October Featured Artist: John Stege, Walking Eyes

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  by John Stege

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  by John Stege

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  by John Stege

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  by John Stege

This October, Collective Visions Gallery featured artist John Stege brings science fiction off the screen and into the gallery with Walking Eyes, a collection of sculptures and paintings inspired by one of the genre’s stranger recurring characters: the disembodied walking eye.

John traces the inspiration for the series across decades of science fiction and popular culture. A robotic walking eye appeared as a spying device in the 1964 television series Jonny Quest, while variations on the idea have surfaced in The Venture Bros., Fallout: New Vegas, the 1958 film The Crawling Eye and even The Thing.   

It’s fitting territory for John, whose sculpture often draws from science fiction, imaginary characters and the world of ideas. Working primarily in welded steel, he creates abstract interpretations of subjects both real and imagined. John lives in Port Orchard and has had an equally varied working life, with experience as a field hand, cook, house painter, mechanic, draftsman and engineer.

For Walking Eyes, John carries the concept across two media. The three-dimensional works are constructed from welded steel, while the paintings are created in enamel on aluminum.    John Stege

Come see what happens when a peculiar bit of science-fiction history meets John Stege’s imagination in Walking Eyes, on view at Collective Visions Gallery throughout October.