2nd – 9th September
Liverpool artist and Communication and Media student Stephen Doherty’s debut exhibition, Art as My Shadow, opens at Bridewell Studios from 1–10 September. Featuring over 250 drawings, created between the ages of 0 and 22, the collection navigates evolutionary themes of boyhood, mental health, memory and the complex dimensions of masculinity. All proceeds from artwork sales will be donated to Core Arts, a charity supporting mental health recovery through creativity.
Spanning early childhood drawings, adolescent experimentation and a body of work developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, Art as My Shadow offers an unfiltered portrait of a contemporary young man using creativity to navigate identity and silence. “Art was always how I expressed what I didn’t know how to say out loud,” says Doherty. “During the pandemic, drawing became both a mirror and a shelter.”
Doherty’s hybrid creative practice, combining illustration, writing, design, music and humour, pays homage to the cross-disciplinary approaches of Sir Peter Blake and Sir William Nicholson. Like them, his refusal to remain confined to a single medium imbues a sense of vitality and depth to his repertoire. His practice is shaped by personal narrative but realised with a design-conscious, pop-cultural sensibility.
The exhibition additionally reflects on Doherty’s long-standing affiliation with artistic storytelling. He draws particular influence from Sir William Nicholson’s iconic illustrated alphabet books, whose craft and charm first attracted him to the intersection of language and image. As a teenager, Doherty gave a talk at The Tung Auditorium in Liverpool on the legacy of Nicholson’s alphabet work, linking it to his own experimental project Alphabet Reimagined, which went on to be exhibited at Birch Studios and the Chelsea Art Society.
His past projects are illustrative of the “two sides of the Doherty coin”: on one side, a vulnerable, lo-fi album made with local artist Maria and student-run label Merciful Sound, released in dialogue with the emotive themes of this exhibition. On the other, a playful, pop-artesque collaboration with Dear Heather, an Edinburgh-based band for whom he designed cassettes and T-shirts — expressing the humour and irony that also live within his practice.
“I’m always sitting between the personal and the performative,” he says. “Between the sketchbook and the stage, the truth and the cartoon version of it. That tension is where I make work.”
Stephen’s dedication to art from an early age earned him the Art Excellence Award at The London Oratory School. He is currently studying Media and Communications at the University of Liverpool, and alongside his studies has led creative campaigns for brands such as Skechers, served as Creative Director for the University’s Football Club, and designed promotional materials for Merseyside Dementia Radio, a role undertaken in honour of his grandmother, who lives with dementia. Doherty’s ability to balance emotional candour with aesthetic precision positions him as a promising artist to watch in the years ahead.
About Bridewell Studios & Gallery
In 1976 a small group of artists rented a derelict police station and established Bridewell Studios. Artspace Merseyside was formed in 1981 as a not for profit limited company to run the organisation and after the demise of Merseyside County Council the artists secured a loan to buy the property. In 2007 English Heritage gave the building a Grade 2 listing and in 2015 the company became a charity.
Constructed circa 1846 as a police station, the large red brick building is situated on the corner of a busy thoroughfare on the eastern edge of Liverpool city centre and just opposite The Royal Liverpool University Hospital. There is much evidence of its original function still visible including a Detective Office sign at the foot of the staircase and the row of cells.
Over the last 42 years many artists have worked or had connections with the studios and gallery, including Adrian Henri, Richard Young, Stephen Broadbent, Maurice Cockrill, Ian McKeever, Anish Kapoor and the singer/songwriter David Gray. The building itself became famous in the 1980’s as one of the locations for Alan Bleasdale’s ‘Boys from the Blackstuff’.
The Bridewell currently hosts 35 studio based artists and craftspeople whose creative practice includes painting, stone/wood sculpture, jewellery, stained glass, textiles, print-making, ceramics, metal and multi media.