About My Art Practice

I am a painter and sculptor and work in different modes simultaneously, conceptual, abstract and figurative. I create rules of sorts within those genres and then play vigorously within those parameters. My specialty is playing with new materials as passionately and intensely as possible. I then explore that recipe until I exhaust it. 

For example, my current dominant phase is called Instruments of Agency, which consists of Infinity Columns, geometric abstract relief paintings with surfaces from recycled plastics, painted objects such as vintage propellers and oars, and more, all painted with primary colors as well as black, white, and grey, the Mondrian/deStijl school palette. I arrived at employing primaries because they’re a shorthand for all colors, and I was seeking a palette of joy.

Another tributary is called Black Holes. This series consists of silhouetted figures immersed in wildly abstracted backgrounds, a kind of neo-portraiture. They are extremely tactile. They're individualized portraits, but universal, specific yet general, and the figure also exists simply as a hangar to hang a painting on.

Another branch is called Soul Kitchen, a collection of floor pieces made of foundational materials such as stone, wood, and steel. In this case, vintage stone relics are repaired and ‘healed’ like Kintsugi (the traditional Japanese process of repairing broken crockery with gold leaf, drawing attention to the breaks), and presented in a novel and elegant fashion.

Certain themes run through my work, such as natural history (living things and artifacts from the natural world as subject), recycling (I often use a lot of found materials in my practice such as blister packs and driftwood — from trinkets to transcendence), archaeology (inherited histories, layered time), and concentric rings (mandalas as portals to the energy behind the matter).

— Steve Sas Schwartz

About Steven Allan Schwartz aka SAS

I’ve been painting for some time exploring a range of visual landscapes. Always about presence, surface, vibrancy and concept, my work first got a bit of attention in the East Village, NY in the early 1980's. Initially noted for my Abstract pieces, then my faux primitive Timemarkers, I now employ found and repurposed materials for my futuristic totem sentinels that I call #imageUnits. These are my abstract avenues.

Simultaneously, I work in a different vocabulary altogether, painting naturalistic elements referencing many sources, all out of a unique paint selected for its lushness, nitrocellulose. I paint where I’m called, and don’t follow traditional artist branding strategies of doing the same thing forever. I mine deeply, finish up, move on. This can be a difficult way to shape a career, as when you think of known artists, familiar looks come to mind, but rarely several per artist. I wrote a blog about this awhile back if you’d like to look into this further.

I live and work in Los Angeles.

Art making is my soul and lifelong passion, and keeps me grounded in a chaotic world. Something about the touch and physicality of painting acts like a key that opens a way to deeper understandings, but you must steel your nerves and follow the clues.

I also explore other creative modes - not always a studio practice, as people are so self-conscious of these days - such as my involvement with skateboarding, SKATE N.Y.C., online design, art missioning in Africa, and writing.

— Steve Sas Schwartz