JOSEPH STEININGER
COPING MECHANISMS
OPENING RECEPTION - SATURDAY, MAY 20 2023, FROM 3-6PM
ARTIST MEET & GREET - FIRST THURSDAY, JUNE 1, FROM 5-8PM
J. Rinehart Gallery announces our second solo exhibition with artist and innovator, Joseph Steininger. His exhibition, Coping Mechanisms groups together the effects of motivation, distraction, and wait caused by unavoidable isolation. Steininger guides the viewers through his coping mechanism, using raw imagery of stillness found in cities.
Working from photographs taken of rough urban landscapes, graffiti, condemned buildings and overgrown parking lots, Joseph Steininger elevates typically unnoticed or seemingly decrepit subject matter to the level fine art. Steininger reduces images to abstracted shapes through intricate hand-cut stencils.
This not only lays the groundwork for his elaborately spray-painted compositions, but the act of rebuilding the image through multiple spray-painted stenciled layers imbues each piece with a new life and context as a work of fine art.
Steininger’s work is influenced by a mixture of street art culture and printmaking processes. Using traditional and time-honored forms of fine art, his pieces are remarkably complex and masterfully represent this contemporary medium. His work can be found in various private and public collections in the US and the EU.
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Spray paint is still seen by many to be an artistic medium incapable of creating fine art. Through his work, Steininger aims to bridge the gap between preconceived notions of what can and cannot be defined and exhibited as fine art.
By using a contemporary medium, like spray paint, and creating a body of work using traditional subject matter, the artist forces the viewers to expand their assumptions about the ever expanding possibilities to be found in the fine art world.
Similar to many forms of printmaking, the artist creates his work by meticulously hand-cutting intricately detailed stencils. The stencils are then layered to create a distinct body of work which displays his mastery of the craft.