My artwork takes a critical view of social and political issues. I am drawn to focus on those issues and life experiences that are hard for us to talk about. I work to use visual images and sometimes text to elicit introspection by the viewer on these topics.
Over the years, I have interspersed this work with more formal or classical subject matter, including still lifes and architecture that emphasize beauty and harmony, an antidote to the unsettling and disharmonious social and political issues I focus on.
I originally began working in photography in my 20s, exclusively as a black and white photographer. During that time, I did an extensive series of photos using Diana cameras. These are inexpensive cameras, which in the 1980s cost around $5 each. Today, they are repackaged with some accessories and cost up to $50. Even today though, they are the very same plastic camera, with light leaks and a plastic lens that is blurry at the edges. For me, working with Dianas has tended to evoke my inner world, the subconscious. This is in part due to the fact that Dianas make it impossible to focus the camera or visually analyze the external world.
In the 1980s, travelling a good deal, I did work that was primarily documentary in nature. Hyperaware of the power differentials in this work, I have turned the camera to my own life—a series on my father’s death and related works on the relationship between those here and those gone. I turned also to the project that I am now working on—the painful effects of white stereotyping of black males. Another project on stereotypes that spontaneously emerged is my work with an Iranian artist.
My other life is that of an academic economist where I focus on issues related to inequality. For a long time, I felt divided, pulled in two directions - between the quantitative, analytical world of an academic social scientist, and the visual realm of the artist, where math and data play no role. Today, I no longer see these as separate parts of myself.
All images © 1987 - 2020 Stephanie Seguino
Over the years, I have interspersed this work with more formal or classical subject matter, including still lifes and architecture that emphasize beauty and harmony, an antidote to the unsettling and disharmonious social and political issues I focus on.
I originally began working in photography in my 20s, exclusively as a black and white photographer. During that time, I did an extensive series of photos using Diana cameras. These are inexpensive cameras, which in the 1980s cost around $5 each. Today, they are repackaged with some accessories and cost up to $50. Even today though, they are the very same plastic camera, with light leaks and a plastic lens that is blurry at the edges. For me, working with Dianas has tended to evoke my inner world, the subconscious. This is in part due to the fact that Dianas make it impossible to focus the camera or visually analyze the external world.
In the 1980s, travelling a good deal, I did work that was primarily documentary in nature. Hyperaware of the power differentials in this work, I have turned the camera to my own life—a series on my father’s death and related works on the relationship between those here and those gone. I turned also to the project that I am now working on—the painful effects of white stereotyping of black males. Another project on stereotypes that spontaneously emerged is my work with an Iranian artist.
My other life is that of an academic economist where I focus on issues related to inequality. For a long time, I felt divided, pulled in two directions - between the quantitative, analytical world of an academic social scientist, and the visual realm of the artist, where math and data play no role. Today, I no longer see these as separate parts of myself.
All images © 1987 - 2020 Stephanie Seguino