William Steen is an artist who lives in New York City. He was born in the
western state of Utah in the United States and has spent much of his life in
Texas where he attended college. His first exhibition of paintings was in
1978 at the Roberto Molina Gallery in Houston, Texas. Since then he has
exhibited regularly in solo and group exhibitions and recently has begun to
show his photo-based images that are abstract in nature.

 

In 1984 Steen made
his first trip to India and visited Tibetan Bon monastic refugee
communities. As his spiritual interests in the shamanic based religion
deepened, he began to focus on the use of an obscure ritual item, known as
tsakali. These miniature paintings, displayed during ceremonies, serve an
important function in the process of facilitating enlightenment. Steen made
two subsequent visits to Bon monasteries in India and Nepal specifically to
document through photography thousands of these relatively unknown Tibetan
ritual works. His own photographs reflect not only this interest but also
his understanding of the Tibetan concepts of the inherent impermanence of
our temporal existence.

 

Another idea central to his iconic photographs is
based on the Tibetan perception of the sacredness of the mundane that
surrounds us and is taken for granted. It is this reverence for life and the
passage through it at death which Steen views as his most important area of
artistic and spiritual focus.