Artist Statement
I photograph intimate and emotional relations between couples. The images are taken from daily life, and the subjects are myself and my wife. I focus on unguarded moments showing a couple eating, resting, talking, feeling bored, listless, being sexual, et cetera—living—to capture intimate psychological and emotional feelings between two people. Influences have been the films of Fassbinder and Ingmar Bergman and renaissance and Nineteenth Century painting. I see what is in front of me, feel an emotional and visceral connection, and capture this in photographs. Documenting how people live their lives, my photographs trace the poetry and lyricism of daily life.

These images are taken as if there was no camera--or photographer--in the room. As a result, we experience a couple’s life unfold, see their unguarded moments, and watch them just exist.

 

 

Steve photographs dark landscapes and intimate and emotional relations between couples using a digital camera. Earning his MFA from Yale University, Steve has been awarded fellowships to attend Yaddo artist residencies in 2001, 2002 and 2010.

Museums collecting his work have included Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,
The Brooklyn Museum of Art, Yale University Museum of Art, The Butler Institute of Art, The California Museum of Photography, Winnipeg Art Gallery and The Lowe Art Museum, Miami, Florida, among others. Solo museum exhibitions include the California Museum of Photography, the Butler Institute of American Art, Fotogalerie Wien, Vienna, the VELAN Center, Torino, Italy, and the University of the Arts, Philadelphia.

Steve has worked with Jim Kempner Fine Art in New York, where he has been in numerous exhibitions, including a one person exhibition which was reviewed by Art in America in 2008. Steve’s work has been included in exhibitions in Europe and North America at museums and galleries with artists such as Jeff Wall, Sam Taylor Wood, Larry Sultan, and Richard Billingham. Group exhibitions include the Brooklyn Museum, the Contemporary Art Center, Cincinnati, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Sadler’s Wells, London, with Thomas Joshua Cooper, Exit Art, and was selected by Gregory Crewdson for an exhibition at White Columns in New York. Besides more than a dozen group shows in New York, other gallery shows have been in Spain, Chicago, Miami.

Reviews have been published in Art in America, Tema Celeste and Zoom magazine and his work has appeared in the New York Times. Steve has self published three books. He has also participated in many art fairs in Art Chicago, Art Miami, Ink, and his photographs have been in auction at Sotheby’s and at several benefit events. Filmmaker David McDonald, as part of the series, “The Mystery of Creativity,” has created a brief video about him and his work. Steve also invented a hand held large format camera.