Steven B Smith

I am thoroughly enjoying the search and investigation of artists for this blog. A few days ago I came across Steven B Smith's landscapes, and I couldn't help but to look him up for more information.

The photographer was born in Utah, studied at Utah State and Yale, taught at Yale and Brown, and he is currently a professor at the Rhode Island School of Design. In 2005 he was awarded the First Book Prize for Photography by the Honickman Foundation and the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University Press. The work featured was "The Weather and a Place to Live: Photographs of the Suburban West" where he investigates the transition of the Western landscape into suburbia.

In his photographs, one can appreciate the artist's approach towards the investigation between the interactions of humans with nature in the American West. In my opinion the images play back and forth between the ironies of a beautiful landscape that has been interrupted by man force with the objective of creating beautiful places to inhabit. In a sense, it implies the rapid growth of man-made systems that are being embedded in what it once was pure nature.

These images are inspired by the rapid changes that the land suffers not only by its natural causes, but also by the introduction of man-made systems that rapidly are occupying land to be able to one day call it suburbia, neighborhood, water system... etc

Besides the careful and detail formal aspects of the quality of the images, in my opinion they have a lonely, sad feel to them. I can help but to imagine this pure, calm, and beautiful landscape that it is being corrupted by the self centered human urge for power.

Check out his website: Steven Smith Photography