Biennial Artist: Steven Perkins
Run Time: 3:27
Steven Perkins (United States, born 1960), Two Oak Trees, 2008, oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches. Lent by the artist.
My artistic process is painting the landscape—rendering moments of light and life so that I can see into the world around me. It is based on observation. While most of my painting takes place in the studio, working from photographs I’ve taken, I also paint en plein air. I work in oil, primarily on canvas, sometimes on panel.
One of the great joys of my work is the almost limitless parameter of what landscape can be. It could be defined as any exterior location on planet Earth. This means that my subjects are everywhere. Looking everywhere, what I want to uncover is the grandeur in the mundane, the extraordinary in the ordinary. Factories, highways, and the back streets of small towns can be as magnificent as mountaintops. I want to paint it all.
Art-making remains a mystery to me. It is, to be sure, a wonderful mystery. It often seems like my job as an artist is to be as open as possible so that I can see what is in front of me. There is, of course, always more to see.