STATEMENT

The art I make relates to the human body and the means through which it experiences its environment. I am interested in the boundary between perception and cognition. We use our primary senses and varying degrees of subconscious processing in reaction to the many stimuli we encounter at any given moment. These stimuli can be congruent or discordant, i.e. the situation can seem to make sense or not. In either case we synthesize that which we perceive into a coherent ‘picture’. In so doing we may infill perceptual gaps, erase extraneous inputs and/or use preconceived models to shape our understanding, our cognition. In certain situations it seems that we arrive at a complete picture, a sense of comprehension, only after accumulating sufficient inputs, (perceptions). In other situations perception and cognition occur simultaneously, as if we arrive at knowing within our bodies, our gut, so to speak.

I make sculpture, paintings, works on paper and drawings. In each of these media I am working to build a model of my experience in the world. This model is an analog, or translation which seeks to portray not the “objective” world but the aura in which I perceive it, embracing the subjectivity of my physical being and my accumulated experiences.

I often focus on constructed spaces because they represent a prior human endeavor; the ideas, culture and intentions of other people and the societies they formed. When a person moves through or occupies a built environment they partake in a form of dialog with history, which introduces a cerebral layer to the otherwise visceral experience. The individual processes an environment through their unique filters – physiology, psychology, etc. The individual is alone, even isolated in their consciousness while bound to history, to society, through the commonality of these lived experiences. This duality in human consciousness is at the root of our existential dilemma – we are solitary and social beings.

BIOGRAPHY

Stephen Grossman is a visual artist working primarily in sculpture, drawing and painting in New Haven, CT. He was trained as an architect and received his BArch from The Cooper Union in 1986. He has been exhibited at Museum of Fine Arts - Boston, The Drawing Center, Aldrich Museum, Real Art Ways, Heller Museum, Artspace New Haven, New York Studio School Dumbo Sculpture Studio, Weir Farm Trust Gallery, Schweinfurth Art Center, Mt Ida College, Giampietro Gallery, Kenise Barnes Fine Arts and other venues. In 2023 he will be an artist in residence as a fellow at the Ballinglen Foundation. In 2020 he was an artist in residence at Streamways in Rockingham, VT. In 2006 he was a visiting artist at the Weir Farm Historic Trust. In 2002 he received an NEA grant for his public art project “Fencing”. He has taught visual arts at The University of New Haven and Southern Connecticut State University. In addition, he has curated exhibitions at the (untitled) Space gallery in New Haven including a Sol LeWitt wall drawing installation in 2001. He served on the board of Artspace New Haven from 2002 to 2009 and was president of the board from 2004 to 2007.