Friday, May 30, 2008

Artist Steven Siegel

Steven Siegel, Carbon #1, paper, fabric, tire, mixed media, 36”x32”x11”,
2000,
Red Hook, NY, Photo by Young Song


Steven Siegel (1952- ) is a professional artist, born in New Hampshire, US and currently residing in New York. He creates large-scale outdoor artworks at sculpture parks, universities, and museums and collaborates with local volunteers. Siegel’s work is often distinguished by his style of massive works that are created by layering and carefully adding various pieces of recycled materials. His choice of materials is meant to capture the idea of continuous production and consumption that occurs every day (personal communication, May 11, 2006).
Steven Siegel’s artworks, the most enduring idea is the notion that the world is comprised of huge accumulations of very small parts. Particularly in geology, this can be represented in the form of grains of sand or silt, which together constitute sedimentary rock. With the passing of time, hundreds and thousands of layers of sedimentary rock accumulate to construct a formation (personal communication, May 11, 2006)

(This description is an excerpt from Young Song's article, published in the International Journal of the Arts in Society, vol. 2, no. 3, 2007.)