ongoing cast of historical, comedic, musical or political characters and objects based on the human form.

The starting points for my sculptures are readings, drawings, diagrams and collages of whatever is engrossing me - currently it’s Brutalist monuments in Former Yugoslavia, images of masculine power and Edward Lear’s landscape drawings. I began by filling sketchbooks with drawings and plans, making albums of relevant photos, blogs, other artists’ work and texts.

I make the sculptures from plywood, polymer clay and cloth, using techniques I’ve developed over the years and teaching myself what I need to know. I treat my sculptures both as exploratory forms that evolve in the making, and as substrates for painting , the two processes interacting with each other.

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