Steven Hull
For his 10th exhibition at Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Hull continues his interests in moving sculpture, once again setting pieces in motion by mounting objects to train engines which interact with the surrounding paintings. This engine is activating a cart filled with hanging bells in a circle, adding an acoustic sound element to the show. Although, this exhibition is largely focused around painting and the stacking of abstract painted and shaped canvases, sound is also very crucial to the viewers experience.
An exciting new addition to Hull's practice is the use of marionettes. He has collaborated with the famous Bob Baker Marionette Theater of Downtown Los Angeles. Some of Hull's work will feature puppets from their extensive archive interacting with the paintings and sculptures. This pairing of marionettes and painting conflates ideas of painting, art, backdrop, theater, gallery and props. There will also be a special marionette show by puppeteer Alex Evans featuring Bob Baker's Marionettes at the exhibition's opening.
On September 28th Hull will be participating in Glow in Santa Monica. He will create a rotating stage featuring a marionette show based on the short story "A Fragment from the Lives of the Conquistadors" by Tony White. The stage will display Hull's sculptures of Conquistadors whose hands detach and become animated marionettes. There will be several performances throughout the night featuring puppeteer Alex Evans, Eric de la Cruz and their marionettes with music by Anna Huff and Tanya Haden. The entire sculpture will be accompanied by a light work by Marilyn Lowey and a sound piece by Gibby Haynes. An illustrated story book by Tami Demaree will be produced to commemorate for the event.
Steven Hull received a BFA and MFA from CalArts; he has exhibited in the U.S. and internationally. He is the founder and co-director of Las Cienegas Projects in Los Angeles and lives and works in Oakland and Los Angeles.
by Eve Wood
The inside of Steven Hull’s brain could be likened to a flowering tree in constant bloom. His newest effort, “Balcony,” is an exploration into the various ways that meaning is extrapolated from any artwork, or for that matter any “thing” in the living known world. Hull’s sculptural installations are riotously inventive and seemingly hell-bent on exploding open any preconceived ideas we might have as to what art is capable of in its purest form. Works like the enigmatic, and strangely menacing “Grandma” has a shamanistic appeal, though this grandma could also have sprung fully formed from the mind of Stephen King, standing on green stairs in front of a glowing pink disk and holding a wayward eyeball. My, my, Grandma what big eyes you have indeed!
by Jody Zellen
Steven Hull has fun making art. His works are playful installations with miniature steam engines and marionettes. Fans spin and colorful panels are stacked against the wall. The abstract and representational, real and imagined mingle within room-sized installations. He uses the walls as framing devices and allows his “paint- ings” to extend into the space so that they become sculptures and paintings simultaneously. While the narrative thread through the work may be obtuse, it is clear that Hull’s placement is not arbitrary; he is interested in how the parts add up to create the whole. In this installation he has collaborated with the Bob Baker Marionette Theater, bringing puppets into the mix in order to add another layer of interactivity to the work.
by Christopher Knight
Steven Hull has done many projects that cross boundaries typically drawn among artists from various disciplines, including writers, musicians, illustrators and performers, as well as within disciplines like painting and sculpture. A new, psychologically prickly body of work brings marionettes into the delirious mix.
Hull titles the show “Balcony,” the term for a gallery found in a theater. At Rosamund Felsen, 10 tableaux mix abstract paintings, both gestural and geometric, with assorted masks and figures.
One room also includes vintage marionettes loaned for the occasion from the Bob Baker Archive – a bony skeleton, a baggy clown, an anthropomorphic flower and more. The art gallery is unveiled as a puppet theater, a public stage for surrogate emotion and substitute activity.
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by Eve Wood
For decades Steven Hull's work has been marked by a riotous comic sensibility, as though life itself were a meditation on the absurd; yet beneath the exacting wit and garish colors, one can clearly discern a passionate and committed mind at work. Hull has long been a "multi-faceted practitioner and curatorial figure" on the Los Angeles art scene and has been exhibiting at Rosamund Felsen since 1998. His projects are diverse and far-reaching and include long-term collaborations with other artists, musicians and writers, his own practice as an artist seemingly intensified by his interest in and support of other artist's efforts. In 2010, Hull co-founded Las Cienegas Projects with a curatorial program that focuses mostly on more esoteric work and community participation.
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