Steve Carr is a leading New Zealand artist working predominantly across film, photography and sculpture. Within Carr’s practice, a preoccupation with controlled experiments, processes and outcomes is evident, manifesting in moments of subtle, humorous, and sometimes violent material transformation. Seemingly banal events – such as paint-filled balloons popped with a needle or a bubble meeting its demise on the tip of a cactus – are brought to life in real time, slow motion, loops and time lapse. Through the depiction of these somewhat incongruous actions, Carr resists the kinds of detached spectatorship induced by the current era of unprecedented visual stimuli, encouraging time for sustained observation and reflection.

Carr has exhibited extensively across New Zealand and Australia, including Christchurch Art Gallery (2021); Dunedin Public Art Gallery (2021); Tauranga Art Gallery, (2021); Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington (2020); City Gallery, Wellington (2019); Govett-Brewster/Len Lye Centre, New Plymouth (2017); Centre for Contemporary Photography, Melbourne (2016); National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2019); Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland (2013); and Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane (2012). His works are held in the collections of many of these major institutions.

Smoke Bubbles 1–58

Steve Carr

Smoke Bubbles 1–58

Watermelon

Steve Carr

Watermelon

Variations for Troubled Hands

Steve Carr

Variations for Troubled Hands