The art of gary steinley

 

MY “STATEMENT” (Not required reading!)


All of my paintings are oil. Most are landscapes, but I do some figurative paintings and an occasional still life.  For the landscapes  I divide my time about equally between South Dakota’s West and East River scenery and towns. I also occasionally wander further East or West for cityscapes, ocean scenes, and other subject matter not available around here.


My preference is on site painting---not only for artistic reasons but also for the sheer pleasure of being outdoors. But, in order to achieve more variety in my painting (size as well as subject matter) I now spend at least as much time in my studio as I do outdoors. All of my paintings begin outdoors--either with a plein air set up or with sketches and photographs.** In either case I have two goals for my paintings: 


  1. (1)to provide a reasonably honest and valid representation of the place and my experience of it and, at the same time, . . .

  2. (2)to use the elements of art---design, color, line, shape, etc---not just as tools for representing things like trees and my feelings but also as subject matter themselves.


There’s tension there: the first, taken to its extreme, could be a photograph in paint, the second an abstraction without any apparent connection to the visible place or person.


But I love both--trees and shapes--and that tension is part of the thrill of painting. And, when things go right, finding the balance is even more thrilling.


**There are some exceptions to this generalization, such as still life paintings done completely in the studio or commissions done from old photographs.