About The Artist

Stephen is a queer visual artist and designer living in Los Angeles, California.

After studying art and photography in college I went on to work in fashion and interior design. And over a decade later, I had made a career out of developing beautiful aesthetics for clients through fashion, design, and styling. I still painted on the side but it was always just a personal hobby more so than a passion I was pursuing.

During the pandemic in 2020, like many of us, I was rearranging and redecorating my home while in lockdown. I needed a piece of art for a large wall in my dining room and I wanted something that was impactful enough to take up the space but simple enough to not overwhelm the room. I couldn’t find anything in all my search, so for the first time in a long time I picked up my paint brushes and began to paint. It became a wonderful escape during lockdown and I quickly discovered a lot of people were looking for the same type of art I was. So I kept painting, my hobby that I had been playing with since a child and studied in school for over 4 years, became my passion… and that led me here.

Artist Statement

I think when I paint I’m searching for something. As a young creative queer kid growing up in a conservative small town I never felt like I was in the right place. My sister and I would lock ourselves in our bedroom and play make-believe, trying to escape in our imaginations to somewhere beyond our world.

I found comfort in creation and sanctuary in the evolution of a blank canvas transforming into something new. My aunt taught me how to paint in oils when I was a little boy and she would shake her head and scold me because I would always hold my face as close as I could to the canvas. "You have to step back" she would say "or you will never see the full story". I didn't want the full story then, I simply wanted to fall into the pigment and escape into the little sanctuary of a world I made up in my head.

In my 30s I am no longer trying to escape my current reality. But when I paint, it is still driven by my emotions and I often catch myself, nose pressed close to the canvas, trying to find those worlds I dreamt of as a little boy. A kind of vision where if you squint your eyes just a little, the abstract collection of colors can become a landscape where you can let your mind run off into. A moment of calm, a place to confront your demons, or a sanctuary that gives you a moment to breathe in the silence.

I think any artist is, at their core, a hyper emotional person. And emotion is energy which is meant to be expelled. That’s why we create. And whether it’s a lifelike illustration, a silly cartoon, or a couple brush strokes on an empty canvas, we are driven to create art in order to release that energy out into the world. And yes, we seek art sometimes simply for the aesthetic, but we choose the art we curate for ourselves because we respond to it in a completely unique and personal way.

So whether you are drawn to something specific that connects you to my work, or you are simply looking for something to fill your empty walls like I was in 2020, I hope you enjoy what you find here. And thank you for supporting that little boy who just wanted to escape somewhere magical.

Stephen