ABOUT ARTIST | ssartist

About Steven Steinberg

Steven Steinberg obtained a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Hofstra University and a Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute, both in New York. While at Hofstra, Steven studied with well-known sculptor Joel Shapiro, abstract expressionist Perle Fine and performance sculptor David Jacobs. Steven focused on oil and acrylic painting and was heavily influenced by Picasso, Dali and Rembrandt, honing his skills in figurative and abstract art. Later influences included New York Abstract Expressionists including Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline and American Realist Painter Edward Hopper. Upon moving to the Bay Area in 2008, Steven became interested in the Bay Area Figurative School of painting and its artists including Richard Diebenkorn, Nathan Oliveira, David Park and Elmer Bischoff.

Art is his passion and Steven communicates through his paintings, hoping to capture moments in time,

a particular emotion, feeling and sentiment that remind the viewer of a personal experience in their life. He currently paints from his new studio in Pinehurst, North Carolina, relocating in January 2023. From his previous studio in The Sea Ranch in Northern California, he participated for many years in numerous art shows at Gualala Arts with the North Coast Artists Guild. In 2015, at the Art in the Redwoods Festival, Steven won first place for his painting, Beach Scene 1, depicting a group of friends in a private moment at Capitola Beach. This painting was also part of a 2016 show in San Francisco at Thornton Tomasetti. In addition, Steven had a studio in Southern California in 2021 and 2022, where he participated in various juried exhibitions and art shows, just prior to moving permanently to Pinehurst, North Carolina.

Artist's Perspective:

"I mainly paint in a style called Grisaille, a term for painting executed entirely in monochrome or near-monochrome, usually in shades of grey. It is particularly used in large decorative schemes in imitation of sculpture. I employ grisaille as underpainting for an oil painting (in preparation for glazing layers of color over it). It gives my figurative oil paintings a depth unachievable in my opinion from other techniques. Grisaille has been around since the Renaissance and Giotto used grisaille in the lower registers of his frescoes in the Scrovegni Chapel, Jan van Eyck and their successors painted grisaille figures on the outsides of the wings of triptychs, including the Ghent Altarpiece. Renaissance artists such as Mantegna and Polidoro da Caravaggio often used grisaille as a “classicizing” effect, either in imitation of the effect of a classical sculptured relief, or Roman painting.