Steven Foutch, Assistant Professor of Printmaking & Drawing
stevenfoutch.com
Artist Statement
I am a landscape artist at heart. My work explores the beauty of open space and the
meditation that occurs when we find ourselves at its center. To a lesser extent, my
work observes how our identity and understanding of the world is shaped by the landscapes
that surround us.
I aim to create beautiful though melancholic images through color and mark making.
Like a good country song, a sweet tune in tandem with a nagging sadness. My use of
color and mark carries the former, while the solitary nature of rural landscape evokes
the latter.
The rural Midwest can be insulating, both culturally and emotionally. While making
my images I often think about what it means to be in the middle or from the middle.
I invoke what it felt like to sit beside beauty and suffering in the months between
an old friend’s sudden death and the birth of my first son. These paradoxical emotions
reminded me then and now of my grandmother’s house and all the singular sunsets: explosions
of color above the horizon, each one separating the celestial and the corporeal. This
is what I am trying to communicate, the melancholy of the sublime.
As I print, there are thresholds too. One layer of ink, a stencil secured, some wood
carved, another layer—these liminal states are resting places for contemplation on
the image and its resolution. A universal struggle for artists is learning to recognize
when something is done. For me, the work ends when taking an image further would muddy
its expression. Only so many layers of ink can be applied before the paper gives way.
As colors blend and compositions form, a fear emerges that the next layer might mar
my labor. The acceptance of that final middle is where the image remains.