musetouch_issue_28

Isaiah Stephens
Isaiah Stephens (Lowell, United States) makes drawings, paintings, mixed media artworks and
conceptual artworks. By using popular themes such as surrealism, heroism, sexuality, fantasy,
and adventure, Stephens touches various overlapping themes and strategies. Several reoccurring
subject matter can be recognised, such as the relation with popular culture and media,
working with repetition, provocation and the investigation of the process of expectations.
His drawings often refers to pop and mass culture. Using written and drawn symbols, a world
where light-heartedness rules and where rules are undermined is created. With a conceptual
approach, he tries to approach a wide scale of subjects in a multi-layered way, likes to involve
the viewer in a way that is sometimes physical and believes in the idea of function following
form in a work.
His works directly respond to the surrounding environment and uses everyday experiences
from the artist as a starting point. Often these are framed instances that would go unnoticed
in their original context. Through a radically singular approach that is nevertheless inscribed
in the contemporary debate, he uses references and ideas that are so integrated into the process
of the composition of the work that they may escape those who do not take the time to
explore how and why these images haunt you, like a good film, long after you’ve seen them.
His works are a drawn reflection upon the art of drawing itself: thoroughly self-referential,
yet no less aesthetically pleasing, and therefore deeply inscribed in the history of modernism
– made present most palpably in the artist’s exploration of some of the most hallowed of
modernist paradigms.
Tell us who is Isaiah?
Isaiah Stephens is an artist and a writer. A storyteller! A boy who’s always enjoyed the creative
process of coming up with a story. Whether that be with words or pictures. Unfortunately,
Isaiah Stephens is also a boy who’s terrified of people. So putting himself out there, has never
been something that came easy.
How did you first get into the world of art?
I’ve been drawing ever since I could hold a pencil. Literally. Hours and hours, days and days,
of sketching took up most of my childhood. When most kids were outside playing, I was
inside drawing my favorite cartoon characters, comic book characters, and people I saw in
movies. Throughout my teen years in high school, I naturally got better. And I’ve been lucky
enough to have people in my life who helped further my artistic career for me.
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