LONDON.- TAG Fine Arts announced a solo exhibition of Stephen Walter’s work, on view in London, July 2013. Hosted at the Londonewcastle Project Space in Shoreditch, the exhibition showcases Walter’s drawings, photographs and prints from the last four years, including his iconic London maps ‘The Island’ and ‘London Subterranea’. It also marks the launch of his latest work, ‘Nova Utopia’ – a hand-drawn map which revisits Thomas More’s famous fictional island state of Utopia, a century after a capitalist revolution has transformed its very essence.

Stephen Walter is best known for his intricate hand-drawn maps, including ‘The Island’ and the associated ‘London Series’ (2008), and ‘London Subterranea’ (2012). But cartography is just one aspect of the artist’s practice, which is informed by his knowledge of Romantic landscape traditions, the concept of utopia (and dystopia), and contemporary culture’s obsession with symbols and logos. Walter packs his work with visual and textual information, building up layers of communication on one plane. By doing so he demonstrates the complexity of his subjects, as well as the subjectivity of his response. Walter’s work questions the ability of the artist, working with traditional landscape, cartography and drawing techniques, to communicate a world which is saturated with information, constantly expanding, changing and reorganising itself.

My maps are a critique and a celebration of place, and the stories, histories and perceptions that inhabit them: I act as an editor or a filter through which the information is laid down. --Stephen Walter

Stephen Walter studied Fine Art at Manchester Metropolitan University (first class) and completed an MA in printmaking at the Royal College of Art in London. His major project ‘The Island: London Series’ was published by TAG Fine Arts in 2008 and has received sustained critical acclaim. In 2010 he was one of just two living artists to be included in ‘Magnificent Maps: Power, Propaganda and Art’ at the British Library, and in 2012 he was commissioned by the London Transport Museum to create ‘London Subterranea’ for their major group exhibition ‘Mind the Map.’ Walter’s work has been acquired for the Government Art Collection, and has toured to venues including the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Courtauld Institute of Art.