Steven West

Steve West photographs the secret history of the city – sites of clandestine meetings and illicit art installations. The images are lithographs, reproduced through a painstakingly manual process. Slight variances accumulate to create a rich layer of historical information via artifacts of the printing process. The coarse grain of the images complements the subject’s rough surfaces and sharp contours. Gates and fences unfurl across the picture frame, diamond patterns of chain link block access and obscure views of the space beyond. These are stories of streets covered with dirt and silt and neglect, the city of forgotten spaces. A crimson patina of corroding iron punctuates grey streets – time weighs heavily in these images, it is a physical presence measured in weathered posters and broken pottery. Half exposed cobblestones and abandoned rail tracks that once carried the weight of the city emerge from the dirt of urban archaeology as notes from the past. This metropolis is a slumbering creature whispering its stories to those who look and listen. Review: Michael Sorgatz