BIOGRAPHY
Holly Stevenson is a British artist living and working in London. Ceramic and psychoanalytic processes enmesh within her work and the resulting idiosyncratic forms play with associations trapped between mind and bodily matters. She graduated from Chelsea College of Art and Design, Fine Art MA in 2011 and was awarded the MFI Flat Time House Graduate Award, supported by the John Latham Foundation. In 2021 she received her first public sculpture commission for Another Mother from theCOLAB for The Artist’s Garden and in 2023 she exhibited The Debate at Frieze Sculpture, an installation that reinterpreted the symbolic egg.
Psychoanalysis is understood to be both a practical and informative part of her art making: Her long running project Sigmund Freud’s Ashtray explored the smoker’s artefact - Freud’s favourite ashtray - in clay as a fluid bodily metaphor: In 2022 her auto-fictional essay A cigar is never just a cigar (Renaro) was published in Morley and in 2025 as the first Freud Artist Resident she held an exhibition, Tracing the Irrectraceable at the Freud Museum funded by ACE. In 2026 her work will be seen at the Sainsbury Centre in Norwich, RAMM in Exeter and MAC Ludovico Corrao in Gibellina.
EDUCATION
2011
Chelsea College of Art and Design, MA FA
2001
University of Glasgow MA Hons, History of Art
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
TRACING the IRRETRACEABLE
The Freud Museum London 14/05 – 29/06/2025
2025
The Surreal Hand,Saltoun Online, Richard Saltoun Gallery
2024
TRACING the IRRETRACEABLEThe Jane McAdam Freud Museum and Gallery in collaboration with The Sigmund FreudBirthplace Museum in Príbor, CZ
2023
Frieze Sculpture, curated by Fatos Üstek, London, UK
2022
Shoppers, Shoes & Sacks,AWITAx J W ANDERSON, offsite Sid Motion Gallery, London UK
ANOTHER MOTHER Public sculpture commission, The CoLAB, Temple, The Artist’s Garden, London, UK
2021
READING BETWEEN THE LINES: Holly Stevenson, Sid Motion Gallery, London, UK
2020
What does it mean to Mother? NEW COMMISSION, Procreate Project, London, UK
2013
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2025
FLOWERS - Flora in contemporary art & culture, Saatchi Gallery, London, UK
MARY, MARY, theCOLAB, Artist’s Garden, London, UK
Sorry about the mess Curated by Babe Station, Bow Arts, 125 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, UK
CURE³ 2025 Curated by Artwise, Bonhams, London, UK
2024
Suppose You Are Not,curated by Selen Ansen, Arter, Istanbul, TR
The Nature of Things curated by Jane Hayes Greenwood, Castor Gallery, London, UK
Drawing Biennial 2024, Drawing Room, London, UK
Caroline Gray & Holly Stevenson,Salon Show II, Caroline Fisher Projects, London, UK
Loose Ends, Thames Side Studios Gallery, London, UK
IWD Auction, Art On A Postcard, selected by CURA Art, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation, London, UK
2023
Body Poetics,GIANT, Bournemouth, UK
Decentering in Ceramics,Laboratorio Piramide,Richard Saltoun Gallery, Rome, IT
Preconscious Landscape,Ainalaiyn Space Exposed Arts Projects, London, UK
Let Them Eat Fake, Bad Art Presents at Brushes With Greatness, London, UK
‘I’m All For Yellow’ Commissioned riso print edition of 100, Ellipses Prints Against the Patriarchy made at London Center for Book Arts. Exh. Shoreditch Arts Club, London, UK.
