Christopher Stevens - Fine Artist

But Not for The Golden

 

Photorealism and the photorealistic painting cannot exist without photography and the photograph. My goal is to advance photorealism by incorporating elements beyond the photograph itself. Exploring the way we see the world while challenging the contemporary expectations of art and the relationship between painting and photography.

 

I also set out to explore my own concepts regarding past work that solely focused on an idealized view of America in the 1950’s. While my family experienced one version of this time, a “golden age” as it was explained to me, it was vastly different for other families, races, religions, etc. This work reconsiders the documentation of events and the question of how they can be presented. It is a debate regarding the realm of memory and the realm of experience. It is not a straightforward rendering of reality, it is “the incessant conjunction between things as they are and things imagined.” ~ Wallace Stevens, poet (no relation) 

 

Similar to the times we live in now, we are challenged with the conditioning of our own opinion and must reconsider any biased positions. We all see the world differently, but hopefully, still find it beautiful.