Stephen Russell-Brett

Stephen Russell-Brett is a material-based contemporary artist whose work investigates memory, ecological loss, and transformation through fragile material systems.

Working between Pretoria and Dublin, his practice forms part of the research framework Material Elegies, where vulnerable materials translate personal grief and environmental change into visual form.

Through paper sculpture, painting, photography, and moving image, the work explores how absence can be made visible through surfaces that erode, fracture, and transform over time.

EXHIBITIONS & PROJECTS

2026 – Upcoming
Headline Artist Group Exhibition
Tina Skukan Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa

2024 – Art of Print
Print-based works

2020 – Metamorphosis In-Situ Installation
Sorex Estate, Pretoria, South Africa
Site-specific installation | 2,444 individual origami butterflies
Immersive field installation exploring grief, memory, and transformation

2020 – Metamorphosis
UNISA Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa
Group exhibition

2018 – The Other I
UNISA Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa
Group exhibition

2012 – Rethink, Recycle, Reuse
St. Laurient Gallery, Pretoria, South Africa
Group exhibition | Environmental art focus

COLLECTIONS

Private collections in South Africa, Ireland, Australia, Belgium, UK, Japan and the Netherlands.

Permanent commissioned installation
Royal Delft 365-Year Commemorative Artwork
The Hague, Netherlands

MEDIA & PUBLICATIONS

2025
Artist Interview
Stephen Russell-Brett – Material Elegies
SF Atelier

2024
Metamorphosis Catalogue
Artist publication

ARTIST STATEMENT

Through fragile materials and deliberate attention, I translate data, memory, and ecological testimony into elegy.

Where scientific record-keeping pursues clarity and preservation, my work embraces fragility and impermanence as methodology.

Material becomes witness.