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Steve Wanna

Multidisciplinary, Multidisciplinary Art, Multimedia, Photography, Sculpture / Installation, Visual / Media

I'm a conceptual artist working with sound, light, sculpture, installation, and mixed media. My work is experimental and is often inspired by the impact and mythic potential that scientific discoveries have on our lives.

About the Artist

Steve Wanna is a multi-disciplinary sound and visual artist whose work includes music, sound design for dance collaborations, sculpture, installation, photography, and works for mixed media. His work showcases the hidden, often ignored beauty he finds in chaotic and seemingly random phenomena. Abstract, experimental, and multimedia, his work is inspired by science, nature, and philosophy, often incorporating elements of controlled randomness—uncertainty is built into the process. Born and raised in Lebanon, he immigrated to the US with his family as a teenager. He holds a doctorate in Music Composition from the University of Maryland. Wanna’s works have been presented at venues and galleries at home and abroad. Recent exhibitions include a 2-person show at the Delaware Contemporary title Inquiry: At The Intersection of Curiosity, which featured an installation of eight sound sculptures from his ongoing series Inner Spaces, and a solo show at Touchstone Gallery in Washington, DC. His multimedia, site-specific installation A Vast Expanse was selected for MoCAA SOLOS 2023 and will be presented in the museum this summer.

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Artist's Statement

I work along two intersecting paths: our perception of the phenomenal world, and blurring boundaries and borders such as can exist between form/process, artist/perceiver, science/mythology. Abstract, experimental, and multimedia, my work draws on sound, video, and sculpture. I rely on formal training in music composition and sound design to create mixed-media works and immersive, experiential, and multisensory installations that capture the wonder of the phenomenological world. My art is inspired by the impact scientific discoveries have on our lives, particularly in their mythic potential. Most of my works incorporate elements of controlled randomness, with uncertainty built into the process. I work to create some measure of order while embracing unpredictability and the beauty that can emerge from chaos. Informed by the principle of emergence as defined in systems theory and Buddhism, I create frameworks that allow processes to unfold and give rise to unplanned forms, inviting new experiences born out of unique interactions between elements of the work and or the work and the perceiver. I distinguish between chaos and disorder, and between containing and controlling chaos.

