Stuart Semple’s work deals with dark and often sombre themes: struggle, disappointment, fear, death and a nostalgia and yearning for lost innocence. His works linger on moments where hope and dreaming are stripped away; where the sense of invincibility associated with childhood is exposed to loss and replaced with the acceptance of the inevitability of death.

 

Despite the darker themes in his work, there is often a spark, too, of optimism, hope and playfulness. One of Semple’s most notable pieces,

 

Happy Cloud (2009), was staged outside the Tate Modern and saw an excess of 2000 foam smiley faces released into the sky at the height of the recession.

 

He is an ambassador for the mental health charity Mind with a passion for creative therapies.

 

‘Happy Cloud’ will be recreated on the opening night of the ‘People never notice anything’ exhibition in London (June 2016) & will be an apt inclusion following the latest government austerity measures.