Steven Cushing is a visual artist working in photography and sculpture from his home in the Poncey Highland neighborhood of Atlanta Georgia. A graduate of the Memphis College of Art Steven has exhibited in group, juried and invitational exhibitions including: Zenie’s East Art Gallery Memphis, Brooks Museum Memphis, Sarratt Gallery of Vanderbilt University Nashville, Fairhope City Museum, SxSE Gallery Molena Ga. A solo retrospective exhibit of portraits “Family, Friends & Community” was on display at the McLendon Ave Studio in October of 2019.
Statement:
While a student my early work was heavily influenced by the photography of William Eggleston and Harry Callahan. From each I learned that the people and places in one’s immediate surroundings and personal life provided both subject and palette in meaningful and infinite variety.
As a lover of philosophy and science I have always been inspired by the accelerating pace of discovery in science and physics. The exponential growth of our collective knowledge however has created an alarming social-developmental hysteresis. This presents itself as a gap between what we know, what we can manage as a global society, and what we can do with technology. In my search for imagery and themes to represent this idea I revisited Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, to consider the nature of belief vs. knowledge, what is real and what is shadow.
This series of work, made over a 30-year period, explores the boundaries between seeing and recognition, using images of family and friends in their familiar environment, probing the idea that we don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.
