Robert Stivers: Veiled Image

The work was striking, and the exhibition –hung in a patchwork style– displayed the work perfectly. It gave the impression that each image was trying to reach out of the frame to say something and consequently the room, though eerily silent, felt activated. - Lorraine Davis, Times Quotidian A face emits a silent scream, bodies emerge from mist, a landscape zooms by swiftly. Faces recede into darkness while fragments of memory float forward. Such haunting dream imagery are featured in the photographs of Robert Stivers. The Akron Art Museum is once again pleased to organize a new photography exhibition of works drawn from our impressive collection. Comprised of nearly a dozen years’ worth of photographs, the gallery will be filled with images emanating emotion from Stivers’s shadowy world. A back injury in the early 1980s ended the artist’s dance career, which was followed by a short stint as a stockbroker and insurance agent. He found renewed creative inspiration with photography in 1988. Self-taught in the art of photography, Stivers prides himself on his printing skills. His photographs are carefully printed on matte papers and often hand-toned or manipulated in the darkroom. His evocative combination of technique and imagery results in entrancing, disjointed narratives that push the imagination to fill in the details of the story. This exhibition is organized by the Akron Art Museum and supported by funding from the museum’s Evelyne Shaffer Endowment for Exhibitions.