Stephen Howarth

Stephen Purbeck Howarth (born 23 July 1981), known as S.P., is a poet, Stuckist artist and actor. He was expelled from college for his paintings. He has demonstrated against the Turner prize at the Tate gallery.

Life and work Stephen Howarth was born in Lewisham, London and educated at St Christopher School, Letchworth. He is severely dyslexic. In 2000, he attended Camberwell College of Arts and was in the Students for Stuckism group. In 2002, he was "expelled from the painting course for doing paintings." Other students supported him and there were also letters of support in the newspaper.

Stephen Howarth's show, I Don't Want a Painting Degree if It Means Not Painting, 2002, at the Stuckism International Gallery. Howarth was then given the inaugural show at the Stuckism International Gallery in Shoreditch, with the title I Don't Want a Painting Degree if it Means Not Painting. He was in the first group show at the gallery, The Stuckists First International, and subsequent shows.

Sarah Kent in Time Out called his painting, Midnight in the hotel Suburbia, "soft porn". He responded that it was "hard porn".

After college he worked in a gallery, bar and factory, and as a labourer. As well as a number of other slam titles including "Bard of Brixton." Is estimated to have performed at over a hundred venues in the U.S. and U.K. His publications of poetry are Poet, Painter, Pervert (Coffin Press) and Noteless Nocturnes to the Never-Ending Night (Coffin Press) (both, now out of print).

Howarth has worked as an actor in theatre productions, including Midsummer Night's Dream, A Comedy of Errors, and the rock musical Rasputin Rocks!, for which he was a co-writer with Andrew Hobbs, Lucyelle Cliffe and Alistair Smith. These were produced by Facsimile Productions. In the summer 2009 Howarth collaborated again with Andrew Hobbs of Facsimile Productions in writing a new play entitled Bacchus in Rehab. The play made its world premiere at the Etcetera Theatre in London, with Howarth cast in the title role and Anton Shelupanov in the role of Hades. Additionally Howarth co-wrote and starred in a short film, An Angry Young Man, and his poem A Brief History of south east England was used in a short film of the same name. Both can be seen on YouTube.

He has recently posed for a series of paintings by the artist Richard Bagguley.