Bio
Stephen Frick // Artist and Collector // Zurich and Athens
Born in England, 1970, raised in Switzerland
Builder by trade, several careers followed in tourism, gastronomy and night life
Freelancer in the film industry in Switzerland for 15yrs now
Came to Athens to start a new chapter 7yrs ago
Collages with Stamps
Almost 20yrs ago, being a music lover and collector he started to ‘personalize’ his dedicated playlists that he ‘toasted’ on CD’s by designing the CD covers with his old sticker - and stamp collection that he re-discovered in the attic. … his old stamp collection was soon used up and he started collecting afresh. He now has a so many of these small paper-squares that will last him for a lifetime … but still he happily accepts donations of old albums and collections.
Currently happy in his third workshop in Athens, his collages got bigger and bigger… and recently smaller and smaller again as he needs to sell some of his bigger artworks first to make space again.
His works started out as naive patterns but soon became more abstract and crafted. Most of his works are not immediately recognized as being made out of ordinary stamps. Cut in half, dyed in ink or being drawn with the stamps’ perforation... he’s daily exploring possibilities and effects.
Still fascinated by the mixture of graphic design, nostalgia, fonts, geography, colours, practicality, beauty in general, local and global history … plus the fact that it is – or was – a everyday-use-object not long ago, only adds to the magic.
There are many specimens of stamps that combine all of these characteristics.
He keeps dedicated albums for his ‘Best of’ stamps , - just like he creates different playlists with his music for different moods and occasions.
He sometimes gets lost in sorting and looking at them through the magnifying glass like when he was a little boy after his auntie brought him some stamps, torn from invoices, cards and letters from countries far away…
He’s not interested in filling album after album – he wants to use them, arrange, portray and exhibit them – they deserve a next life. Preferably framed and either intriguing or pleasing to the eye like other handmade piece of art.
His passion to music ideally correlates with the long spells of meditation-like stamp glue-ing. With his sticky fingers he produces and records his weekly 2hr radio show for gds.fm in his studio in Mets/Pangrati.
He will be playing an all night, eclectic DJ set on the night of his Finissage in K.O.T.E.S. on Friday 13.October.
#frick.stamps
