Gompf’s videos play on small tablets placed behind round televisor screens.īut there’s more to Gompf’s art practice than collecting objects and creating his curious cabinets – which he’s been doing for about 20 years now. Muybridge is renowned for inventing a way to animate his photographs through short motion sequences, which influenced subsequent developments in cinema. Inside each televisor, there’s a video loop Gompf created in his home studio, primarily through digital manipulation of stop-motion studies by an eccentric 19th century British-born photographer who used the name Eadweard Muybridge. And he has extensive teaching experience in several related fields. In reality, he’s a skilled video and mixed-media artist who holds a BFA in photography and MFA in intermedia from ASU. Gompf says he sometimes tells visitors he made the works in the show, often getting looks that suggest they assume he’s a random person with some sort of mental problem. For visitors who get it, Gompf’s pieces prompt reflection on the nature of reality, the workings of the human mind, and the modern predilection for obscene amounts of screen time. Text labels with Gompf’s made-up histories fuel the conceit. Some catch on quickly to his ruse, but others assume the televisors are actual historical artifacts. He’s been known to sit on a bench outside the gallery containing his works, watching and listening to the ways visitors react to the exhibit. For one piece, Gompf chose a plate he'd used during dinner the night before. His solo exhibition, titled “Distant Visions: Apparatus and Ephemera from the Televisor Era 1884-1928,” includes pieces made with bread molds, stethoscope parts, and television antennae. Sometimes more unusual fare makes it into the mix, as evidenced by close inspection of pieces currently on view at Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum. Gompf assembles his televisors by repurposing common objects such as jewelry boxes, curtain finials, door knobs, lighting fixtures, and drawer pulls. They’re fictional machines, presented as precursors to televisions. The other houses his desk and computer.īoth spaces are essential to his art practice, which includes making mixed-media assemblage works Gompf calls televisors.
And there’s a clear path for meandering between the two rooms where Gompf, 53, spends most of his time. Because much of what he snags at favorite haunts, including Goodwill thrift stores, is used for making art.
This month: Steve Gompf, whose work is currently exhibited in the North Gallery at Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum.īits and pieces of assorted objects, from candle sticks to bookends, cover most of the surfaces in Mesa artist Steve Gompf’s home. “I’m a hoarder,” Gompf says.
We ask them questions, they provide answers, and then we have a nice discussion about their work.
#Mesas de televisor series#
Studio Visit is a monthly series that profiles artists in their studios. What happens in the studio shouldn't always stay in the studio.
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