After a first degree in science, Stephen gained a  BA (Hons) Fine Art - Sculpture  from University of the West Of England in 1997 and now teaches on the foundation course at Gloucester College of Art & Technology.  He is also Arts & Crafts Director p/t for the Touchwood Partnership -  (Countryside Agency).

"Alone on night-watch, aboard an old schooner in the Atlantic Ocean, I made the decision to leave behind a science and engineering career and set a new course towards the arts.  The years since then have been an exploration.  My progress charted by successes and failures, art college grades, commissions and exhibition brochures.

Throughout the journey I have been searching, trying to locate a contemporary maritime art.  Years ago, when Whistler set sail, the sea was an inspiration that put him at the fore-front of art practice.  But today marine art is pre-occupied with tradition.  Nostalgia is a siren, a beautiful temptress who sings to me across the water, but I know I should drown if I answer her call.  No, the scientist in me demands to speak in a contemporary voice.

It is not easy.  It is like trying to find an uncharted island at night. My trusty sextant is a precious object.  It has beauty, function and precision, but is completely useless in the dark. The ship’s log records tantalising clues, written by earlier helmsmen - Briscoe, Hemy, Turner and Wyllie, however their waymarks are obscured, for the sands have shifted since they passed this way. I peer forward into the darkness and glimpse the future, illuminated for a second by the sweeping beam of a lighthouse behind me.  These bright beacons stand on headlands, named for the ones who inhabit high ground - Cragg, Hirst, Kirkeby and Wentworth.  They provide some reassurance when it comes to plotting a course, but identify only the places that are well known. Ahead the waters are unknown, and there is no fairway.  The last vessel I saw was the Joseph Beuys sailing under a European flag, but she dipped below the horizon some time ago.  Before she went her skipper gave me oil for my lamp and passed on these directions...

Protect the flame,
Since if you fail to do that,
Before you’ve noticed
The wind will extinguish the light it provides.
Then break o wretched heart, silent with pain. 
(Willhelm Lehmbruck)

Picking up materials from the deck I begin to work.  With the ropes and pulleys, I try to reflect the awesome power of the sea.  Adding a baulk of timber gives me a feel for the density of water and the velocity of the current.  Turning a lens, I attempt to bring the unimaginable vastness into focus.  So vast, and yet composed of molecules whose smallness is equally unimaginable.  Taking a glass and reaching over the bulwark to scoop up some of the briny substance, I summon the faculties of both science and art to contemplate the sublime...

In this glass of sea water there are more atoms, 
than glasses of water in the sea.   (Richard Dawkins)

On the rail now, and clipped to a jackstay, I lean out and lower the ship’s lead into the black waters, feeling for the leather washers that measure the depth below.  Back in the wheelhouse the dim lamp tilts on the gimbal ring and it is time to pencil another mark on the chart." Stephen Rowley