About
Stephen Burke is an Irish artist, curator and documentarian. He holds a masters in painting from the Glasgow School of Art (2018) and was recently awarded the Gilbert Bayes Award for early-career sculptors from the Royal Society of Sculptors (2025). Stephen is the founder of the social media platform Post Vandalism which archives art practices that explore the ideas and aesthetics of graffiti. The platform fosters support from a wide international community and inspired an edition of Kunstforum International, Germany's leading journal for contemporary art. Burke also co-founded the London based curatorial collective Pigeon Park, which organises large-format exhibitions in industrial spaces. This project was created in response to the post pandemic threat posed to artists’ working conditions in the wake of the Covid crisis. Stephen has completed residencies in Prague, Berlin, and London and exhibited work in institutions like Kunstverein Hannover, Het Hem, Cromwell Place and the RHA. His work has also been exhibited in outdoor sculpture venues, including the UNESCO-listed Völklingen Ironworks.
Stephen’s work explores how the design of public space shapes our experience of modern city life. As rapid urban growth, changing political priorities, and the cost-of-living crisis reorder our cities, Stephen asks whether public spaces remain truly public and equitable for everyone. He creates studio and public based works that transform mass-produced industrial materials from the city through slower, handmade processes into sculptures, paintings, installations and video. The resulting works are an index of urban conditions and a proposition for an alternative material economy, where industrial matter is transformed through labour and a sensitivity to the relationship between people and the city. His aim is to encourage a greater curiosity in our built environment and to have a positive impact on how people think about the places they inhabit.