[ISEA2019] Artist Statement: Krista Steinke — Sun Notations

Artist Statement

Sun Notations is an experimental video that animates over 50 still pinhole photographs – a work that merges an early primitive process (pinhole photography) with new technology. The original images capture the pathway of the sun rising and setting over time, with exposures that last one day up to an entire year. Light leaks, dirt, dust, fingerprints, even rips in the paper, become part of the visual alchemy, and serve as metaphors for the delicate balance we share with the physical world. Here time and space expand, overlap, and then dissipate as clusters of dust appear like stars, insects fall from the sky, the landscape morphs into abstraction, and the sun traces across the screen like a drawing in motion. Throughout the work, references to creation and destruction call attention to both our immediate present but also to the grim possibility that our planet may not have a “forever”.
Audio: Matt Steinke, Production Assistants: Ashley Lane & Annie Sungkajun

  • Krista Steinke is an artist who works in photography, video, and installation. Her project-based practice explores the human-environmental relationship and photography’s unique role in mediating that experience. Krista has exhibited and screened her work in museums, galleries, and film festivals across the country, as well as internationally. Her works are represented in public and private collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, USA, Woodmere Museum in Philadelphia, the Brauer Museum of Art, Atlanta International Airport, Johnson & Johnson Corporation, and Fidelity Investments, among others. She is the recipient of a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship, a grant from the Puffin Foundation, an Artist Residency at Light Work, a Promise Award from the Sustainable Arts Foundation, and most notably, a Fellowship in Photography from the Howard Foundation. She has been been invited to be a visiting artist at numerous colleges and graduate schools and has participated in several photo festivals and conferences either as an exhibitor, speaker, or curator, including The International Digital Media and Arts Association (iDMAA), Denver Month of Photography, Fotofest, The Invision Photo Festival, and Society for Photographic Education (SPE). Krista received a BA in Art and the Advanced Humanities from Valparaiso University (USA), 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 lived all over Texas, in New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Seattle, and Chicago, among other places. Currently, she divides her time between Houston and New York state.