To honor and celebrate his years of teaching and influence in the North Texas art community, Conduit Gallery is honored to present a selection of Stephen Lapthisophon’s work in the exhibition, S.

Consisting of artworks ranging from 2003 to 2020, the paintings and works on paper in Stephen Lapthisophon’s exhibition, S, illustrate the artist’s commitment to his artistic practice during the years he spent as a professor of art in Dallas at both the University of Texas Arlington and the University of Texas Dallas. In the 20 years he spent at the respective institutions, he became a mentor to many and a cultural advocate for the Dallas-Fort Worth art community. During his tenure, he was a curator and advisor for three Dallas Biennials (2020, 2014 and 2012) and curated shows at Conduit Gallery (2016); and 500 Singleton (2016, 2015 and 2011) among others.

One of the many through lines in his mixed media works are poetic improvisations inspired by and referring to deeply buried literary sources, music, poetry and twentieth century art. Though the use of unconventional materials such as pigmented animal fats, spices, dirt and coffee grounds, Lapthisphon exalts the everyday and attempts to slow time in order to look longer and unpack hard to find meanings and forgotten histories.

Stephen Lapthisophon (b. 1956) is an American artist, writer, and educator working in the field of conceptual art, critical theory, and disability studies. Lapthisophon received his BFA from the University of Texas at Austin and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1979. His studies continued at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in the Department of Comparative Literature and Theory from 1986-1989. His early work combined poetry, performance, sound art, and visual arts with postmodern philosophical concerns. Influences include Arte Povera, Robert Smithson and the legacy of the Situationists, who sought to make everyday life a focus of artistic activity.

In 1994 he suffered a major deterioration of his vision due to an neurological malady, and became legally blind after intensive medical treatment. His subsequent work as an installation artist and art theorist has been marked by this experience.

He has exhibited extensively across the United States as well as internationally in exhibitions in Germany, Spain, Sweden, France, the United Kingdom, and Mexico. Selected museum exhibitions include the Dallas Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Museo de la Ciudad Queretaro, Mexico.