Dr David Steans is Senior Lecturer on the MA Fine Art course. In 2019 he completed his PhD in Fine Art at University of Leeds. He is also a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and was part of the co-founding year of School of the Damned.

David Steans is an artist and writer based in Leeds, UK. Working in text, moving image, sound, installation, and collage, across his visual art and narrative writing he uses repetition and iteration to disquieting, uncanny effect. Drawing influence from genre horror, metafiction, and various vernacular aesthetics, he creates a sense of strangeness in technologies of cultural production. His method involves a kind of ‘versioning’, whereby projects and ideas are developed through successive iterations. This is a process he associates with the mutations and spectral residues of genre dynamics.



Recent projects include Poorly Moon, commissioned by Yorkshire Contemporary ('Cabaret Mystic' 2026), Mummy Hood Nesting Forest (2022), commissioned by Primary, Nottingham, and Puppy the Goblin (2020), screened at Tate Britain in 2022. He has written erotic Deftones fan-fiction for Vice Magazine (Gore Portal, 2025), legend-tripped a cursed tv show for ‘Documents of Contemporary Art: Magic’ (Curtainz, 2021), and published a collection of experimental horror stories for Deptford X, now held in Tate Library (From the Lounge, 2018).

Articles

Steans, David. (2026). ‘Fairy Trap’. In: Boot Magazine, Issue 4: Earth Synthetic.

Steans, David. (2025). ‘Msn (Gore Portal)’. In: Vice Magazine, Fall 2025: The Be Quiet and Drive Issue.

Steans, David. (2025). 'The Pit'. In: Future Fields. East Leeds Project.

Steans, David. (2025). 'Sam Keelan'. In: Jerwood Survey III Catalogue. Southwark Park Galleries.

Pandhal, H. and Steans, D. (2020) ‘Hardeep’s Egg’, Journal of Writing in Creative Practice, 13 (1), pp. 9–11.

Book Sections

Steans, David. 2024. ‘Decade of the Damned: Notes on S.O.T.D 2013 - 2023’. In: R. Hudson-Miles and J. Goodman, eds., Cooperative Education, Politics, and Art: Creative, Critical, and Community Resistance to Corporate Higher Education. Routledge.

Pandhal, H. and Steans, D. 2024. 'In Conversation: Hardeep Pandhal and David Steans'. In: A. Dawood, ed., Hardeep Pandhal: Inheritance Quest. Black Dog Press.

Steans, David. (2021) Curtainz. In: J. Sutcliffe, ed., Documents of Contemporary Art: Magic. MIT Press and Whitechapel Gallery.

Steans, D. (2019) Gravediggers. In: D. Holmes and S. Kivland, eds., The Graveside Orations of Carl Einstein. Ma Bibliothèque.

Steans, D. (2014) Letter #2 (Gratitude). In: P. Becker, A. Cecchetti and F. Pedraglio, eds., Cadavere Quotidiano. Project X Foundation.

Creative Projects

Steans, D. (2021) Curtainz.

Steans, D. (2019) Necrotic Biography Room.

Steans, D. (2018) From the Lounge. Hastings: Deptford X.

Exhibitions

Solo Exhibition. David Steans: Paperhouse. 24 September—10 December 2026. Blenheim Walk Gallery, Leeds Arts University

Group Exhibition. 20 June—13 July 2025. Perennial. Haarlem Artspace, Wirksworth, Derbyshire.

Screening. 23 March 2025. Hexham Heads & Artist Films. Full of Noises, Cumbria.

Group Exhibition. 30 June 2023. I am carried along down the stream. Personeelskamer, Amsterdam

Group Exhibition. 15 Feb—30 April 2023. Leeds Artists Show. Leeds Art Gallery

Group Exhibition. 13 January—30 April 2023. The Advantages of Being Boneless and Incomplete. Banner Repeater, London

Solo Exhibition. 9—18 December 2022. RATS IN THE HOSPITAL. Screw Gallery, Leeds

Screening. 19 November 2022. Show and Share: Visions of the Occult. Tate Britain, London

Solo Digital Commission. 5 November 2022—ongoing. Mummy Hood Nesting Forest. Primary, Nottingham [online]

Solo Commission. 2021. [untitled window display]. Whitechapel Gallery and Koenig Books Bookshop, London.

Group Exhibition. (2021) Come Together. Workplace Gallery, Gateshead/London [online]. 18 February – 20 March 2021.

Group Exhibition. (2020) Re-shift, Re-calibrate. Pavilion, Leeds [online]. 10 – 17 August 2020.

Group Exhibition. (2019) Ecstatic Rituals. Humber Street Gallery, Hull. 7 September – 20 October 2019.

Group Exhibition. (2018) DEPTFORD X 2018. Platform Commission, Deptford X Festival, London. 21 – 30 September 2018.

Group Exhibition. (2018) AS MUCH ABOUT FORGETTING. Viborg Kunsthal, Denmark. 7 September – 25 November 2018.

Group Exhibition. (2018) MANTEL. Copperfield Gallery, London. 16 February – 10 March 2018.

Group Exhibition. (2017) Medieval City-One. 2 Queens, Leicester. 17 June – 2 September 2017.

Group Exhibition. (2016) Mould Map 6 - TERRAFORMERS. Bonington Gallery, Nottingham Trent University. 17 September – 21 October 2016.

Group Exhibition. (2016) SNAKE HORSE GOAT MONKEY: 4 Years of The School of the Damned. Guest Projects, London. 25 May – 30 May 2016.

Performances

Steans, D. (2026) Poorly Moon. Cabaret Mystic, Yorkshire Contemporary, Rowland Road WMC, Leeds. 18 June 2026

Hardeep Pandhal and David Steans (2023). Good Bad Books? (Horror). Barbican Library, London. 16 September 2023.

Steans, D. (2019) Award-winning Scarecrow. Fieldwork, Haarlem Artspace. 24 August 2019.

Steans, D. (2018) Gruesome FX. Triangle Arts, Brooklyn. 23 May 2018.

Steans, D. (2017) Crime World. The Tetley, Leeds. 29 March 2017.

Steans, D. (2017) Hiddy Sculpture. Stories from the Sculpture City, Henry Moore Institute, Leeds. 8 February 2017