Stephen Tomasko was born in 1966 in Parma, Ohio. Since the beginning of his career in the mid-1980s, he has made uncompromising photographs of America, creating bodies of work with subjects as diverse as its gritty steel and automotive industries, the unexpected life and jubilant celebrations occurring on its city streets, the dynamic strangeness of its county fairs, and the over-the-top glory of its flowering gardens.
Tying the work together is a vision of carefully seen straight photography, presented full-frame with minimal processing.
Tomasko’s work is held in collections nationally and internationally. This work has been the subject of gallery exhibitions for over thirty years. His images have been shown in venues ranging from Los Angeles, California, to Adelaide, Australia, to Paris, France. Recent solo exhibitions have been at The University of Michigan’s Matthaei Gallery in Ann Arbor, Michigan (2009); The Little Gallery, Bowling Green State University, Huron, Ohio (2010); The Guren Gallery at the Cleveland Botanical Gardens (2012); The Schnormeier Gallery at Mount Vernon Nazarene University, Mount Vernon, Ohio (2013); the artseen gallery, Vermilion, Ohio (2014); and BGSU Firelands Campus Gallery (2015).
In 2011, a group of his flowering images was purchased by the Akron Art Museum for its permanent collection, and later that year, selections were shown in the museum’s exhibition Flora. In 2013, Tomasko was awarded an Individual Excellence Award with an accompanying grant from the Ohio Arts Council. In 2014, his book “Delira and Excira” was published by Shanti Arts Publishing.
Stephen Tomasko graduated from Bowling Green State University (Ohio) in 1988 with a B.A. in Art History, and received an M.F.A. from the University of Delaware in 1991. He taught at the college level for eight years, including at the University of Delaware, Cecil College (Maryland), and Neumann College (Pennsylvania). Today he makes art full time.
