Who We Are
Studio+Gallery+Projects was established by Steve Starr’ to operate from his studio at Lennox Street Art Studios. Studio+Gallery+Projects focus is to utilise the studio as a place of work and public engagement. Like many other creatives, we are thinking outside the traditional parameters of how to run an art practice as a business.
While Steve’s primary focus is on digital collage, photography and painting and his practice now extends to curatorial projects. In addition to his art practice, Steve (aka Thompson) is a published author, curator and heritage specialist with over 20 years of experience in the arts and cultural sector. Steve has published many books, essays and web exhibitions on Australian art, photography and social history.
Buy Artworks & Prints
The Homosapiens series pursues an interrogation of the human body as a ‘site’ of intimacy. Starr’s works revisit the Sexual Revolution of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that critiqued gender roles, gender politics and gender stereotyping.
This interrogation is timely because the cultural and attitudinal backslide into deeply entrenched conservatism has occurred over the last two decades. This has manifested a ‘toxic gaze’ of poisonous judgment and criticism of people’s appearance and behaviour.
The series draws upon the Sexual Revolution, the LGBTQI Rights movement and the ‘pro-sex’ feminists of the early 1980s, their staunch anti-censorship/ freedom of choice ethos and their fearless and unashamed portrayal of the human body to question codes of representation and society mores.
The Homosapiens series is sensual, defiant and sexually provocative. We all interact with lovers and friends on various personal and intimate levels. The models that inspired these works are professional models and some are Starr’s long-time friends. Homosapiens captures their strength, defiance and powerfully provocative masculine & feminine sexuality.
Artist Statement
Freikörperkultur I is derived from the German Naturists Movement that had it
beginning in the Lebensreform movement and the Wandervogel youth movement of
1896. Emerging from Steglitz, Berlin, it promoted ideas of fitness and vigour, while at
the same time, doctors of the Natural Healing Movement were using heliotherapy,
treating diseases such as tuberculosis, rheumatism, and scrofula with exposure to
sunlight.
The Freikörperkultur und Lebensreform movement remains active throughout
Europe, Scandinavia, the UK and increasingly Australia. Through out the 20th
century it fostered a significant subculture producing artworks, photography and
publications. The pagan movement is very active in Freikörperkultur too.
Today, there are many clubs, parks and beaches which are clothing optional.
Germans & Scandinavians are typically the most commonly visitors at nude beaches
in France and around Europe.
In Australia, clothing optional areas around Sydney were established from the 1970s
that include Lady Bay, Cobblers Beach & Obelisk Beach in Sydney Harbour and
Little Congwong Beach in Botany Bay. There are many small secluded parts of Pitt
Water and the Royal National Park that are clothing optional.
The ‘Freikörperkultur und Lebensreform Sydney’ project will bring the aesthetic from
the heyday of German Freikörperkultur in the 1930s into a contemporary Sydney
context. It will replicate the styles and ethos of Freikörperkultur in a contemporary art
form involving local people and local places.
Steve Starr
The Homosapiens series pursues an interrogation of the human body as a ‘site’ of intimacy. Starr’s works revisit the Sexual Revolution of the 1970s, 80s and 90s that critiqued gender roles, gender politics and gender stereotyping.
This interrogation is timely because the cultural and attitudinal backslide into deeply entrenched conservatism has occurred over the last two decades. This has manifested a ‘toxic gaze’ of poisonous judgment and criticism of people’s appearance and behaviour.
The series draws upon the Sexual Revolution, the LGBTQI Rights movement and the ‘pro-sex’ feminists of the early 1980s, their staunch anti-censorship/ freedom of choice ethos and their fearless and unashamed portrayal of the human body to question codes of representation and society mores.
The Homosapiens series is sensual, defiant and sexually provocative. We all interact with lovers and friends on various personal and intimate levels. The models that inspired these works are professional models and some are Starr’s long-time friends. Homosapiens captures their strength, defiance and powerfully provocative masculine & feminine sexuality.
Our Team
Bethanie Rohde
Gallery Manager
Hannah Farrow
Steve Starr
Artist and Director
Gallery Manager