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Seattle, Portland, Olympia

Breakfast with elvis is “work of the month” at the Le Musée de la Photographie

“August’s work invites us to travel to Oakland, on the west coast of the United States, inside a diner. Sometimes a place of meeting but most often of passage, the famous American diner has long fascinated artists. If it’s Edward Hopper’s paintings that come to mind first, the diner will become one of the recurring symbols of American visual culture. Taken in 1985 by American photographer Steve Davis, this photograph spontaneously reminds us of William Eggleston, Stephen Shore and Joel Meyerowitz. By the mid-1970s, all three had led to the recognition of color photography within museum institutions and art galleries. They will be the figureheads …

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edge of town panorama, with house and trailer and grain field

Two-Year Supply showing at the Sun Valley Museum of Art

10/29/21 through 1/8/22 Two-Year Supply features artwork by three artists with ties to the agricultural communities of southern Idaho: painter and sculptor Rebecca Campbell, and photographers Steve Davis and Alexis Pike. Each of the artists contributes work that examines the history of settlement by farming families in the region, the communities that those families have built, and the way that life in Idaho’s rural towns and cities is changing in the 21st century.

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Featured in Lenscratch

Featured in Lenscratch

We do judge books by their covers and people by what they wear. Photographer Steve Davis has created a poignant portrait project, As Regular People, photographing inmates in civilian clothing as they prepare for release–this simple shift in dress and self presentation changing how we perceive his subjects.

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Davis Receives Grant from the Pollination Project

The Skill Builders Unit in the Washington Correction Center in Washington State holds a prison population of inmates deemed particularly vulnerable. Many face great intellectual and literacy challenges. The Skill Builders Project represents photography, both by Davis and of the Skill Builders enrolled in the prison’s first-ever photography class. This photography, coupled with interviews and storytelling, will give voice to the inmates and their difficult situations. Through regular workshops, the inmates will learn to express themselves visually and share their thoughts and stories with the public.

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MIT Press Publishes Public Servants

MIT Press, in collaboration with the New Museum has just published a book entitled Public Servants: Art and the Crisis of the Common Good. The book features an essay by Joshua Dubler commissioned explicitly for the volume about Prison Obscura. Joshua’s essay appears on pages 141-158.  Images from some of my juvenile  incarcerated students are included.

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Prison Obscura Opens at Parsons

February 5 – April 17, 2015
Curator’s talk: Thursday, February 5, 5:45 p.m., followed by an opening reception 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Curated by Prison Photography editor Pete Brook, Prison Obscura explores an area of society that, in spite of its explosive growth, continues to exist in the shadows: the country’s prisons and jails. Presenting rarely seen vernacular, surveillance, evidentiary, and prisoner-made photographs, the exhibition sheds light on the prison industrial complex and those it confines.

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Prison Obscura Opens at Scripps College

‘Prison Obscura’ Exhibition at Scripps College, Claremont, California, Sept. 2nd – Oct. 17th. Curated by Pete Brook, this exhibit now travels out west, and “sheds light on their (prisoners) experiences and the prison-industrial complex as a whole by showcasing rarely seen surveillance, evidentiary, and prisoner-made photographs.”

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Gallery Project Presents “Unseen”

I’m pleased to have work from two series, Captured Youth and Rainier School, along with works from my incarcerated students included in this major exhibition. Unseen opens in Detroit, August 1st, 2014… Read the Michigan Live review.    The following rarely seen images were created by incarcerated teens in the Green Hill School, Chehalis, Washington, 2000. from the press release  UNSEEN: A GALLERY PROJECT DUAL-SITE EXHIBIT IN DETROIT AND ANN ARBOR   DETROIT:  August 1st – August 31st, 2014 Eastern Market 1550 Winder (across from Red Bull House of Art) Detroit, MI   ANN ARBOR:  September 12th – October 12th, 2014 Ann Arbor …

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Prison Obscura Opens January 24th

I’m pleased to have examples of photography from my young incarcerated workshop participants in this promising group exhibition, curated by Pete Brook. http://exhibits.haverford.edu/prisonobscura/

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2014 Artist Trust Benefit Auction

Artist Trust 2014 Benefit Art Auction I’m pleased to be a contributor to the 2014 Artist Trust Benefit Auction, February 22nd.  This image, from the abandoned Olympia Brewery, is from an edition of four.

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Seen But Not Heard: Photos from US Juvenile Prisons

December 6th – 22nd  at the Kulturni Centar Beograda (KCB) in Belgrade, Serbia.  This exhibition  features AS220, Steve Liss, Joseph Rodriguez, Ara Oshagan, Richard Ross, myself and the works of many of my incarcerated students from prison workshops I conducted.  Curated by my buddy Pete Brook of prisonphotography.org, it’s worth checking out, if you’re in the neighborhood.

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an interview

My friend Carlos Sanchez made a little multimedia thing about me and my work.  Enjoy!

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Steve making on the spot portraits at Experience Music Project

Come join me November 15th for the opening celebration of EMP’s Martin Schoeller: Close Up, and I will make your portrait!    Celebrate the opening of EMP’s Martin Schoeller: Close Up with images of the world’s most identifiable faces and a slew of portrait-themed activities. Martin Schoeller’s large-scale photographic headshots put some of the most recognizable faces from cinema, the sports field, the political podium, and the arena of rock alongside American teens and tribespeople from Tanzania and the Amazon. Attend Close Up: Opening Night to snap your own Schoeller inspired self-portrait; step into the studio and explore the world of portraiture with Photo Center NW and photographerSteve …

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Steve Davis Lecture at Tacoma Art Museum

Saturday, October 12, 1:30 pm In conjunction with Sitting for History: Exploring Self-Identity through Portraiture, I’ll be speaking about my portrait work over the years.  I hope you can join me. tickets

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Invisible Solitudes Shows at European Photo Festival

Selections from the Rainier School series are included in Invisible Solitudes, showing as part of this year’s Festival Fotographico Europeo.  Invisible Solitudes was curated by Caterina Clerici in collaboration with SocialDocumentary.net (SDN), and includes works by Diego Ibarra Sanchez, Jenn Ackerman, Steve Davis, Enrico Fabian, Catherine Karnow, and Magadalena Sole.

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Steve Davis