UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS
Steven DiGiovanni at Real Art Ways

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Event

UNKNOWN UNKNOWNS
Steven DiGiovanni

Real Art Ways presents a solo exhibition by New Haven based painter Steven DiGiovanni.

In the early 70’s, Steven DiGiovanni’s father worked privately as a safety engineer, consultant and investigator. His clients were attorneys in civil cases involving personal injury or death. Steven was an adolescent at the time and often accompanied his father to lend a hand with the tape measure or help record measurements. His father would visually document the sites and all the relevant details with a Polaroid camera.

His father’s forensic photographs were often crudely composed and illuminated with a flash. Subjects included broken stairs, cracked sidewalks or busy intersections. Each image, was imbued with a narrative of misfortune. Collectively they described a world of chaos and human vulnerability and fragility.

Although these photographs are gone, many of these paintings are based upon pictures that Steven took in his Westville, New Haven neighborhood. Others are based on photos taken around Nagoya and Tokyo, Japan. In all, Steven DiGiovanni seeks to navigate in the liminal terrain between the disinterested aesthetics of forensic photography and the poetics of space and narrative.

About the Artist

Steven DiGiovanni is a graduate of the University of South Carolina and the Maryland Institute College of Art.  He currently lives and works in New Haven, Connecticut as an Adjunct Professor at Southern Connecticut State University and Norwalk Community College. DiGiovanni has works in the collections of Yale University Art Gallery and the New Britain Museum of American Art.