Steven He

The frame has been a recurring theme in my work. I often think of it as a way of giving an object psychological importance, much like the presence of a gallery itself. While frames were once gilded and celebrated, they have gradually become more minimal, retreating into the background while retaining the same power to suggest that something is worth looking at.

In previous works, I have used the size, material and shape of frames to give a physical presence to things we are supposed to feel but rarely acknowledge. I am interested in how spaces influence the way we perceive what is within them. Just as entering a temple encourages us to move and think in a particular way, the white walls of a gallery invite us to look more closely and analytically at the objects around us. Both spaces carry their own forms of symbolism and mythology, giving ordinary things a greater sense of significance.

Read more +

By giving the frame as much visual importance as the painting it contains, I wanted to draw attention to the routine and often overlooked activities of everyday life, allowing them the same solemnity and depth of meaning that we afford to art.

The painting itself presents an inverted relationship between ourselves and the world. Rather than looking outward from within ourselves, the surrounding world appears to wrap around the frame as something separate from us. I was thinking about moments in history when our understanding of our place in nature began to shift, from the emergence of agriculture to the first photographs of Earth taken from space. These moments mark changes in how we see ourselves, from being part of the natural world to imagining ourselves as something separate from it, capable of observing and shaping it from the outside.

Read less −