BY KRISTA STEINKE
I grew up in the Gulf Coast area, and after a long hiatus living elsewhere, I recently returned to live in the Houston area. As a child, one of my favorite memories of the Texas landscape was the vast and mysterious sky, a source of endless beauty and fascination, which, in an instant, could transform into a threat of doom and distress. The sky always made me feel small but was a constant reminder that we are part of something much larger. Since my return, I have been obsessed with taking cellphone snapshots of this same sky that I remember as a child. Often, however, I feel that my photographic endeavors fail to capture the poignant moment that I’m after, and the shots feel derivative of something I have seen online.
As a response to this, The Inequivalent is a new experimental project (still in progress), in which I am re-photographing these cellphone images using an in-camera collage technique. The title of this project is a direct reference to the work of Alfred Stieglitz, the pioneering photographer who, from 1922 into the 1930s, photographed clouds in a series called Equivalents. Stieglitz believed that a photograph could transcend its subject and be a direct representation of his own thoughts and emotions. Dissatisfied with the lack of emotional impact in my digital snapshots, my intention is to tease out new meaning by exploring the poetry of materials and subvert the preciousness inherent to the photographic medium by welcoming happy accidents and allowing for obvious signs of artifice to appear. Crumbled photographic paper, the surface and backlighting of the computer screen, physical occurrences such as dripping liquid or bubbles, layered with random objects, all become part of the visual alchemy which distances the image further from the original source, but brings the result closer to personal expression. Various collisions emerge between the virtual and the physical, calling into question technology’s ability to function as a surrogate for experiencing nature and the role that photographs play in our lives.
For me, looking up at the sky can induce a tinge of anxiety and other times deliver a sense of hope. These images function as gentle reminders about our longing to connect with the natural world and metaphors for bigger issues surrounding landscape and the environment.
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Krista Steinke is a lens-based artist who has exhibited in museums and galleries across the country, as well as internationally. She has a BA in Art and the Advanced Humanities from Valparaiso University, a BFA in Studio Art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a MFA in Photography and Digital Imaging from The Maryland Institute, College of Art. She has received several awards for her work, including a Pennsylvania Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Photography, an Artist Residency at Light Work, an Image Award from CENTER, Santa Fe, and a 2012 Promise Award from the Sustainable Arts Foundation. Her works are represented in public and private collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Woodmere Museum in Philadelphia, the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, Brauer Museum of Art, Johnson & Johnson Corporation, and Fidelity Investments. Krista has participated in several photo festivals and conferences either as an exhibitor, curator, or speaker including Houston’s Fotofest, Atlanta Celebrates Photography, Invision Photo Festival, and Society for Photographic Education. Her photographs have been featured in The Photo Review, Feature Shoot, Contact Sheet, The Literary Review, EXIT (Spain), Monthly Photography (South Korea), Le Journal de la Photographie (France), and on the cover of the Oxford American. Krista lives in Houston with her husband and two children and currently teaches in the Visualization Department at Texas A&M University.
Images from The Inequivalent series are currently on exhibit in Santa Fe and Dallas.