Aaron T. Stephan

2021    Untitled Monuments, Dowling Walsh Gallery, Rockland, ME

2020    Luminous Remembrance, Lubbock Tornado Memorial, Lubbock, TX

2019 10,000 Hours +, Speedwell Projects, Portland, ME

2019    Luminous Arbor, City of Portland, Portland, ME

2018    Paths Woven, San Diego International Airport, San Diego, CA

In Cement Houses and How to Build Them (Locust Projects 2017), during a month-long residency in the gallery, Stephan produced hundreds of blocks from scratch using a homemade cement block machine. He then reproduced a life-sized cement block house from plans found in the 1909 Sears and Roebuck catalog inside the gallery. 2019's Intermediate Submittal included a series of works that continued these themes including a scale-model of the same home

2017    Cement Houses and How to Build Them, Locust Projects, Miami FL

Notably, Stephan has collaborated with life-partner Lauren Fensterstock on multiple projects, including a series of performance dinner parties. In 2016 both artists teamed up with Portland chef Masa Miyake on a dinner-themed 9-night production titled "Inside, Outside, Above, Below" combining cooking and eating, architecture and live building, live music and video.

2016    Book/House, Quint Contemporary Art, La Jolla CA

2016    Gold Pour, RTD Gold Strike Station, Arvada, CO

Stephan's varied work centers on the object: using humor and wit, he explores the meaning behind the everyday stuff that surrounds us. As curator Jessica May states in the catalog for 2015's exhibition To Borrow, Cut, Copy, and Steal at the Portland Museum of Art: "Stephan is interested in objects not as metaphors, but as objects, like facts". In 2012's An Awkward Meeting Between Painting and Sculpture (Aucosisco Gallery), what appears to be a large plain white brush stroke is draped over a lushly crafted mahogany and brass saw-horse encompassing an ontological confrontation between structure and facade.  2008's Flat World/Round Map, created while the Artist-in-Residence in the Kohler's Arts/Industry Program speaks to similar notions as Stephan reproduces Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Map in the round, forming a massive cast iron globe replete with Fuller's signature triangulation.

2015    Pulse NY Art Fair, with Sienna Gallery, New York, NY

2015    Inside, Outside, Above, Below, Thompson's Point, Portland, ME

2015     Variations, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX

Art-World iconography is also a strong premise running throughout many of Stephan's works: In 2014 three monumental works were presented in Second-hand Utopias (DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum). These irreverent sculptures played off of iconic artworks by Donald Judd, Robert Smithson, and Vladamir Tatlin.  Each reflected architectural components found onsite and presents a complex dialogue with these artists. 2020's Untitled Monument series (Dowling Walsh Gallery) consists of cyanotype blueprints depicting failed monuments from a Vladimir Lenin statue in mid-topple seemingly pointing to the sky for assistance to Richmond, Virginia's Stonewall Jackson Monument - suspended in mid-air during a removal by crane in 2020.

2014    To Borrow, Cut, Copy and Steal, Portland Museum of Art, Portland ME

2014    Substance, a series of culinary events at the artist's home, Portland, ME

2013    Second-Hand Utopias , DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln MA

2013    Paths Crossed, Wishard Hospital, Indianapolis, IN

2012   CMCA Biennial Exhibition, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport ME

2011    Corporeal, Aucocisco Gallery, Portland ME

2011    Another Evening of BS With Aaron T Stephan, Space, Portland, ME

2011    Paths Open, Jefferson Village School, Jefferson, ME

2010   4 In Maine, Farnsworth Art Museum, Rockland, ME

2009     Vessels Absent, University of Maine Museum of Art, Bangor ME

2009   Three Decades of Contemporary Art, California Center for the Arts, Escondido, CA

2009    Intersect, U.S. Jackman Border Crossing Facility, Jackman, ME

2008    Building Houses/Hiding Under Rocks, Quint Contemporary Art, La Jolla CA

2008    The Moment at Hand, John Michael Kohler Art Center, Sheboygan, WI

In 2007's Building Houses and Hiding Under Rocks, Stephan used over 40,000 books to fashion a square block-like shelter with a small doorway on one side. Upon entering, one is surrounded by the soft carved interior surface of the stacked books speaking to the demise of the paper book and nodding to continental philosophy's focus on language entanglement.

2007    The Problem with Ladders, Whitney Artworks, Portland ME

2006    CMCA Biennial Exhibition, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Rockport, ME

2006    Aaron T Stephan Is a Hack, Institute of Contemporary Art, Portland, ME

2003    Weighing My Options, Space Gallery, Portland ME

2003 Portland Biennial, Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME

Stephan holds a BFA from the State University of New York at Purchase (1996) and an MFA from Maine College of Art (2002). In addition, he studied at Amsterdamse Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, State University of New York at New Paltz, and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Stephan has completed residencies at Yaddo and Edenfred and was the 2008 Kohler Artist-in-Residence at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.

Aaron T Stephan (born in 1974) is an American artist whose multifaceted practice encompasses sculpture, mixed media, performance, and installation art. Based in Portland, Maine, his work has been included in exhibitions across the US and is held in public and private collections throughout the world.