Statement

Krista Leigh Steinke is a lens-based artist working in moving image, experimental photography, and multi-media collage. Her work fluctuates between the photographic and the abstract, presenting poetic reflections on time, place, perception, and the interconnection between human experience and the natural world. With the use of pinhole cameras, homemade filters, and other unconventional techniques, she draws meaning from her materials and process, often exploring photo media as a conceptual point of inquiry or embracing it as a catalyst for new aesthetic discoveries.

Informed by various sources (from art and photographic history, science and star maps, memory and the female perspective, to current events and the weather), her creative research often takes a diaristic form as a way to illustrate how the personal, social, and universal intertwine. The plight of insects, the pathway of the sun, a hurricane, a global pandemic – she is interested in both the obvious and more mysterious ways that nature impacts our lives while at times calling attention to broader issues surrounding the environment and our shared community.  

Biography

Steinke’s work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions across the country, as well as internationally, including The Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe, NM; Spartanburg Art Museum, SC; Brauer Museum of Art, IN; Delaware Museum of Art, DE; New York Hall of Science, NY; The National Weather Center, OK; The Crisp-Ellert Art Museum, FL; Arvada Center for Arts, CO; Women and Their Work Gallery, TX; Pompano Beach Art and Cultural Center, FL; Museum of Fine Arts Houston, TX; Photo Miami, FL; El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe, NM; and the Asia Culture Center, Republic of Korea.

Her time-based works have been screened at ISEA 2024, Brisbane, AU; Green Screen Environmental Film Festival, Trinidad + Tobago; Earth Day Film Festival, CA; Currents New Media Festival, NM; The Dallas Contemporary, TX; Jersey City Art Museum, NJ; Aurora Picture Show, TX; Symphony Space, NY; aCinema Space, WI; Detroit Museum of New Art, MI; Palm Springs Art Museum, CA; Sarai Media Lab, New Delhi; Goliath Visual Space, NY; Baltimore Artscape, MD; Columbia University and Climate School, NY; Engauge Experimental Film Festival, WA; and Berkely Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, CA; among others.

She has received support for her work from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Puffin Foundation, Sustainable Arts Foundation, Glasscock Center for Art and Humanities, and a Fellowship in Photography from the Howard Foundation. Most recently, she received the 2024 Jones Artist Award, hosted by the Houston Endowment. She has been an invited guest artist at numerous colleges and universities and frequently participates in festivals and conferences either as an exhibiting artist, speaker, or curator.

Steinke has a MFA in Photography and Digital Imaging from the Maryland Institute College of Art. She grew up in Texas and has lived in New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Seattle, and Chicago, among other places. Currently, she divides her time between Houston, TX and rural New York state.

*CV available upon request

contact email: krista[at]kristasteinke[dot]com

For work in-progress and more in-depth behind the scenes: follow me on instagram.