Born in 1970 - St Helen's, England - Stuart Hartley is a visual artist who lives and works in London. Known for fusing painting and sculpture, his artwork realises 'the presence of an incident' physically by isolating moments or encounters that interrupt the routine structure of daily life.
In his series 'Event & Incident' Hartley's work taps into the idea of collective moments and the experiences we carry and delve into when we are confronted with a choice or decision.
The works give a colourful and playful visual dance on an initial encounter, but it is with further exploration that the ideas around singular moments start to evolve. The letters used in the first ten words of a book or poem have been randomly scattered around the work, partially tucked away and hidden on the balls, reducing their significance to single letters and emphasizing the need for the author's personal history to interact with them, allowing the creative moment to happen. It is within this moment that the physical and visual play dissipates and the work shifts from the 'here and now' into an encounter with the moment just prior to creation.
