Steve Lovett - What i do when im not here

Blog Question: How has Steve Lovett's practice evolved over the period of his professional career, ie. from political, social/historical concerns to issues of colour and form.

Today we had the privileged to have a presentation from our lecturer Steve Lovett. I have been keen to learn about Steve's practices as he is one of my favourite lectures. Additionally i am more interested in 2D art, therefore i really enjoy and can do well in Steve's lectures, the only other lecturer that i can relate in this way is Frances Hansen from last week. Steve always have interesting art/artists that help to inspire us in class, and i am bewildered by the amount of knowledge he has. Not only on the subject of art, but many aspects of life in general. Therefore i looked forward to see some art from Steve and what field of context he explores in his works.

In the first slide titled 'What i do when im not here', Steve written out a short summary of the ideas he work around with. His subjects are quite personal, like a story telling of one's self; a narrative background history or a private historical individual. This deals with the concept of the passing of time, the transition, and the loss that come with the change.

As it's clear to see in Steve's earlier works, which he stated many were collaborative works, the ideas are mainly revolving around the social aspects of people that makes up an individual profile, like he said, 'we ain't singular, we are social animals.'

This reminded me of Dion's social interactive works. Similar to Dion who also constructed many collaborative art works with fellow friends, and explore in dealing with self identification. Steve's ideas are about communicating between one and antoher, negoiation and understanding, as well as getting the audience to respond to the artwork.

Steve focuses on working about others, therefore he makes himself 'invisible' in his artworks. I especially enjoy the work 'Speaking Parts', the work is printed portraits of people lined next to eachother accompanied by audios of over lapped voices. I like the use of technology here as it gives the work another dimension, here the voices adds to the individual identity for each person. Just like Steve said 'we all carry story with us, which makes us who we are.'

I feel that there's a transition in Steve's ideas at this point, as he start to explore further into the idea of personal history, he started working on looking back at memories and the sense of single things gets layered. Many of the artworks after the Speaking Parts, such as 'Echo Chamber', have figures looking into the distance, as a motif of looking back at life.

An photography artist that Steve's works reminded me of is Bernard Descamps.

Descamps features figures in empty/closed in spaces looking into the distant horizon/sky, never facing the camera.
I also noticed that Steve deals quite alot with space as well, especially in the work 'Edge and Corner' where the one figure is facing a wall and another is at the edge of a cliff that descends into the ocean, which represent where one's place is in the world.

This shifts Steve into the next phase, he started working with the concept of spaces. Works he made during this time is also the most political orientated.

He made several prints that are in the format similar to a photography sequence. Some of the works that was made during this political phase are 'Trespass', 'Intersection' and 'Paradise now'

All in which are looking a series of shots, formated like a film sequence, that gives a sense time. These works deals greatly on the idea of private space vs public space, as Steve explains that the message is to show that, with the change the time, what once can be enjoyed together, becomes private and gets taken away from the public. This connects to the idea he mentioned at the beginning of class, time-transition-loss.

Steve soon started moving away from the political issues and began to focus his interest on simply the color and form in art. What started from the concept of private space vs public space, led Steve into looking at what can be seen and what was hidden hidden. Even in his most recent works, the idea on actual holes vs optical holes is still being explored. I really like Steve's most recent print, which have a hole in the middle of the page and on the back a neon orange was printed. When linning the work close to the wall, an orange glow can be seen through the hole. I was reminded of one of my favourite artworks by Yoshitoro Nara.

This is an installation by Nara that can only be seen through a peeping-hole.

I am very inspired by Steve's lecture. He was able to develop his idea further and push new ideas into what he originally started with. The idea began with personal profile and it slowly transformed into a deeper concept that deals with a political issue about privacy and publicity, finally it drifts into exploring the seen and hidden form and color. I am interested to see how his work will progress to change in the near future.

(Steve is the man)