2022 Recipient of the Sustainable Arts Fellowship
Steve Rossi received his BFA from Pratt Institute in 2000 and his MFA from the State University of New York at New Paltz in 2006. His work has been exhibited at Dorsky Curatorial Projects, Eco Art Space, NURTUREart, the Open Engagement Conference at the Queens Museum, Bronx Art Space, the Wassaic Project, the John Michael Kohler Art Center, the Jules Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts, and the public art festival Art in Odd Places among many others. He has participated in artist residencies at Vermont Studio Center and Gallery Aferro in Newark New Jersey. As a part-time faculty member, he has taught in the First Year Program at Parsons School of Design, the Sculpture Program and Art Education Program at the State University of New York at New Paltz, and in the Art Department at Westchester Community College. He is currently an Assistant Professor and Sculpture Program Head at St. Joseph’s University, and splits his time between Beacon, NY, and Philadelphia, PA.
The Transitional Spaces series is Rossi’s most recent endeavor and takes its inspiration from the landscape in the Great Plains region of the United States, where pivot irrigation is widely used to support industrial agriculture. Through a mix of industrial and hand-made processes, this body of work raises questions around sustainability and the industrial nature of our food production. Referencing satellite imagery, circles from irrigation, squares delineated by roadways, and the repeated linear elements of plowed fields are drawn upon for inherent colors, forms, patterns, and textures. Waterjet cut aluminum is utilized to allow the physicality of water to be present in the works creation—just as the landscape in arid Great Plains is shaped by the availability of ground water. In the works on canvas, the labor intensive hand-stitched embroidery functions as a tribute to the unseen manual labor in our food supply.