Steven Thurston received his BFA from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and his MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI. After two years as a Visiting Artist, he was hired as an Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University in 1996. Prior to teaching, Thurston held several Artist-in-Residence positions, most notably at The Alternative Works site at Bemis in Omaha, Nebraska. He also worked in the Design Department for General Motors as a Clay Modeler. Thurston has received numerous awards for his work and his research, including the Pollack-Krasner Fellowship, a NEA Fellowship, and two Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowships, 1996 and 1999. He has exhibited and lectured nationally on his work, and has played a pivotal role in the use of technology in artists' studio practices.
Thurston’s use of screen-printed imagery, his reference of historical prints and his mix of two and three dimensions in the creation of sculptural works has made him a natural choice to program at the Clay Studio in conjunction with Philagrafika 2010. He utilizes several forms of Dimensional Imaging to explore new methods of expression because “research and development are crucial components for the creation of viable new industries for artists.” This experience has given him the ability to create his work with “a delicate balance of traditional craft and industrial practice."
Thurston writes about his work, "The nature of my work has always held a strong affection toward contemporary architectural systems and the industry of historical architectural terra cotta. Through the combination of the allegorical with the architectural reference the work strives to illustrate how the process of construction relates to the characteristics of form - a melding of the technological with the metaphorical. For the past few years I have utilized several forms of Dimensional Imaging to explore new methods of creating form and image. In an environment where research and development are crucial components for the creation of viable new industries for artists, I willingly embraced these new forms of technologies to find a balance between traditional craft and industrial practice. I have always looked to the sciences for insight and understanding, for I am fascinated in how we tend to comprehend unknown forms by attempting to identify within them some relationship to known forms, such as blossoms unfolding, atoms bouncing off one another or cells dividing. I want to present a model of creating which analyses the relationship between an object and the process required to generate that object. "
"Recently I have been very interested in the tension that occurs when the imagery of such acclaimed romantic interpreters of the 19th century landscape such as Thomas Cole and Martin Heade are purposely filtered through 21st century technologies. In a world that is more readily being effected by the conventions and interventions of man and the mechanized realm, it is indeed very curious to reexamine the quixotic ideals of such 19th century romantics through the use of new technologies to perhaps gain new insights to our obsessions to concur and dominate the natural world around us. "
"Equally compelling are the images adapted from the 1758-60 Johann Georg Hertel edition of Cesare Ripa's seminal collection of allegories and personifications "Iconologia". The original engravings served as a compendium of suggestions for visually depicting such things as virtues and vices, characters, and emotions. My interest in reinterpreting these images depicting such themes as vigilance, ambition, greed and patriotism stems from my previous investigations, which had been heavily influenced by the theoretical teachings of the French Enlightenment. By using visual models rooted 18th century, I act as a historian attempting to trace contemporary social, political and emotional problems to their sources in the distant past. I am interested in the representation of particular construction formats as they relate to the development of form. I am even more intrigued by how these primary shapes and images can affect us, physically and emotionally. The expressive, metaphorical and symbolic characteristics should strike a responsive cord for there is a pull towards the heroic."
