Briscoe_Steve_Portrait_Scroll

Patriot/Profile/Portrait Scroll, Steve Briscoe/2002-2019/Mixed media on paper/33" x 30'
Briscoe_Steve_Portrait_Scroll

Briscoe_Steve_Portrait_Scroll_Detail

Patriot/Profile/Portrait Scroll, Steve Briscoe/2002-2019/Mixed media on paper/33" x 30'
Briscoe_Steve_Portrait_Scroll_Detail

Numbers Game

Steve Briscoe, Numbers Game, 2019, wood, metal numbers, 10” x 12” x 4”
Numbers Game

2021.17 Two Flags of Surrender

Flags of Surrender/Steve Briscoe/Wood, Aluminum/45" x 24" x 10"
2021.17 Two Flags of Surrender

Steve Briscoe Disputed Territory: The Patriot/Profile/Portrait Scroll And Other Works

This exhibition of artwork by Steve Briscoe spans three decades and includes graphic and sculptural works. The show's centerpiece is the Patriot/Profile/Portrait Scroll, a 30-foot-long work on paper, that ruminates on the post-9/11 security push that led to the Patriot Act and subsequent profiling apparatus that monitors and assesses threats. Started in 2002 and readdressed in 2019, this major work has only been exhibited publicly once.

Although we now accept as normal that big tech and the nation’s security establishment have our aggregated personal data, the cost has been the loss of privacy, individuality, and the feeling of autonomous agency that we once took for granted. We know this, but despite that knowledge, we willingly exist in a hall of broken mirrors where our identities are imperfectly reflected.

Collected around the scroll are works that utilize words or numbers drawn from the past 25 years. Some refer to passwords while others touch on identity and how we label others as a way of defining ourselves. Identities can be a set of names as well as verbs that describe our actions or inactions. Networks and connections are inferred from drawn lists of names and words that are by turns urgent scrawl and authoritative instruction.

Steve Briscoe grew up in Stockton, California, and attended Santa Clara University and the San Francisco Art Institute where he received his MFA. He has been an artist in residence at Public Glass in San Francisco, Paulson Fontaine Press in Berkeley, and the Bemis Center in Omaha. His work is in the collection of the Crocker Art Museum, San Jose Museum, Berkeley Art Museum, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the diRosa Foundation, among others.

His art has taken many forms, with bodies of work in constructed sculpture, photography, and works on paper. His explorations of materials and processes are wide-ranging and open-ended, blending personal history, cultural critique, and poetic gesture. His studio is in Woodland, California.

January 31 - March 16, 2025, Second Saturday Reception on February 8th, 5-8 pm

 

OPEN 12-5 Friday, Saturday, Sunday

Axis Gallery / 625 S. St Sacramento