“My paintings, prints and works on paper combine precise narrative details with an atmospheric space that dissolves these details, manipulating the sense of foreground and background, matter and the

 void.  My work is influenced by photography and, like photos, my images are produced serially, are made through a simple process (ink absorbed into paper) and are informed by chance events like gravity and evaporation.  “My paintings pose as a photographic event but appear more like dreams, memories or historical reconstructions- I play with the relationship between time and the image.

A recent painting, Scene on the Ice, borrows elements from the cinema and photography but also exploits a recurring theme in my work – the stage.  All images are in a way staged, drawing the viewer into artifice.  My work borrows elements of the theater -- the audience, props, the publicity shot, the stage itself – confronting the viewer with layers of representation and meaning.”

Steve McClure’s prints and works on paper have been exhibited in group and solo shows throughout the south and northeast.  Recent exhibitions include Visions at the Block Gallery in Raleigh, New Prints/2011 at the International Print Center in NY, and Art on Paper at the Weatherspoon Museum in Greensboro.  He is the recipient of two winter fellowships from the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, a  Special Editions Residency at the Lower East Side Printshop, and the AIM residency at the Bronx Musuem of Arts.

Mr. McClure was born in Atlanta, Georgia.  He graduated from the University of South Florida.  While living in Durham from 1995 to 2003 he opened the Willie Shaker Gallery, an artist run gallery space, and produced the experimental noise show Collective Media Project on WXDU 88.5.  Steve McClure recently returned to Durham from NYC and is teaching at the Artscenter in Carrboro and leads classes at the non-profit Housing for New Hope in Durham.  He is currently working on, Across the Ice, a series of prints inspired by arctic expeditions and the writings of Nobel Laureate Selma Lagerlof.