PICA presents a trilogy of new video works by Brisbane artist Grant Stevens, in response to his time in Los Angeles. Screened together for the first time, If Things Were Different (2009), Crushing (2009), and Really Really (2007) are three videos in which Stevens exposes the deep ambivalence of the human condition.
The works oscillate between the fanciful and romantic to the abrasively cynical by drawing on tropes of Hollywood film, advertising or bad day-time TV and purposefully mishandle media devices of editing, framing, cropping,and incorporating text or muzak.
The artist, who now lives and works between Queensland and California explains that ‘…unpacking and testing out those ambiguities and ambivalences are what drive me to make art – to try to make works that draw you in while making you feel uncomfortable or unsure about what you are looking at’ (Eyeline, 2008).