2022
HAND-HELD: Itinerant exhibition in a box, London, UK
An Ode to Orlando, curated by Marcelle Joseph Projects, Pi Artworks, London, UK
STILL LIFE / LIFE STILL, OHSH Projects, London, UK
Georgia Szmerling X Holly Stevenson, Peer/Peer, Art et al. Season One Cromwell Place, London, UK
Body en Thrall, GIRL POWER and Marcelle Joseph Projects, Rugby Art Gallery and Museum, UK
Smoke! Smoke! Smoke! Nadir Project Space, Brighton, UK
BORN FROM EARTH,Richard Saltoun Gallery, London, UK
A Space for Healing, The Healing Collective, GIANT Gallery, Bournemouth, UK
Bag, Pedestal, Rabbit, Potato, Staffordshire St, London UK
Art et al. X APA: Intersect 3-25 September 2022 | Collingwood Yards, Melbourne, AU
2021
CERAMICS: THE CENTRAL CORE, Part II, Richard Saltoun Gallery, London, UK
Les Danses Nocturnes, East Contemporary, Milan, offsite Spread Museum, Entrevaux, FR
In Momentum, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London, UK
PROCREATE PROJECTS, Violet Costello & Holly Stevenson Art Basel: OVR Portals, Richard Saltoun Gallery
2020
Small Is Beautiful, 38th edition, Flowers Gallery, London, UK
Mother Art Prize 2020, Procreate Project, Cromwell Place, London, UK
The Collector’s Room, curated by Karen David, JGM Gallery, London, UK
Holly Stevenson & Lydia Hardwick, Caroline Fisher Projects, Norwich, UK
Thanks A Pot: Holly Stevenson and Anja Lubach, The White Box Gallery, London, UK
2019
Turner Fringe Prize The Walpole bay Hotel and Museum, Margate, UK
STRUCTURES THAT CO-OPERATE GET PAID! Cubitt Gallery, London, UK
2018
Window Project 2012-2018, Gazelli Art House, London, UK
Waiting Room, curated by Karen David Wimbledon Space, UAL, UK
2017
IN QUOTES, curated by Ann-Marie James, East Gallery NUA, Norwich, UK
Window Sill, curated by Karen David, Griffin Gallery, London, UK
Pivots and Spins, Access Gallery, Vancouver, BC
2016
The shift: MFI Conceptual Yard Sale, Eight Years of Flat Time House. London, UKThe First International Emei Contemporary Art Exhibition: Curated by Jia Fangzhou, Sichuan, CN
2015
WISH YOU WERE HERE? Jeremy Cooper Postcard Collection, Art Circuit touring exhibition, UK
La Tua Libreria Ed I Suoi Segreti, curated by Oliver Griffin, Mahler–LeWitt Studios, Spoleto, IT
2014
Library Interventions: Sharon Kivland, Leeds College of Art, UK
The Postcard Is A Public Work Of Art, X Marks the Bökship, London, UK
2013
Artlacuna Prize, selected by Sonia Boyce, London, UK
2012
MINITS 4, PAMI (Peckham Artist Moving Image), Flat Time House, London, UK
Bringing Home The Art, Deptford X Fringe, London, UK
Creative Cities Collection, The Barbican Arts Centre, London, Olympic Museum, Beijing, CN
2011
MA Fine Art Degree Show, Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, UK
2010
VHS, Sunshine Frère & Holly Stevenson, Tenderpixel, London, UK
Parallax, Woodmill Exhibition & Project Space, Bermondsey, UK
Tenderflix: Experimental film, Rushes Soho Shorts, London, UK
Magmart/Video Under Volcano Palazzo delle Arti Napoli, Naples, IT
Video Art – Group Screening Exhibition, Oblong Gallery, London, UK
2009
Precious Currency, The Dirty Square Gallery, London, UK
Testing Testing 1,2,3…, The Outside World Gallery, London, UK
PERFORMANCE AND PUBLISHED ART WRITING
2025
Holly Stevenson: Tracing the Irretraceable. Artist monograph, designed by Joe Hales
ISBN 978-1-7393008-9-0
2024
Your Heart Is In My Hand A candle lit procession with Cantus Venuste from the Birth House to the The Jane McAdam Freud Museum and Gallery, Príbor, CZ
2023
EGGISM: How Would You Eat Yours?The vegan egg project, performed in 3 Egg Acts with Huma Kabakci
Frieze 2023, London UK
2022A cigar is never just a cigarwritten forMorleyed. Scot Mason, published by renaro press on behalf Two Queens, Leicester, UK
2021Wait Like Penelopewritten for The Waiting Place,curated by Ann-Marie James & Emily Godden, The Art Station, Saxmundham, UK
2016Worse Than Usual written for INVASION MANUAL, Ed. Anna Salmane & P. Mulligan, Latvian State Capital Foundation, Art Lacuna, London, UK
2014CRITIC: IV. Guest critic for Artishok Biennale Mukusala Art Salon, Riga, EE
Neo-Truth Work,commissioned fiction, a final account in formation: Scott Mason, MK Gallery, UK:RenaroISBN 978 0 9929838 1 9
Tear to Care, MA BIBLIOTHÈQUE. ISBN 978-1-908452-31-3
2013A History Of Getting Smashed performed for Sex, Death & Cocktails, ArtLacuna, London. AND Public. ISBN 978-1-908452-31-3
AWARDS & RESIDENCIES
2024Unlocking Collections Award, National Lottery Project Grant, Arts Council England
2024 Jane McAdam Freud Artist Residency, UK and CZ
2024 Body and Place Residency, The CoLAB, Owlpen Manor, UK
2022Laboratorio Piramide Fellowship, Rome, IT
2022Artist in Residence The Artists Garden, CoLab, Temple
20211:1 Fund, Jerwood Arts
2021DYCP Award, Arts Council England
2020 Mother Art Prize Finalist
2020 Project Grant, Arts Council England
2020 New Commission Award: Procreate Project and Arts Council England
2013Gazelli Art House, Window Project Graduate Award
2012 MFI, Flat Time House Graduate Award: John Latham Archive and Foundation
2012 UAL Graduate Fellowship
2012Art Catlin Guide
2010 Stanley Picker Bursary