In video performance and charged sculptures, Philip Gabriel Steverson channels rage and pain at the loss of his mother through a devotion to healing.
Phoenix, Arizona | philipgabriels.com | @philipgabriels
Multiform artist Philip Gabriel Steverson foregrounds the unexpected death of his mother in 2021 as the catalyst for a major shift in his work, toward a healing practice “for myself and others who share similar experiences.” The complex vulnerabilities Steverson displays in the multi-channel video performance Thirst Trap (2024) create space for empathetic connection for viewers, who quietly receive an open invitation to release their traditional passivity and engage fully with their own emotions.
The video begins with the Arizona-based artist entering a spare space to take up a sequence of strenuous yoga positions. In a voiceover, the artist recites a text message sent from his grandmother, “I always talk to my children, let them tell me why they did whatever they did. I let them know why I’m taking the actions I’m taking,” preceding dramatic detailed descriptions of disciplinary behavior modification. Other channels appear in sequence showing the artist holding stacks of books with outstretched, pained arms, alternately jumping rope and doing pushups, and unleashing compressed anger by pounding giant foam Hulk gloves onto the concrete floor. Throughout these contained compulsions, his inner world freights the atmosphere of the featureless room.
Hulk hands reappear in the shelf sculpture A universe where Hulk is raised by Black women (2025), this time covered in pink paint and glitter, amid a pile of broken cinderblock shards. In writings, Steverson extolls his deceased mother as a powerful Black woman, “a warrior within a battle of mental and environmental chaos” beset by generational pain and difficult circumstances. He credits his sensitivity and caring capacity to her with this sculpture-as-gesture, and bids us all to channel our inner demons into powered peace.
Devotion and pain are connected polarities in Steverson’s work, with various exorcisms of loss and emotional release as latitudes. He categorizes his process as resilience, acceptance, grief, and emotional exploration, abbreviated as R.A.G.E.E. If dutifully processing the loss of his mother has become a compulsion, in allowing himself and his philosophy of art-making to be reshaped by this life-altering event he reminds us that not all obsessions are voluntary.
