places that have never existed

Steve Oliver's exhibition 'Best Muscle' - currently showing at HOME - Fri 29 Mar 2019 – Sun 26 May 2019 piqued my interest recently.

I've long been fascinated by ordinary places -  the unnoticed, the banal, the forgotten - and most usually spaces devoid of human presence.

This work added a new twist: these are images of places that have never existed.

"Steve’s photographic works form the major part of his practice. They are made exclusively in-computer (no cameras) with material sourced from Internet searches. This process unfolds over many months, as the elements are searched out and piloted alongside each other in the emergent compositions." source

we'll all be laughing....

3 hours of gentle night

The good archer

The ecstasy of candy

Tiny hands

"In contrast to the implied three-dimensionality of the photographic image, these works give only a collection of surfaces that do not neatly allow the illusion to take; though they also demand that one is prepared to look carefully."

"This is why they must be encountered in the flesh, and lose something vital to their reading when seen through a screen."

Steve was born in Manchester, England in 1981. He received his MA in Fine Art from Manchester Metropolitan University in 2015. He teaches in the School of Arts and Media at the University of Salford, and works out of Rogue Artist Studios CIC.