sharpdepaul

Steve Harp


Evanston, Illinois
About

I work by creating and sequencing images, and presenting them in the form of photographs, videos, and artist’s books. In my work I draw connections between the visual and the world of ideas as presented in literary, historical, philosophical, and psychoanalytic texts. I approach photography as a detective process revolving around considerations of history, place, ephemerality, transience, and liminality. I consider my work an investigation and attempt to depict or suggest through photography what’s not there, those things that, in the words of Walter Benjamin, “flash up at the instant they can be recognized.”

I teach in the Art School at DePaul University. My work deals with questions of place, history, and travel. I have photographed in and done photographic projects on places as disparate as Greenland, Iceland, Italy, Norway, Quebec, Vienna, London, Russia, Poland, Albania, Budapest, Arkansas, Florida, and the American Midwest.

Books by Steve Harp