Group Exhibition (Headline Artist)
States of Becoming – Tina Skukan Gallery, Pretoria
Featuring works from Spectral Taxonomy and the debut presentation of What Remains
28 June – 23 July 2026
FEATURED BODY OF WORK
LIMINAL SPECIMENS I–XV
Spectral Taxonomy
Liminal Specimens I–XV presents fifteen paper-based studies developed as part of the ongoing Spectral Taxonomy series. Constructed from layered Hahnemühle paper, vellum, embossing, staining, and controlled material disruption, each specimen examines a distinct state of ecological transformation.
Arranged as a taxonomic field, the works move from mineral silence and early bleaching through residual colour, dissolution, and spectral memory. Together they function as an archive of material responses to environmental loss, where paper becomes both witness and record.
COLLECTIONS
Investigations across personal and ecological systems through fragile material structures.
Material Elegies is an ongoing body of work exploring how memory, ecological change and disappearance can be held in material form. Each collection begins with sustained attention to a different subject, allowing materials to become both witness and record.
Together these collections form an evolving practice of observation through painting, sculpture, installation and artist books.
Each collection asks a different question while remaining part of the same ongoing enquiry.
What Remains
Painted surfaces exploring
botanical disappearance and fragility.
Spectral Taxonomy
Coral bleaching rendered
through layered paper lamellae.
Metamorphosis
Personal grief translated through
origami butterfly installations.
Fugitive Landscapes
Landscapes thatattends to what is passing,
unstable or already beginning to disappear.
THE ARTIST
Stephen Russell-Brett is a South African contemporary artist whose work explores memory, ecological transformation and the quiet traces left by change through material-based practice. Working between studios in Pretoria and Dublin, he creates paintings, sculpture, installation, photography and artist books that unfold through sustained attention and repeated observation.
Each collection begins with careful observation of a particular condition – whether personal, botanical or ecological – allowing materials to become both witness and record. Rather than illustrating ideas, the work develops slowly through making, repetition and sustained attention.
These collections are gathered under Material Elegies, an ongoing body of work exploring how materials can hold memory, witness disappearance and create spaces for reflection. Through paper sculpture, painting, photography, installation and moving image, each collection approaches these questions through its own distinct material language.
Stephen Russell-Brett makes works that ask very little of you when you first arrive, except your presence. Then, if you choose to stay, they continue unfolding long after the first encounter.
This approach grows from what he describes as documentation as lament. A practice in which observation, lived experience and material fragility converge.
DOCUMENTATION
Artist books, catalogue publications, and visual archives documenting the development of the Material Elegies practice.
SELECTED CRITICAL RESPONSE
” Stephen Russell-Brett’s multimedia and origami installations are a true celebration of cross-disciplinary exploration. The seamless integration of various mediums, from paper and digital artworks to video projection, creates an immersive and thought-provoking experience that challenges the viewer’s perception of art. “
RICHARD NGUYEN | 理查德·阮
Art Critic – Tokyo Contemporary Review
STUDIO NOTES
Receive slow dispatches from the studio
Occasional reflections from the studio – new works, research developments, exhibitions, and ongoing investigations within the Material Elegies framework.
STUDIO FRAGMENTS
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