b. 1968
Canadian artist Steven Shearer grew up in Vancouver’s working-class suburbia. He earned his BFA in 1992 from the Emily Carr University of Art & Design in Vancouver, where he continues to live and work. Perhaps best known for his piercing figurative painting, Shearer explores various quotidian scenarios, grounded in references to art history, from Munch to Moreau. Also spanning drawing, assemblage, sculpture and installation, his work draws the disenfranchised youth, dreams dashed by circumstance, adolescent insecurity and the subcultures that erupt under the gloss of civilised society.
In 2011, Shearer represented Canada at the 54th Venice Biennale with the exhibition Exhume to Consume. His work is housed in public collections worldwide, including the Kunsthaus Zürich; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; M HKA – Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Antwerp; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa; Rubell Museum, Miami and the Vancouver Art Gallery.
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Steven Shearer’s Rejection Letter: “I imagined the art world was for people with means”
