Born in Royal Oak, Michigan on 2 January 1987, Stephen Garrett Dewyer is an artist, theorist and curator. He lives in New Haven, CT where he pursues his Master of Fine Art in sculpture at the Yale University School of Art. He expects to complete his studies towards an M.F.A. in 2011.

Stephen received his B.F.A. cum laude in Art History, Theory & Criticism from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in December 2008. His interests include and not exclusively feminism, marxism and post-colonialism as non-identitarian ideologies. His art practice involves imagining the simultaneous tracing and effacing of (a) space(s) in an attempt to translate the differences of location. He intends to make images of (a) space(s) as contingent on liminal experience of a location. He focuses on dissemination as a way of accounting for the time betwixt images in order to deconstruct authorship. Dissemination has no law. Invagination has been of particular interest in his work since fall 2009 since it configures the process of knowing that one does not know without alterity of the other. This can be applied to space: that in (a) space(s) sensibilities are inscribed by knowing others cannot have the same sensations while experiencing the same nonsense (inequality). It is the equal application of equality (sense) to this inequality (nonsense) that shows politics to have equality as its end and that aesthetics, in as much as it is political, must translate lest it lose its political imperative.

Stephen has exhibited in New Haven, CT and Baltimore, Maryland.

In February 2009, Stephen curated “Propositions,” an exhibition at Area 405, an artist-run not-for-profit gallery and studio space in Baltimore. “Propositions” proposed ways of imagining spaces of transition in order to depose identification with an essential predicate.

* Stephen thanks Paul Conti, Suzanne M. Conti, Nick A. Dewyer and Raymond P. Dewyer for without whom none of this would have been possible. Stephen has many others to thank as well.

see also Curriculum Vitae in pdf

born in 1987 Royal Oak, Michigan
lives in New Haven, CT

education

 

2011 (expected date of completion)

M.F.A. in sculpture

Yale  School of Art, New Haven, CT

2008

B.F.A. cum laude in Art History, Theory & Criticism

Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Baltimore, Maryland

awards (selected)

 

2009

Scholarship

Yale School of Art

2007

Interdisciplinary Sculpture Departmental Recognition Award

MICA

2006

Presidential Scholarship

MICA

 

Fannie B. Thalheimer Scholarship

MICA

 

Scholastic National Portfolio Award Scholarship

MICA

 

Achievement Award

MICA

exhibitions (selected)

 

2010

Yale Haiti Art Auction exhibition

Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT

2009

First-year 2011 M.F.A. exhibition

Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT

2008

December 2008 Commencement Exhibition

MICA, Baltimore, Maryland

 

Stuttering: in a New Light, curated by Michael Benevento

  • voted “Best Museum Takeover” in Baltimore City Paper “Best of Baltimore 2008”

Current Gallery in conjunction with Carroll Museums Inc., Carroll Mansion, Baltimore, Maryland

 

Introduction to Newer Genres, curated by Benjamin Luzzatto

MICA, Baltimore, Maryland

positions

 

2009 – ‘11

Senator

  • Elected member of the University Ethnic and Racial Harassment Council (2009-’10)
  • Funding Committee member (2009-’10)

Yale Graduate and Professional Student Senate (G.P.S.S.)

2009-‘10

Student Advisory Board member

  • Organized Yale Open Studios, raised funds

Yale School of Art

2008 – ’09

Curator for Propositions

  • writer for Propositions website at www.propositionsatarea405.com
  • included works by Neal Reinalda, Ding Ren, Glenn Shrum and Elena Volkova
  • disseminated information to media organizations about the exhibition
  • editor for Propositions catalog

Area 405 in Baltimore

2008 – ’09

Intern for Administration and Research

  • occasional liaison between gallery and media
  • operated gallery hours
  • assisted with installation of Grimaldis at Area 405 and Matter

Area 405

2008

Senior Advisory Council Representative

  • member of committee to nominate a commencement speaker for May 2009 Commencement

