The Socialist Werker

21 Nov 2025
Feature Area in The Manchester Contemporary
Newsstand Pavilion

Picture yourself across the front page.. No such thing as bad news... You are invited to pose with 'The Emperor' in P-Kiosk for a newspaper headliner..

Richard Shields is a multidisciplinary artist, working with conceptually driven traditional skills through drawing, painting and sculpture. With the use of ephemera from personal documents to mass produced objects, Shields produces interventions and site specific projects, unearthing unseen narratives behind the myth of the artist and self sustainment.
Wearing a crude paper mach' mask of his own face, Shields journeys though a range of theatrical genres from Opera, Commedia Del Art' and puppet theatres to Turntablism and social media. Emulating his intervention work with historical and modern costume, the selection of garments create contradictions in both their place in history and society. Shields is a founding member of Paradise Works studios in Salford, Manchester and a resident artist in The Bomb Factory in London where he lives.