Steve Carr

b. 1976, Gore, New Zealand
Lives and works in Christchurch, New Zealand

Steve Carr is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice is embedded in the curiosities of the everyday. Objects suspended in moments of transformation-from fruit, balloons, shuttlecocks, fireworks-are playfully transmuted from their original meaning. His executions are adventurous, also featuring the artist himself as the subject of change where he has become half-animal, a strange man-child, and a pre-teen girl. He has turned fire extinguishers into glass, bear rugs into wood, tyres into bouquets, and even himself into popcorn. Working predominantly in lens-based practices and sculpture, Carr interferes with and explores a range of materials and entities. The resulting works masterfully conceptualise the banality of human existence with humour and provocation, placing him as a leading figure within New Zealand contemporary art practice.

Born in Gore in 1976, Carr graduated with an MFA from the University of Auckland's Elam School of Fine Arts in 2003. Currently living and working in Christchurch, he has been a Senior Lecturer at the University of Canterbury's Ilam School of Art since 2016. He was the co-founder of the Blue Oyster Gallery in Dunedin, a board member of Auckland's Artspace (2002-04) and a board member of Christchurch's The Physics Room (2016-19).

Carr has exhibited widely both in New Zealand and internationally. Recent solo exhibitions include New Arrangements, Jonathan Smart Gallery, Christchurch (2024), In Bloom (IndigiGrow), MCA, Sydney (2023), Making Arrangements, STATION Gallery, Sydney (2023), Making Space, Aratoi Wairarapa Museum of Art and History, Masterton (2022), Fading to the Sky, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, Titirangi (2021), In Bloom (2020-) an ongoing touring public sculpture with living plants presented at various locations, Chasing the Light, City Gallery Wellington (2019)/National Gallery of Victoria (2019)/Christchurch Art Gallery (2018). He is represented in Australia by STATION (Melbourne/Sydney), and in New Zealand by Gow Langsford since 2024.