Stephen Whisler

For several years I have been investigating surveillance and the imposition of power in my work. Beginning with a series of drawings of watchtowers and guard towers, drones and more recently other military equipment such as aircraft carriers, they are drawn with pastel or charcoal with fingerprint smudges. The fingerprint is at once the overriding mark on the paper and an integral part of the content. I see the fingerprints as "evidence".

 My most recent body of work, which is the work I intend to exhibit at the stARTup Art Fair, has atomic weapons as the subject. Rendered in vermillion red fingerprints, the large-scale drawings have a striking presence and a foreboding sense to them. Most of the works are 55" x 40" and will either be framed or attached to the wall with magnets. 

I am also proposing to make two sculptures specifically for stARTup: Sleeping Bombs, which will be two human scale versions of the Little Boy bomb, made from wood and metal, with a gold leaf finish. They would lie on the beds in the hotel room.

 

For more information about the artist, please visit his website.