“Everything gets thrown out.
If you can give it purpose, you give it new life.”
Growing up on a remote Western Australian Wheatbelt farm near Hyden, home of Wave Rock, Stephen learned how to work with whatever was to hand.
Life on a broadacre farm necessitated becoming a ‘jack of all trades’, and so Stephen became a welder, a machine repairman, labourer, handyman, inventor and construction worker from an early age.
In his spare time, Stephen’s quiet but curious and creative nature quickly led him to develop an artistic eye; attaching mirrors to a windmill for a bit of flair; building and driving a land-yacht; even teaching himself how to hand-construct a straw bale observatory to more closely observe the stars in the inky darkness of Hyden’s unlit skies.
That early independence sparked a lifelong habit. Stephen saw discarded or broken objects and instead of their current state beheld the endless possibilities of what they could become. Today, as an artist and creator trading under the name Black Arrow Designs, Stephen transforms reclaimed scrap metal, wood, and found materials into inspired sculptures and unusual home decor.
Each piece is indelibly marked with the patina of time and place, reimagined memories made into character-filled creations. Their form may have changed but they continue to evoke an air of resilience, resourcefulness and remote, rural living.
Whether shaping discarded steel into powerful forms, or crafting abstract works from weathered farm tools, Stephen’s art is about bringing the forgotten back into the picture.
Living just outside Albany on Western Australia’s southern coast, he is now working to turn his property into an outdoor gallery, a place where his large-scale pieces can be experienced in the open air, with nature as the backdrop.