STEVEN BARIS is fascinated by spaces deliberately designed to lack a sense of place—whether interiors or landscapes—spaces that are intentionally disorienting and built for swift, efficient passage. Think of airports, highways, and corporate lobbies. Recently, his focus has shifted to similar environments that are equally mundane yet perplexing: the sprawling areas at the fringes of cities and suburbs, marked by congested webs of highways and county roads. Of particular interest to him are the expansive, low-slung structures known as distribution or logistics centers.
STEVEN BARIS received his MFA from Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA. He studied at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA, and Instituto Allende, San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. Baris has exhibited widely in the US and internationally, in such museums and institutions as: National Museum, Lublin, Poland; Wilhelm Morgner Museum, Soest, Germany; Woodmere Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA; Institute of Visual Arts in Kielce, Poland; Museum St. Wendel, Germany; Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens, Penzance, UK; The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA; Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT; Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts, Wilmington, DE; Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Summit, NJ; Atelierhof Kreuzberg, Berlin, Germany; INTERNATIONAL BIENNIAL OF NON-OBJECTIVE ART, Pont de Claix, France; Kunstlerhaus Dosenfabrik, Hamburg, Germany; Carnegie Mellon University Art Gallery, Pittsburgh, PA; University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, TX; The Drawing Center, New York, NY, and more. Baris is a multi year recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant.
His work is included in numerous corporate and private collections across North America, Europe, and Australia, as well as the museum collections of National Museum, Lublin, Poland, and Copelouzos Museum, Athens, Greece.