Rob Stephens’ traveling life began on the outskirts of Atlanta, Georgia, shortly after the Army hospital ceiling collapsed in on the room reserved for his birth. He continued rambling across America until finally nesting in Des Moines, Iowa. He creates semi-autobiographical art with paint, silkscreen, comics and monumental woodcut prints. He was drawn to printmaking at a young age, because of the collaborative nature of the medium, the sense of community amongst fellow printmakers, and its history of rendering images in a radically democratic fashion. He was drawn to woodcuts in specific because the brutal nature of carving. The unforgiving nature of the carved line gave his scrawled lines a weight and permanence associated with the printed image, and the rough cutting of wood matched his already anxious line quality. His images are characterized by a heavy gestural line and saturated color. From 2000-2014 he was a Professor at Graceland University, where he taught Studio Art, and Art History. He was a visiting artist at Mission Graphica in San Francisco, and has assisted in numerous print workshops across the country, including those at Frogman’s Press and Tom Huck’s Evil Prints. He is the 2016 recipient of the Iowa Arts Council Artist Fellowship. His salacious tell-all comic features “Good Kid Rob,” a neurotic alter-ego.

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