Charlie Stiven was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. Over the past 30 years his work has been shown widely throughout the U.K., Europe and the U.S.A., and is held in numerous public and private collections.
He has held solo exhibitions in Edinburgh, London, New York, Bern, Gdansk, Wroclaw & Belgrade, and participated in numerous group shows including those in Berlin, Boston, St Louis, Basel, Madrid, Zurich & Seoul.
He has received a variety of awards and prizes including those from IAAB Basel and the British Council, has held artists residencies in Serbia & Switzerland, and is an Academician of the Royal Scottish Academy.
Charlie Stiven lectures in Painting at ECA where he recently completed a 3 year cycle as Programme Director of Painting. He is also Course Organiser for ‘The Model – Making & Meaning’ elective course, and has instigated projects with students of the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Kunste, Stuttgart, and the Universitat der Kunst, Berlin.
Other recent activities include conference participation in ‘Politics & Performance’ at Green Park, Athens, ‘Reading Architecture’ at Stirling University, ans ‘Art, Materiality & Representation’ at The British Museum, London.
Charlie Stiven’s current studio practice takes the form of highly crafted, composite architectural models derived from the form, function & condition of vernacular European street kiosks. He sees these low tech, small scale transient structures as being representative of a broad range of social, economic & political points of tension existent today, their design, detailing and concentrated construction intended to evoke an intensity of atmospheric which resonates with contemporary cultural flux.