The photographs and films of Robert Stivers distort the perceptions of their viewers. Stivers’ technique utilizes soft focus, vignettes, and motion blur to create a hazy vision of the world that emboldens the viewers sense of self. A.D. Coleman writes of his photographs, “Spun around, unmoored from our reference points, off-center, stripped of the comfort and clarity of specifics, we are thrust abruptly into this astigmatic dramaturgy” (Photography in New York: International Magazine.) Cloudscapes, shadows, and close-ups offer images of fragmented memories, decaying with time but never vanishing. The haunting aesthetics of early photography and silent film resonate through Stivers’ oeuvre, fascilitating the viewer’s plunge into a familiar, but distant cultural unconscious.
Stivers manipuates his images through hand-toning and enlargement in the dark room without the aid of digital technology. His distorting power reinvigorates classical tropes like nudes, sculpture, texture, and architecture. Soft lighting likens the materials of sculpture and architecture to human flesh and the body’s forms. Vice-a-versa, his portraits of the human figure immortalize the subject like chiseled stone. Stivers’ photographs often study and celebrate the contortion and motion of the body, reflecting his years of experience as a professional dancer and choreographer.
In the early 1980s, Stivers suffered a back injury that brought an abrupt end to his promising career in ballet. In 1988, after working as a stockbroker and life insurance agent, he turned to photography to reconcile himself with art and dance. Stivers trained rigorously in the photographic technique and quickly achieved a virtuosity in the craft. He has since exhibited his work extensively in the United States and Europe. His photographs are included in such museums as the LACMA, Getty Center, Metropolitan Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Brooklyn Museum.
Robert Stivers
ABOUT THE ARTIST
The photographs and films of Robert Stivers distort the perceptions of their viewers. Stivers’ technique utilizes soft focus, vignettes, and motion blur to create a hazy vision of the world that emboldens the viewers sense of self. A.D. Coleman writes of his photographs, “Spun around, unmoored from our reference points, off-center, stripped of the comfort and clarity of specifics, we are thrust abruptly into this astigmatic dramaturgy” (Photography in New York: International Magazine.) Cloudscapes, shadows, and close-ups offer images of fragmented memories, decaying with time but never vanishing. The haunting aesthetics of early photography and silent film resonate through Stivers’ oeuvre, fascilitating the viewer’s plunge into a familiar, but distant cultural unconscious.
Stivers manipuates his images through hand-toning and enlargement in the dark room without the aid of digital technology. His distorting power reinvigorates classical tropes like nudes, sculpture, texture, and architecture. Soft lighting likens the materials of sculpture and architecture to human flesh and the body’s forms. Vice-a-versa, his portraits of the human figure immortalize the subject like chiseled stone. Stivers’ photographs often study and celebrate the contortion and motion of the body, reflecting his years of experience as a professional dancer and choreographer.
In the early 1980s, Stivers suffered a back injury that brought an abrupt end to his promising career in ballet. In 1988, after working as a stockbroker and life insurance agent, he turned to photography to reconcile himself with art and dance. Stivers trained rigorously in the photographic technique and quickly achieved a virtuosity in the craft. He has since exhibited his work extensively in the United States and Europe. His photographs are included in such museums as the LACMA, Getty Center, Metropolitan Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, and Brooklyn Museum.