- Phone:
- 765-455-9585
- Email:
- gsteel@iu.edu
- Campus:
- IU Kokomo
Fine Arts Building (FA), Room CC110
Fine Arts Building (FA), Room CC110
Biography
Gregory Steel was born in Detroit and raised by his maternal grandparents in the richly diverse neighborhoods of the Motor City's East Side. From an early age, Steel was encouraged by his grandmother’s innovative use of ordinary materials in constructing unique objects and arrangements. Her novel approaches to environmental resources combined with her support were a positive influence in Steel’s artistic development. As a self-taught artist, Steel held jobs in various disciplines in order to support his work, but after many years of making art on his own, he realized he needed a serious arts education.
Attending school part-time and working full-time, Steel received a BFA from The College for Creative Studies in Detroit, and an MFA in New Genres from the University of Michigan. After his studies were completed he took a position at The College for Creative Studies teaching sculpture and experimental media. Steel is currently an Assistant Professor of Fine Arts & New Media at Indiana University Kokomo. The art of ideas is fundamental to Steel’s working process and is at the heart of his work to date. For Steel, art and life are not separate spheres. Instead, his art is only of extension of whom he
A brush with cancer in 1998 affected his work in many ways that give him a greater focus and sense of urgency to complete his life’s work. As an idea artist, he views the various materials he uses as simply a way to fulfill the function of the art. Through this diversity, he resists easy categorization. Steel’s work cannot be pigeonholed because it is integrated with his life, and as such, it is a richly layered and evolving experience. His concerns about issues of the human condition and social change and his hope for humankind are evident regardless of his final product. Whether Steel is collaborating in a groundbreaking physiological monitoring system with Cybernet Systems of Ann Arbor or creating intimate and humorous tableaus replete with miniature figures in outlandish settings, his art emerges as thoughtful and timely. Steel’s work has been exhibited across the United States and Europe, most recently in China, Russia, London, and in Barcelona, Spain.
Biography of Gregory Steel By Sarah Evilsizor
Ph.D. Candidate, Institute for Doctoral Studies in the Visual Arts
Sculptor Gregory Steel: Putting Ideas into Practice
Gregory Steel has been a working artist long before receiving his advanced academic degrees in art. He also has a doctorate in philosophy, making him a man of ideas as much as a master of construction. We are living in theoretical times, which sometimes dominate and erode art’s capacity for visual pleasure. But Steel, despite forty years of study of both Western and Asian philosophy, knows that the primary impact of art is visual.
One of his most striking sculptures is called Iki (2018), a Japanese term meaning stylishness. It consists of two sets of rods, steel blue in color, set on the edge of a thin limestone slab, nearly white in hue. The elegance of the sculpture cannot be denied, and this, it seems, is what Steel is after: a pronounced poise created from the virtuous use of materials, along with an intellectual orientation informing the solid construction of simpler shapes.
The tradition of steel sculpture is highly evident in Steel’s art. On seeing his work, one often thinks of the precedent structures of David Smith and Anthony Caro. But the Japanese elegance of Iki also informs Steel’s work. Steel’s formalist abstractions often seem to chart philosophical concepts which make him an artist of greater import than if he were just describing visual structures.
In Spirit Path (2018), also made of steel and limestone, a circle consisting of steel rods is attached to two flat panels of steel which in turn, suggest two ascending paths. The panels, in turn, are joined to a roughly contoured boulder, indicating a living presence outside the one we know. At the base of the panels are two circular disks--such shapes have often signified unlimitedness. Binary ideas permeate this work, as well as Steel’s other sculptures, pointing the way to visual choices that ultimately support one another and lead to the same conclusion.
Still (2020) might be described as an abstract still life. It consists of two groups of steel rods, wrapped tightly by metal bands. These two groups are supported by vertical ovals of steel; one set rises above the ovals while the other goes no further than the oval’s highest point. Everything is colored a rust-red. The title might just as easily be directed toward the mind’s stillness in contemplation. But with Still we are not reading philosophy- we are experiencing a state of being.
In Still Standing (2020), Steel has set up two dark, vertical steel beams, with another, shorter beam crossing both near the top of the work. The title refers to the angle downward of the two verticals, which makes them seem as if they were about to tip over creating a delicate balancing act.
Yuugen (2018), a Japanese term meaning a deep awareness of the universe, is indicated in Steel’s welded-steel work, which is composed of slightly curving steel-blue planks with rims rising on both edges of the steel planes. It is another beautiful piece about balance. The artwork consists of a curving piece of steel, and another curving beam steel beam crosses it toward the top. At the bottom of the sculpture is another beam, very near which a couple of steel disks occur. The color of all the components is an exquisite gray-blue. The notion of balance and equanimity, achieved by long stays in meditation is central to Zen Buddhism.Yuugen embraces the awareness that comes from the contemplative mind. Like most of Steel’s works, it embodies a quiet that is as much Asian as it is Western, although the language of Western abstract sculpture is predominant. Ultimately, Steel is a master of sculpture that describes the delicate balance between space and being.
Jonathan Goodman
Doctor Steel's Philosophical works arise from his doctoral dissertation, "The Sublime, and existential and ontological alliance with mystery."
Professional Works
Dr. Steel's most recent exhibitions:
- KaatsBaan Cultural Center in Tivoli, New York, Featured artist
- Eastern Tennessee State University, Slocumb Galleries, Mid-South Juried exhibition, Oct. 17 to Nov. 11, 2022
- Artlink Gallery, Fort Wayne, Indiana 2022 Midwest Regional Exhibition Jan 6th - Feb 6th, 2022 (Regional)
- New York Now | May 9-21, 2014
- Art Basel, Switzerland | June 19-22, 2014 | About Art Basel
Teaching
Courses Taught:
- Philosophy of Art
- Concepts and Images
- Digital Media Studio I & II
- Video & Video Art
- Sculpture
- Photography & Videography