Roy Frank Staab was born in Milwaukee on September 9, 1941, the son of Roy William Staab, an artist, painter, and advertising designer. Staab studied painting and graphics at the Layton School of Art and the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. In the 1970s, he lived and traveled in Europe, based in Paris and Germany. From 1980 to 1993, Staab lived in New York City. He currently resides in Milwaukee, WI (USA).
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After experimenting with painting and watercolor, in the 1970s artist Roy Staab focused on the art of the line on paper. In 1979, Staab took his art outdoors. Since 1983, he has worked exclusively in nature with nature, making ephemeral environmental site installations: sculpture that is often made of reeds above water, where reflection is part of the work.[1]
Staab’s creations are site-specific. He works with local, found materials. The artworks devolve back into the landscape –- seashore, river, wetland, or forest—after Staab’s act of creation in a place is finished. Staab’s work is distinguished by its elegance of line, structure, and geometric form, executed outdoors at large scale.[2]
His artworks provide a rational counter-structure within the natural landscape for the viewer. The effect is one of holding a mirror to nature, focusing on the ultimately uncontrollable natural materials and context out of which Staab creates and maintains for a limited time a highly refined work of art. To experience a Staab sculpture in situ–immersed and reflected in water, blown by wind, illuminated in sunlight or moonlight—is to enter into a place of great beauty where fine art has been created to celebrate the natural world, human ideals, and art.
Staab’s creative process at a site includes his own performance, sometimes involving performative community participation. In his creative realm, Staab gathers materials, creates, tends, and photographs his work, and offers direction and interpretation to participants and viewers.[3][4]
Staab’s first international show was the 1990 Summer Arts Festival of Jyvaskyla, Finland. Staab has since been invited to create installations in the United States, Canada,[5][6] Brazil, Denmark,[7] Japan,[8] and Italy, among many other places.
Roy Staab has been awarded a Japan/American Artist Exchange Creative Artist Fellowship, residencies at the Sapporo Museum and Yokohama Museum of Art (Japan), a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, Gottlieb Foundation Award, the Joan Mitchell Award, New York Foundation for the Arts award/Sculpture, New Jersey State Council on the Arts grant, and New York State Council on the Arts grant, among other honors.
Staab documents each unique artwork, creative experience, and landscape with his own photography. The photographs endure after the ephemeral artworks disappear back into the landscape.[9] Photographs of Staab's work have been featured on the covers of "American Craft" and "Orion" magazines. Staab’s paintings, drawings, and photographs can be found in the collections of the Musée d'Art Moderne and Fonds national d'art contemporain in Paris (France), the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City (USA), and the Milwaukee Art Museum (USA), Abington Art Center (USA), Boreal Art/Nature (Canada), Yokohama Museum of Art (Japan), Ripon College (USA), University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire (USA), and Vassar College (USA).