steve roden
paintings
solo exhibition: jenn joy gallery in san francisco, 2001

a series of ten paintings, each inspired by the title of a sculpture from a 1959 MOMA sculpture catalog with no images. i used the title as a starting point and as connective tissue for various inspirations and collisions of subjects and source materials throughout the process of building each painting. i wanted to have some sort of "guiding" phrase that everything that came into the work would have to fit inside of - comfortably or uncomfortably.

the painting "sleepwalker" includes a form derived from a photo of a log cabin on it's side (sleeping...?), letters taken from important locations on a map for a walk, and looser inspiration from the book the sleepwalkers by hermann broch (one of my favorite books). the associations back to the title phrase as well as to each other are loose; but the attempt is to have everything connected even if the strands are fragmented, idiosyncratic, or very thin. the interest was in trying to bring various unrelated things together in the works, and find ways in which these unrelated elements could inspire or direct visual movement, conceptual breadth, and resultss that could be experienced through various paths of entry and reception.


15 planes, 2000
30" x 30", oil and polyurethane on linen.

sleepwalker , 2000
30" x 30", oil and polyurethane on linen.


kabuki in a rectangle, 2000
30" x 30", oil and polyurethane on linen.


object of the sea , 2000
30" x 30", oil and polyurethane on linen.

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