I enjoy thinking about how paintings can change depending on where they are - how they look in a gallery or in relation to other paintings, or in different rooms. Paintings can change the way we experience and see the world.
Stephen BealOnly at the end of the last stroke of paint, you can begin to wonder what needs to be done next.
Stephen BealI am very invested in the physical activity and the decision-making that is involved with making paintings - nothing else is quite like it.
Stephen BealI have, and do sometimes, work with other media. But there is something about the physical activity and the directness of painting that I find fascinating. I am very attracted to the materiality of paintings and the visual phenomena of hue and value.
Stephen BealI have been interested in the dialogue of abstraction and modernist painting - and the rich history of the grid. I also think I have been influenced a bit by some of the particular qualities of the Bay Area. The weather and the atmosphere here is so exotic, like the fog rolling in and the nuanced differences in the quality of light.
Stephen Beal