The Skinny Showcase: Barry Steadmund

Gallery | 01 Oct 2013

Showcase: Barry Steadmund

Barry Steadmund is first and foremost an acclaimed medium and investigator of the paranormal; recently, however, he has come to be regarded by many as an artist.

Although Steadmund has previously shunned this label and seen it as a secondary outcome of his research into the supernatural, he readily concedes that he does employ certain artistic techniques during his work as an intermediary.

“I suppose I can understand why people see it that way, with my use of materials and the visual nature of that side of my work,” he says. “However, while others have found artistic merit in the work I create, I have little regard for its aesthetic sensibilities; to me it is just a catalogue of evidence, a tool in my ongoing research.”

Steadmund's process firstly involves entering into a cataleptic state and, once this is achieved, alongside conventional parapsychological methodologies he frequently relies on automatic drawing and free-association writing to document mediumship. He is also known for designing and building structures which he uses to amplify and guide spiritual exchanges, and for surrounding himself with materials he has found to be effective for this purpose:

“I have found materials such as marshmallow to be very useful in the amplification of paraphysical effects. To me marshmallow acts as a sort of ectoplasm – it transcends worlds, it has so much to teach me.”

After realising that he possessed abilities beyond normal human mental capacity in his early years, Steadmund has since gone on to hone these extra-senses, developing particularly strong powers of Clairalience, Claircognisance, Clairgustance, Clairsentience and Clairaudience.

With his work being created while channelling, Steadmund often does not understand the results; his recent drawings, for example, appear to show a narrative between two characters in French, a language he claims he has never studied nor understood.

Born in Blythburgh, Suffolk, Steadmund gained qualifications in Parapsychology from the Rhine Research Center in Durham, North Carolina after beginning his career in entertainment as an intern with ITV television in Manchester. He first reached public notoriety after his alleged affairs with the nation's favourite television presenter Yvette Fielding were widely reported on in local media. Steadmund loosely admitted to the liaisons last year in an interview with the European Journal of Parapsychology and was quoted as saying “yeah we did stuff, but we never went all the way.

www.mostly-haunted.eu

Barry Steadmund: Stay, North Tea Power, until 14 Nov, free http://www.mostly-haunted.eu