Stacey Steers Studio

Installation Images

Edge of Alchemy

2017 ⋅ 19:00 ⋅35mm to 4K ⋅ (excerpt)

Mary Pickford and Janet Gaynor, seamlessly appropriated from their early silent films, are cast into a surreal epic with an upending of the Frankenstein story and a contemporary undercurrent of hive collapse. In this handmade film, Stacey Steers selects sequences from early cinematic sources, prints the frames and re-contextualizes the action, allowing the ‘story’ assembled from appropriated images to evolve over time. She inserts her actors into newly imagined collage environments, built by hand from fragments of 19thcentury engravings and illustrations. Edge of Alchemy is the third film in a trilogy examining women’s inner worlds. Music by the Polish composer Lech Jankowski (Brothers Quay).

Steers’ labor-intensive project took five years to complete. The construction process is intuitive and organic: she Edge of Alchemy was completed with generous support from the Creative Capital Foundation and the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation.

“Edge of Alchemy is the epitome of Stacey Steers’ unique vision of collaged re-examination animations, an uncanny way to carry on in the great tradition of surrealist cinema. Max Ernst would refer to Lautréamont’s sewing machine and umbrella to define the structure of the surrealist painting as ‘a linking of two realities that by all appearances have nothing to link them, in a setting that by all appearances does not fit them.’ I would add, making it all feel so seamlessly inevitable and inexplicably right…the ‘feeling of form,’ as Suzanne K. Langer might have put it…” (Phil Solomon)

Random Forces

Edge of Alchemy collage

  • Random Forces, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy collage

  • Random Forces, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • Random Forces 2 Stacey Steers Artwork – Magnifying Glass, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • Random Forces 8 Stacey Steers Artwork Scientist Bowl of Blood, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • Random Forces 9 Stacey Steers Artwork Face peering behind rock, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • Random Forces 10 Stacey Steers Artwork Dead Bees Pan, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • Random Forces 11 Stacey Steers Artwork Scientist w: Bees, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • Random Forces 12 Stacey Steers Artwork Beaker of Blood, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • Random Forces 14 Stacey Steers Artwork Beakers Red and Green, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • RF mummy, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • Random Forces 15 Stacey Steers Artwork Beewoman emerges, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • Random Forces 16 Stacey Steers Artwork Beewoman Emerges 2, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • Random Forces 17 Stacey Steers Artwork Leaf Hands, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • Random Forces 19 Stacey Steers Artwork Beewoman Presented 2, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • RF handonhead, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • Random Forces 3 Stacey Steers Artwork – Bee Disected, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • Random Forces, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • Random Forces, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • RFgazeatmoon, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • Random Forces 6 Stacey Steers Artwork Beewoman Walks, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy  collage

  • mary giant flowers, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy collage

  • Janet magnified face, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy collage

  • mary against wall, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy collage

  • janet feet with bees, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy collage

Oculus

 Trilogy
Oculus, wood, screens, antique brass, mixed media.
 53 ¼ x 23 ¼ x 15 1/8 inches
Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017

  • Oculus

     Trilogy
    Oculus    , wood, screens, antique brass, mixed media.
     53 ¼ x 23 ¼ x 15 1/8 inches
    Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017

  • Oculus, Stacey Steers

    Trilogy
    Oculus     (detail), Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017

     

  • binoculus, Stacey Steers

    Binoculus
    video, wood, metal, mixed media

  • Binoculus detail, Stacey Steers

    Binoculus (detail)
    video, wood, metal, mixed media

  • Installation View, MCA Denver, Stacey Steers

    Stacey Steers: Edge of Alchemy
    installation view, MCA Denver

  • Anatron, MCA Denver, Stacey Steers

    Anatron
    53 x 24 x 15 inches
    Stacey Steers: Edge of Alchemy
    MCA Denver, Denver, CO

  • Polariscope, Stacey Steers

    Polariscope
    Night Reels: The Work of Stacey Steers
    Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art
    Boulder, CO

  • polariscope detail, Stacey Steers

    Polariscope (detail)

     

  • metrometer, Stacey Steers

    Metrometer
    16 x 13.5 x 13.5 inches
    video, wood, mixed media

  • BMoCA 1, Stacey Steers

    Night Reels: The Work of Stacey Steers
    installation view
    Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art
    Boulder, CO

  • BMoCA installation view 2, Stacey Steers

    Night Reels: The Work of Stacey Steers
    installation view
    Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art
    Boulder, CO

  • BMoCA installation view 3, Stacey Steers

    Night Reels: The Work of Stacey Steers
    installation view
    Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art
    Boulder, CO

  • BMoCA installation view 4, Stacey Steers

    Night Reels: The Work of Stacey Steers
    installation view
    Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art
    Boulder, CO

  • one eye print, Stacey Steers

    Trilogy, Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017

  • 4 photos, Stacey Steers

    Trilogy, Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO, 2017

  • Rupert photo, Stacey Steers

    Trilogy
    Edge of Alchemy     film, Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017
    (photo courtesy Rupert Jenkins)

  • archival pigment print 1, Stacey Steers

    Trilogy
    Archival pigment print, 39 x 54 inches, Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017

  • print 12, Stacey Steers

     Trilogy
    Archival pigment print, 39 x 54 inches, Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017

  • print 9, Stacey Steers

    Trilogy
    Archival pigment print, 39 x 54 inches, Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017

  • print 11, Stacey Steers

     Trilogy
    Archival pigment print, 24 x 32 inches, Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017

  • print 2, Stacey Steers

    Trilogy
    Archival pigment print, 32 x 42 inches, Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017

  • 2 women print, Stacey Steers

    Trilogy
    Archival pigment print, 32 x 42 inches, Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017

  • print 8, Stacey Steers

    Trilogy
    Archival pigment print, 32 x 42 inches, Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017

  • print 7, Stacey Steers

     Trilogy
    Archival pigment print, 32 x 42 inches, Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017

  • print 6 should be 5, Stacey Steers

    Trilogy
    Archival pigment print, 24 x 32 inches, Robischon Gallery, Denver CO 2017

  • print 5, Stacey Steers

     Trilogy
    Archival pigment print, 24 x 32 inches, Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017

  • print 4, Stacey Steers

    Trilogy
    Archival pigment print, 24 x 32 inches, Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017

  • print 10, Stacey Steers

    Trilogy
    Archival pigment print, 24 x 32 inches, Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO 2017

  • shark print, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy
    Vital Signs     (print with Shark’s Ink) lithograph, edition of 25, 20 x 30 inches
    Catharine Clark Gallery

  • sharks detail, Stacey Steers

    Edge of Alchemy
    Vital Signs     (detail- print with Shark’s Ink) lithograph, edition of 25, 20″ x 30″
    Catharine Clark Gallery

  • star chart new, Stacey Steers

    Spell of the Marvelous
    42 inch diameter, video, wood, mixed media