Project Native Informant presents GIANT ATOMS, the sixth solo exhibition by British artist Sean Steadman, coinciding with London Gallery Weekend. Through painting, drawing and printmaking Steadman creates complex compositions through iterative processes informed by many threads of art history, and an interest in the natural sciences and technology.

GIANT ATOMS features woodcut prints made this year using blended European and Japanese techniques. Each print is comprised of multiple layers, starting with a foundational wood block which is hand-printed using a barren, applying an ink made of starch paste and watercolour. This systematised yet hand-coloured process creates subtle unique variations in each print. Steadman views these works as bridging his painting and printmaking practices, achieving painterly marks and complexity of surface while maintaining the repeatability of composition from the underlying carved blocks.

Labelling the origin of each work’s forms is difficult because they are worked on intuitively and iteratively, not from source material. However, animal and bird-like figures, spirals, lattices, and heads have absorbed a plethora of influences—occasional family resemblances to the pastoral, vague hints of Samuel Palmer, fragments of esoteric or medieval printmaking, futurism, and Japanese Ukiyo-e.

For Steadman, printmaking serves as his primary laboratory for generating ideas. The medium requires working semi-blind and back-to-front, offering less control than direct mediums like drawing or painting. He describes making these works as “trying to turn falling snow into cursive script”—chaotic experimentation involving guessing, hoping and testing to achieve the right combination of colour and marks.

The physical process is demanding, particularly for larger works, requiring action painting-style ink application on the floor at speed to outpace drying times. Steadman employs intuitive, adapted techniques to achieve his desired touch and precision. All works were printed by the artist alone in his studio without conventional printing studio assistance, resulting in a DIY methodology that defines this body of work.

Steadman has written an accompanying text to this exhibition that considers the tradition of romanticism and its relevance in thinking about art today. It details how the artist shares the romantic view that art is a way of connecting with the vast, incomprehensible forces of nature that our everyday perception can’t fully grasp, and that this pursuit should be replenished as a central concern for artists. This exhibition suggests a rejuvenated and updated expressionist or romantic-type perspective is appropriate to digest the complexity and scale and chaos of today.