Stan Strembicki

(b. 1952; resides St. Louis, MO)

My early works lacked in the complexity of emotion I felt for this place and I turned to collage and multiple exposure to layer those feelings I had experienced. —Stan Strembicki, June 2004

Stan Strembicki began photographing the St. Louis City Hospital in 2000, and his newest series, Body, Soul and Science, is an extension of that work. Over time in-camera collage gave way to Photoshop, with which Strembicki now layers up to seven pieces of imagery, mixing up patient files from the hospital and combining them with nudes shot in his studio. There is something humanizing about joining vulnerable flesh to the clinical records and diagrams, but the juxtaposition has the tension of one haunting the other.

A 1993 NEA artist fellowship recipient, Strembicki has taught at Washington University, School of Art in St. Louis, Missouri since 1982. He holds a BFA in studio art from University of Rhode Island, Kingston (1975) and an MFA in photography from California Insitute of the Arts, Valencia (1977). His work is part of the collections of the New Orleans Museum of Art; Mississippi State Museum, Jackson; St. Louis Art Museum, Missouri; and Suwa Art Museum, Japan, among others.