MICA

 

Student Representative to Open Search Candidates for Art History, Theory and Criticism Faculty

  •  interviewed faculty candidates

MICA

2007 - ‘08

President & Chair of S.V.A.A.A.C. (Student Voice Association Academic Affairs Council)

  • formed the Budget Review Student Committee (B.R.S.C.), Student Diversity Committee (S.D.C.), Interdepartmental Cooperation and Communication Student Committee (I.C.C.S.C.), Student Survey Research Committee (S.S.R.C.)
  • advocated for progressive tuition, increased socio-economic diversity among administration, faculty and students, interdepartmental cooperation and communication, accountable student representation

MICA

2006 - ‘07

Co-Vice President and Chair of S.V.A.A.A.C.

  • organized student meetings with faculty and administration

MICA

2007

Intern for Curatorial Administration and Research

  • researched biographies of artists for Cinema Effect exhibition

The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.

publications

 

"September review of art in New Haven, Connecticut by Stephen Garrett Dewyer" in BmoreArt, ed. by Cara Ober, Baltimore, MD, 5 October 2009

"Cultural Difference in Contemporary Art: Countering Cultural Imperialism," in BmoreArt, ed. by Cara Ober, Baltimore, MD, 14 August 2009, http://bmoreart.blogspot.com/2009/08/cultural-difference-in-contemporary-art.html#links

 “Propositions: a Placeless Space,” in Propositions, edited and with an introduction by Stephen Dewyer, Baltimore, MD: Ingrid Burrington and Carey Chiaia, 2009, p. 4 -18

reviews

 

Noonan, Kate, "This is Not a Pipe: group show not really in the place you see it," in Baltimore Citypaper, 11 March 2009, http://www.citypaper.com/arts/story.asp?id=17686

Ober, Cara, "Photos from Propositions," in BMore Art, 22 February 2009, http://bmoreart.blogspot.com/2009/02/photos-from-propositions-at-area-405.html

presentations

 

2009

Dewyer, Stephen, Curator’s Talk on Propositions

Area 405

 

 

 

 

statement for art practice

see also P.D.F. version

29 November 2009

If critical art practices produce images in order for them to locate a counter-imagination to that produced by capitalism, then such a practice imagines the possibility of labor.  Such a possibility I aim to make visible via images in which labor locates within the economy of the dissemination of images and not in any one image. 

What images do we disseminate and which images should we disseminate?  If time causes one image to disappear for another to appear, then the disappearance of images becomes as important as their appearance.  Between images, dissemination opens the possibility for making visible labor by its disappearance.  Thus, how images become present becomes critical in determining what and who becomes visible or invisible.  This question becomes a question of economy and it is within the economy of dissemination that I intend to locate the image of labor.

I intend to project labor’s image as an economy in which the value of images becomes determined by their proximity to the present.  Any valuation of an image must be placed in a historical event where the representation thereof becomes subject to dissemination.  What and who appears present is always-already under dissemination and locates the imagination within the present time. 

I hope to make visible the struggle between the autonomy of constructed images and their dependence on a given structure.  My work focuses on the difference between images arising from chance and those from production.  If my work appears formless it is because I do not aim to project a reasonable image.  Instead, I attempt to project the differences between images in order to better understand their construction and the way in which dissemination alters their meaning.   Differences between images happen by way of dissemination and reveals intelligence to have no definitive end in any one image. 

Any image locates intelligence.  I decided to become an artist in part due to this premise.  Indeed because during my early years a speech pathologist diagnosed that I have “cluttering,” which causes difficulty in developing a coherent syntax, I sought other means of representing myself than speech.  Art offered a way of doing this without compromising perceptions of my intelligence.

My intention will involve critically altering notions of aesthetics from those that are ambivalent to the dissemination of images to ones that make visible this process.

 

stephen garrett dewyer

projects

proposals texts contact links