Mixed media on corrugated cardboard triptych.
Sized 148.6cm x 252.3cm (58.5 inches x 99.3 inchs)
Each of the 3 panels is, 148.6cm x 84.1cm.
Novel Artworks
Novel Artworks are mixed media triptychs, incorporating collage, paint and pencil. Each contains the text of a full-length novel within the images. All pictures contain stories. These pictures are literally (!) made of stories.
To fit the words in, the text is arranged into 3 columns per page and all indentation for paragraphs etc., are removed.
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Themes
Showing a whole novel "all at once" is based on the idea that there is no linear time and everything is happening simultaneously. In this way, viewers can shift (through time) to different "moments" within the story.
"Novel Artworks" are largely about challenging the notion of linear time. Showing everything "all at once". In an eternal singular moment. All three of Steve's novels explore this idea in their own way.
In Fireworks, every takes place from the moment a bomb is detonated until the force of the detonation takes effect.
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Physicality
The circles contain a present a motif for the novel. For Fireworks, the image of the star is used. (For "The Airplane" it is clocks, for "Social Wallpaper it is butterflies). These motifs were hand-cut from printed coloured papers and arranged by Steve during several months of painstaking application (!).
The (sideways 8) infinity sign loops in and out of the circle motifs, giving the work movement and perspective (on what is essentially a flat surface) and reinforcing the idea that to have "infinity" with no beginning or end, all events must be occurring within a singular moment.
The coloured drips of paint introduce "random" elements into the work, as a counterpoint to the concepts of destiny and anti-freewill predeterminism.
Standing back, the text virtually vanishes so the artwork is experienced as it illustrative parts. Going closer, the text emerges, as well as the details included between the text blocks. These are collaged shapes, and muted geometrical shapes and patterns.
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Fireworks
Fireworks has a main text of 104804 words and an abridged version of 9190 words running in feinter and larger text running along underneath the main.
Work began in 2001 and enjoyed several versions before this one, dated 2018.
The blurb reads: Fireworks: Dennis is being exploded, but he doesn't know it yet. He hasn't got much time. A fraction of a fraction of a second, in fact. Can he somehow make sense of his life? From being a boy evacuated from pre-war Nazi Germany to being a philosophy lecturer on the cusp of an incredible world-altering discovery...
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