STEVEN SHEARER
Thurs May 28, 2009

words_tommy freeman

Canadian artist Steven Shearer has saddled himself with the responsibility of scrapbooking Rock (heavy emphasis on the capital “R”). The self-appointed pseudo-archivist has amassed tens of thousands of images of rockers—wannabe rockers mostly—which he gleans from a variety of sources but mainly byway of web searches. This library provides the material for his various projects that take the form of photo collages, paintings and drawings, and installations and sculptures. Some of his earlier works were simply compilations of hundreds of smaller images stitched together in Photoshop to become panoptic surveys of “dudes” hammering out mad riffs on their guitars while their glorious manes or mullets flowed as their heads banged. But Shearer’s amalgams were not concert photos of local bands performing onstage, instead they were snapshots of teen boys—even young adults—jamming out on living room couches, or in their bedrooms and basements; definitely humorous but undeniably lamenting.

In more recent work Shearer’s lament is decidedly more pronounced. A series of paintings and drawings of adolescent guys borrows heavily from the style of symbolist Edvard Munch who also painted pubescent teens. These somber images are more caring than Shearer’s photo compilations and capture that awkward stage of growing up during which you think you’re cool but, in retrospect, maybe it was all just fashion.