Photo by Maridelis Morales Rosado
Biography
Steven Molina Contreras (b. San Salvador, El Salvador) is a Brooklyn-based artist and photographer whose work explores themes of migration, family, and belonging. Rooted in personal history and cultural memory, his images blend documentary aesthetics with performance and vernacular image-making to reimagine domestic and everyday spaces as sites of transformation and resilience.
His work has been exhibited at the Musée de l’Elysée, the Hood Museum of Art, and the Center for Photography at Woodstock, and has traveled nationally through You Belong Here: Place, People, and Purpose in Latinx Photography. His photographs have appeared in Aperture, The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and Matte Magazine and are held in the collections of the Hood Museum and Light Work. He has been an artist-in-residence at Light Work and the Center for Photography at Woodstock. He has lectured at institutions including NYU, Stanford, Bard College, Anderson Arts Center, and Pratt.
He is currently available for editorial and commercial commissions.
Contact
stevenmcontreras1@gmail.com
Exhibitions
2025
Gen Z:Shaping a New Gaze, Musée de l'Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland, September 19th - Sep 17th
2024
Gorgeousness, Ben Rubi Gallery, New York, NY, June 20th - Sep 17th
Who Cares? Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, Hanover, NH, April 13 - Aug 11
2023
2022
Residencies
The Center for Photography in Woodstock, Woodstock NY, 2022
Lightwork Foundation, Syracuse, NY, 2021
Press
W Mag, The New Yorker, Lightwork, Aperture, The Los Angeles Times, NYC & Company
Selected Commissions
The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times, The New Yorker, i-D, The Guardian, The WSJ, SNL
Teaching
2023
Anderson Arts Center, Aspen, CO
Public Collections
The Hood Museum, Darmouth, NH
Lightwork, Syracuse, NY
Center For Photography at Woodstock, Kingston, NY