Stephen TALASNIK
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| Aerial Search, 2005 |
Urban Palimpsest, 2005 |
Stephen Talasnik was born in Philadelphia where early interest in architecture
and engineering was inspired by the bridges, tunnels, oil refineries,
and sports stadiums that were apart of his neighborhood. Seduced by the
aesthetics of the fantastic, Talasnik taught himself to draw by copying
the works of Frank Lloyd Wright. He was intrigued by early black and white
transmissions of the space program shown on television in the 60's and
was a passionate consumer of documentary photography that illustrated
Look and Life Magazines; the major weekly periodicals of the day.
He studied fine art at both the Rhode Island School of Design and the
Tyler School of Art. One year of his graduate study was at Tyler's program
in Rome, Italy where he was introduced to the works of Piranesi, Leonardo,
and Uccello, all of whom would influence his ongoing studio work in drawing
and sculpture. In the late 80's he lived in Tokyo where he continued to
make drawings based on the futuristic architecture of that city.
Talasnik is particularly interested with the process of invention. Depicting
a "fictional engineering", he relies on intuitive math to create
intricate structures that pay homage to the history of building and transportation.
Primarily intrigued with structures that overcome gravity, he invents
- through drawing and sculpture - an engineering that is infused with
a curiosity for the otherworldly.
Currently living and working in New York City, Stephen Talasnik's drawings
and sculpture have been acquired by major international collections such
as the Albertina in Vienna, the British Museum, the Stedelijk Museum in
Amsterdam, the Brooklyn Museum, and Smithsonian in Washington DC.
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