For Hamilton-based artist Stev’nn Hall, his weathered and dramatic images takes the viewer on a romantic grand tour featuring lucid florals, quaking skies, and bloody faces – there is evidence of dark beauty in some pieces, and suggestions of struggle and terrible violence in others – all marked by quiet introspection that conjures a mood that feels both magical and menacing.

He uses his own photography as the base line for his work, yet creates and constructs his images as fictive places and events, fables and dark lures meant to draw the viewer in. Early in his career, Hall made experimental films and there remains an air of narrative to his work, as if his images are still telling a story. Hall has also shown his taste for transformation – for evidencing how self-identity can be freed from restrictions.

His constructed images are sensuous, dramatic and dreamily alluring. Each feels like a seductive puzzle drawing you in toward some sort of epiphany.