Steve Stratman

I create my pieces using original photography I’ve taken from my travels across the north woods and American plains, the south, southwest and Latin America. I create digital montages of my original photography and embellish them with original, spray-painted stencils and marker, airbrush and charcoal-pencil illustrations. I apply the final montage onto an archival art board and add a hand-cut mosaic border using postcards, vintage movie postcards and recycled items. The result is a vibrant, layered work, soaked in color and graffitied with graphic images of iconic Americana and beyond. I graduated from Minneapolis Technical Institute with a degree in Commercial Art, Illustration and Photography. I have a 35-year history in graphic design and image building in the best of Minneapolis’ graphic design shops and advertising agencies. The bedrock of my career began in old-school, pre-digital printing. My first job was stacking boxes and sweeping the floor in a print shop where a man still ran a letterpress printer in the back. I spent several years backpacking through Mexico, Central and South America and the Middle East, northern Africa and Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand. I worked as an EMT on an ambulance team for the Honduran Red Cross and guided whitewater river trips in the Honduran mountains. I brought back photos and a deep inspiration for color, texture and culture which remains the bedrock of my inspiration and creative arc.

My process: https://youtu.be/u-7hj24ko98