Sunday, January 25, 2009

Alexey Steele Masterdrawing Acquired by Carnegie Art Museum

Alexey Steele Masterdrawing Acquired by Carnegie Art Museum
Links Figurative Art to Our Era of Crisis

The result of over ten years of conceptual development, the work represents a visual premonition of an impending crisis we now experience. It is an inspiring and self-examining message for our time.

CARNEGIE ART MUSEUM
carn logo 2424 South C Street (next to Plaza Park), Oxnard, CA 93030
at Plaza and Centennial Parks in Downtown Oxnard
(805) 385-8157/8158, fax (805) 483-3654
Admission $3 / Museum members free

QS 5
Quiet Steps of Approaching Thunder
pastel and graphite on paper by Alexey Steele, 2008. Carnegie Art Museum Collection

Participate in virtual unveiling of the Carnegie Art Museum's new acquisition to its permanent collection of California art of a major master drawing by Alexey Steele of Los Angeles. "...Approaching Thunder" links figurative art to our era of crisis. The artist will discuss the works' concepts, symbolism and large scale drawing techniques within the development of this career.

"The Carnegie is pleased to have acquired a stunning new master work by this artist that shares inspiring compositional scope, breath-catching acuity and heroic allegory directly related to our times. Rarely in current California Art is such adroit draftsmanship with colored Conte crayon employed to relate contemporary issues. Here Nature's thunder rolls over the ocean reaching shore at Rincon Beach in the guise of prophetic angels heralding the ominous outcome of man's greed and literal trashing of the environment.

Imbuing mythological figures with cinematic movement and modern musculature, Steele has created a new classical vernacular for our age. His artistic vision creates art that reacquaints us with multi-layered symbolism and re-affirms our capacity to be inspired by the magnificent," says Suzanne Bellah, director of Carnegie Art Museum.

Alexey Steele's remarkable ability to draw monumental figures in foreshortened positions reflects his training at the Surikov Art Institute of the Soviet Academy of Arts in Moscow, which was based on the 19th century methods of the Russian Imperial Academy.

See more at alexeysteele.com.