ROBERT STIVERS

"Wrapped Woman", 1994, Edition 15

20x16 Uniquely Toned Silver Gelatin Photograph
Call For Price (323) 934-2250

24x20 Uniquely Toned Silver Gelatin Photograph
Call For Price (323) 934-2250

1. "Listening to Cemet", Arena Editions, 2000

2. "Robert Stivers, Photographs", Arena Editions, 1997

Press Release - May 22, 2001

Robert Stivers

Listening to Cement
Book Available

May 24 through July 7, 2001
Reception, Thursday May 24, 7-9pm

The Fahey/Klein Gallery is pleased to present the photography of Robert Stivers from his new publication Listening to Cement (Arena Editions). The new work represents a more contemplative and emotionally mature Stivers. Mesmerizing and eerie images haunt the viewer with their soft focus, which almost blurs images indistinguishable.

"The elimination of hard edges…turns his subjects from shapes into forms…locating them in cavernously deep space…challenging us to adapt to them by a perceptual and psychological process not dissimilar to the improvisatory dancer's strategies for relating to the space of the darkened stage…" (A.D. Coleman, Photographs, Arena Editions)

"My work is highly self-referential. I explore my understanding of identity (including love, loss, death and rebirth). I investigate these themes allegorically. A self-portrait gives way to architecture, a sense of memory/loss is seen in statuary; a spiritual understanding is divulged in images of water, clouds. I perceive my work as a parallel to the progression of my personal search for a more philosophical and spiritual surrender, of recreating myself - becoming more at peace with life than at odds with it," Robert Stivers says of his work.

Included in Photography '98, "11 Hot Young Talents," Stivers, largely self-taught, produces rich texture and tone in his darkly romantic images. Considering most of his work self-portraiture, Stivers explores the themes of mystery and movement in his search for self-understanding. "It's a cosmic soup that looks more like Purgatory than Nirvana…with archetypes rather than icons." (Lawrence Shubert, Detour Magazine, Dec/Jan 1998).

"Stivers exposes his anxieties and desire for transcendence more poignantly than just about any other living artist. " (John Stauffer, Listening to Cement, Arena Editions).

Stivers' work is included in Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Victoria and Albert Museum. Articles about Robert Stivers and his work have appeared in the New Yorker, the Village Voice, Detour Magazine, and Art News. Stiver currently resides in Sante Fe.