Featured Work

Photos

Each work in the Myths of Creation series is a record of a unique event, an instant of time, forever frozen. The series celebrates the wondrous, almost magical cosmological discoveries resulting from images captured by NASA’s Hubble Telescope and their implications on human civilization and our deep desire for storytelling and mythmaking. Mythology in human culture often serves to help us define our place in the world; the exponential growth of our cosmic explorations and discoveries offers ground for a new mythology for the modern world. Hubble brought us stunning images that are in fact records of the chronology of our universe, each of some ancient, cataclysmic event such as supernovae, which, despite having occurred eons ago, still possess impact and immediacy. Wanting to capture that feeling I developed a unique, quasi-random process in which each work is made by exploding various materials onto a prepared surface. The resulting explosion becomes the work—each piece is a record of the very instant of its creation. The titles reflect this as they bare the date and time of the event. The works are fixed in cast resin, which adds a stunning visual dimension, and enhances the sense of each work a as frozen moment in time, a record of a specific and spectacular event.
Each work in the Myths of Creation series is a record of a unique event, an instant of time, forever frozen. The series celebrates the wondrous, almost magical cosmological discoveries resulting from images captured by NASA’s Hubble Telescope and their implications on human civilization and our deep desire for storytelling and mythmaking. Mythology in human culture often serves to help us define our place in the world; the exponential growth of our cosmic explorations and discoveries offers ground for a new mythology for the modern world. Hubble brought us stunning images that are in fact records of the chronology of our universe, each of some ancient, cataclysmic event such as supernovae, which, despite having occurred eons ago, still possess impact and immediacy. Wanting to capture that feeling I developed a unique, quasi-random process in which each work is made by exploding various materials onto a prepared surface. The resulting explosion becomes the work—each piece is a record of the very instant of its creation. The titles reflect this as they bare the date and time of the event. The works are fixed in cast resin, which adds a stunning visual dimension, and enhances the sense of each work a as frozen moment in time, a record of a specific and spectacular event.
Each work in the Myths of Creation series is a record of a unique event, an instant of time, forever frozen. The series celebrates the wondrous, almost magical cosmological discoveries resulting from images captured by NASA’s Hubble Telescope and their implications on human civilization and our deep desire for storytelling and mythmaking. Mythology in human culture often serves to help us define our place in the world; the exponential growth of our cosmic explorations and discoveries offers ground for a new mythology for the modern world. Hubble brought us stunning images that are in fact records of the chronology of our universe, each of some ancient, cataclysmic event such as supernovae, which, despite having occurred eons ago, still possess impact and immediacy. Wanting to capture that feeling I developed a unique, quasi-random process in which each work is made by exploding various materials onto a prepared surface. The resulting explosion becomes the work—each piece is a record of the very instant of its creation. The titles reflect this as they bare the date and time of the event. The works are fixed in cast resin, which adds a stunning visual dimension, and enhances the sense of each work a as frozen moment in time, a record of a specific and spectacular event.
Each work in the Myths of Creation series is a record of a unique event, an instant of time, forever frozen. The series celebrates the wondrous, almost magical cosmological discoveries resulting from images captured by NASA’s Hubble Telescope and their implications on human civilization and our deep desire for storytelling and mythmaking. Mythology in human culture often serves to help us define our place in the world; the exponential growth of our cosmic explorations and discoveries offers ground for a new mythology for the modern world. Hubble brought us stunning images that are in fact records of the chronology of our universe, each of some ancient, cataclysmic event such as supernovae, which, despite having occurred eons ago, still possess impact and immediacy. Wanting to capture that feeling I developed a unique, quasi-random process in which each work is made by exploding various materials onto a prepared surface. The resulting explosion becomes the work—each piece is a record of the very instant of its creation. The titles reflect this as they bare the date and time of the event. The works are fixed in cast resin, which adds a stunning visual dimension, and enhances the sense of each work a as frozen moment in time, a record of a specific and spectacular event.
Each work in the Myths of Creation series is a record of a unique event, an instant of time, forever frozen. The series celebrates the wondrous, almost magical cosmological discoveries resulting from images captured by NASA’s Hubble Telescope and their implications on human civilization and our deep desire for storytelling and mythmaking. Mythology in human culture often serves to help us define our place in the world; the exponential growth of our cosmic explorations and discoveries offers ground for a new mythology for the modern world. Hubble brought us stunning images that are in fact records of the chronology of our universe, each of some ancient, cataclysmic event such as supernovae, which, despite having occurred eons ago, still possess impact and immediacy. Wanting to capture that feeling I developed a unique, quasi-random process in which each work is made by exploding various materials onto a prepared surface. The resulting explosion becomes the work—each piece is a record of the very instant of its creation. The titles reflect this as they bare the date and time of the event. The works are fixed in cast resin, which adds a stunning visual dimension, and enhances the sense of each work a as frozen moment in time, a record of a specific and spectacular event.
Each work in the Myths of Creation series is a record of a unique event, an instant of time, forever frozen. The series celebrates the wondrous, almost magical cosmological discoveries resulting from images captured by NASA’s Hubble Telescope and their implications on human civilization and our deep desire for storytelling and mythmaking. Mythology in human culture often serves to help us define our place in the world; the exponential growth of our cosmic explorations and discoveries offers ground for a new mythology for the modern world. Hubble brought us stunning images that are in fact records of the chronology of our universe, each of some ancient, cataclysmic event such as supernovae, which, despite having occurred eons ago, still possess impact and immediacy. Wanting to capture that feeling I developed a unique, quasi-random process in which each work is made by exploding various materials onto a prepared surface. The resulting explosion becomes the work—each piece is a record of the very instant of its creation. The titles reflect this as they bare the date and time of the event. The works are fixed in cast resin, which adds a stunning visual dimension, and enhances the sense of each work a as frozen moment in time, a record of a specific and spectacular event.

Videos

  • Inner Spaces

    See more information about Inner Spaces
    Two-person exhibition at The Delaware Contemporary consisting of an installation of 8 sound sculptures using a variety of media including paper, plaster, wood, metal, ceramics, microphones, headphones, and microprocessors.
    Medium: Mixed media
    Year: 2022

  • in a single drop...

    See more information about in a single drop...
    ‘in a single drop…’ offers a visual and sonic mediation inspired by water offering common in Tibetan shrines. While the religious aspects of the practice are not featured, the notion of inviting presence and quietude by heightening awareness of self and space are very much at the heart of this installation. The sound of water dripping slowly into seven bowls is amplified and processed live to create a sonic memory of the real sounds, one that will sometimes seem distant and distorted.
    Medium: Electronics, audio gear, water bowls, lights
    Year: 2015
    Details: Size and duration variable