Drawing Inspiration: Steve Roden
Steve Roden is a visual and sound artist whose work includes painting, drawing, sculpture, film/video, sound installation, text and performance.
Here is his art statement, how he chooses to articulate his art practice:
“I work with painting, drawing, sculpture, film/video, text, sound and performance—generally exploring ideas related to translation, abstraction, systems, notation and scores.
My working process generally includes the translation of various forms of specific notation (words, musical scores, maps, etc.) into scores, which influence the process of making/composing a painting, drawing, sculpture, or sound composition. The scores, rigid in terms of their structure, are also full of holes—allowing for intuitive actions, mistakes, and potential left turns. Other than its relationship to an inspirational source, I seldom know how an artwork will speak until it is finished.
My practice is still rooted in the principals I learned in the fourth grade when an art teacher, Mr. Johnstone, told me to fix the sky in the background of a watercolor project. I told him I liked it as it was and wanted to leave it. He told me if I fixed it to his liking he would give me an A, and if not he would give me a C. I kept the sky the way I wanted and took the C. To this day, I still believe that a C with meaning is much more valuable than an A through compromise. The watercolor is hanging in my studio.”
Images above:
a variety of drawings and paintings by Steve Roden. Learn more about Steve by checking out his page on his gallery website, linked here.