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| Venus Pregnant by Steven Assael, oil painting, 72 x 48, 2002. |
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Steven Assael: Weekend With the Masters Instructor
Artist
Steven Assael was born in New York City in 1957. He attended Pratt Institute
and presently teaches at The School of Visual Arts, in New York City. He has
had several solo shows nationally, including at the Columbus Museum of Art,
Cress Gallery of Art at the University of Tennessee, Lowe Gallery, in Atlanta,
and Forum Gallery, in Los Angeles, California.
In
1999, a retrospective solo exhibition of his work was held at the Frye Art
Museum, in Seattle, Washington. Assael's work has also been exhibited at The
Arkansas Arts Center, The New York Academy of Art, and The Arnot Art Museum and
is represented in the public collections of The Hunter Museum of Art, The Kemper
Museum of Contemporary Art & Design, The Columbus Museum of Art, and The
Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Assael
is recognized nationally as a leading artist in contemporary representational
art scene. He is known best for his figural compositions, in which he portrays
humanity with empathy as well as subversion. Assael's figure compositions
synthesize the characteristics of the past masters with a selective eye for the
present, suffusing elements of naturalism and romanticism to blend
contemporary techniques with those of the past.
His paintings have been called
Post-Post Modern and the artist's methodology includes working strictly from
live models. Arlene Raven describes him as wanting "the greater
possibilities of duration. More variety, and a broader range of values and
colors, a chronicle of the transformations of changing light, spent over real
minutes and hours with his model." In speaking of his work and how it
contributes to contemporary
art, Assael stated that, "Even though art is dead as we have known it,
painting is not."
He
is currently represented by Forum Gallery, in New York City. For more information
on Assael, visit his website.
Return to the Weekend With the Masters Meet & Greet.