My Recent Paintings in the Exhibitions at Frederick Weisman Museum of Art and at Hilbert Museum of California Art

 

 My Recent Paintings 

in the Exhibitions at Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art 

and 

at Hilbert Museum of California Art

"SIERRA SUNRISE. CARSON PEAK"  

at the  

California Art Club 

110th Annual Gold Medal Exhibition 

 

  at

Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University 

 

 Located across the street from the Orange Metrolink station at 167 N. Atchison Street, Orange, CA, 92866 in Old Towne Orange
 

Alexey Steele  "Sierra Sunrise. Carson Peak"

36" x 48" oil on linen

  

Come see all the great paintings and sculptures at the exhibition!

Closing Day Celebration and Paint/Sculpt-Out

Saturday, August 14, 2021 from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. 

 

join us for a wonderful closing paint/ sculpt-out in celebration of the 110^thAnnual Gold Medal Exhibition. Bring your painting or sculpting supplies and enjoy a joyous day of painting with fellow artists. Models in period attire will pose as a couple departing for a journey by train against the backdrop of the vintage architecture of the historic 1938 Mission Revival Santa Fe train station and Old Town Orange. This will be so much fun!

 

"Gust and Glow. In Memory of a Friend"  

at the  

"On Location in Malibu 2021, Paintings by the California Art Club"

 

Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University
On Location in Malibu 2021 is a triennial exhibition now in its eighth presentation since 1999.  

 

Alexey Steele  "Gust and Glow. In Memory of a Friend"

30" x 40" oil on linen

  

“On Location in Malibu” triennial at Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine is one of my absolute favorite exhibitions. From the very first show in 2002 I had a privilege to be part of it. Ever since this show was special for me. I loved the space, I loved the light, I loved the way Michael Zakian curated it and, above all, I loved Michael's phenomenal eye for art. For every show I would do one, sometimes two or even three new paintings.  I love work on larger sizes and the space shows larger size works very well.  I loved the way my works looked in that space. Twice Michael selected my works for the museum banner, few times on catalog covers and invitations.  Every time I wanted to paint something special for Michael, for his unfailing eye.

 

Michael's passing was a huge loss for the entire representational art world. It was a huge loss for me as an artist. We lost a great expert, a great champion and a great friend. Since his so untimely and unfathomable passing I was thinking about Michael a lot and for this show I decided to paint again for his eye and in his memory.

 

I had an idea of what I wanted to paint and even an old study that was reflecting this idea. I started working on it only to realize that I needed to go to the location and find there what I was looking for.  After few days of scouting the shoreline I found  it when I climbed one of the rocks at Leo Carillo.

 

Here it was, just as I envisioned the glowing late afternoon sun, the rock formations, the boiling foam of the breaking surf and the gusts that were almost ripping me from my perch. My vantage point of looking down, forward and to the right gave an interesting sight pattern that emphasized movement through distance and space.  What I was seeing and feeling was at the same time real, raw and ethereal.

 

I do not know what Michael would have said about my painting, but I painted it for him.

In Art We Trust

Social Action and Art: "My Neighbor Series" in Collaboration with The City of Carson as Part of Community Revitalisation

 Uncle Lincoln. Study for "Ukulele Player" Sepia on Fabriano Paper

It’s a great pleasure and honor to announce that I will be continuing the work on "My Neighbor Series" in collaboration with The City of Carson after receiving their special grant.
 
Centered around the idea "Love My Neighbor", the project is part of the larger effort to turn the city around after all recent screw ups by all sorts of political charlatans and power brokers that failed the beautiful people of this city, the 5th most diverse in the nation. In all this our city is the perfect metaphor for the current state of the US and the World. 

 Anayo. Sepia on Fabriano Paper

Among all today's anger, often well-justified by spectacular establishment failures, in a society plagued by cynicism, nihilism and relativism of the failed ideology of hyper-greed as national cultural identity there are some principles and core values that remain benchmarks of absolute good - the love of our neighbors, the Community and Humanity. This is what worth holding on to when all else fails. This is what will help us make it through anything. 

This is the greatest opportunity to apply all my cherished principles and skills of High Art that came down to me from my father and to create vital, authentic and compelling images of real people you cannot NOT love. This is the place of High Art in the first half of 21st century.
‪‬ I ❤ Carson!

"In ART We Trust" at Ventura County Museum

My works including the new painting
"Purple Bloom"
are in the group show

"In ART We Trust"   

 at 

Ventura County Museum

  coinciding with

TRAC 15
conference

the most important theoretical and academic gathering

of contemporary representational art movement to date

The show is featuring six of my paintings and drawings alongside works of my close artistic friends and colleagues, some of the leading contemporary figurative artists of our days

Jeremy Lipking, Tony Pro and Joseph Todorovitch 

October 16 - November 25, 2015

 

  "Purple Bloom" 
oil on linen 60" x 48" 

This is the last painting that I worked on with my great Dad. It was conceived at the beginning of last year and the sketches for it as well as its initial work stages were the subject of our daily talks. I'd show him every night at the hospital and later at home the day's progress on my iphone.  

I guess it is only through working on it that I managed to cope with the complete devastation of seeing Dad diminish, to make sense out of it.  

Till the very last moment with torturously diminishing physical abilities he managed to give a still absolutely spot on advice, perfect in its clarity and accuracy. It was truly amazing to witness - as in the Terminator movie it was like some hidden alternative mode of life would kick in, the red light would come up and the full force of a precise visual judgment would burst through.  Dissolving himself in ART he became ART himself.

ART is an ever-young force of life in the eternity of Purple Bloom.

 

 "My Father" 
sepia and white leads of fabriano paper 30" x 22" 

This is the live drawing of my Dad.

I got him to sit for me on my own birthday as the best gift possible for myself. Doing this on my own birthday made me contemplate the double mortality - his and my own. This was the last he sat for me fully live. Having him to sit for me was perhaps the best thing I ever did.  

 "Hands of My Father" 
sepia and white leads on fabriano paper 22" x 30"
 

This is also a live study of my Dad’s hands. These are almost double life size, though when I did them I didn’t give much to it. Only later it occurred to me that perhaps this is how I subconsciously still remember "huge" Dad’s hands…the hands of an Artist, the Hands of Creator that gave Life.

"American Hero. Vic Stadter"  
sepia and white leads on fabriano paper 22" x 30"

I was astoundingly lucky to meet and draw Vic live.

As a matter of fact I met and draw him on my birthday right after Dad's passing much like I did a drawing of my Dad on my own birthday 2 years prior. There was some strange and inexplicable connection. Vic was amazing and in his unbounded spirit totally reminded me my Dad. Vic was also the true Artist in his heart in the way he led his life. They were of the same age from the same Generation of Giants. Both were extreme survivors, Dad in a famine in Ukraine, in a war and perils of Soviet bureaucracy, Vic on his runs, adventures and challenge of authority. Both were extreme at what they did. For both the unshakable integrity of their way of life was worth all the risk.

Vic was the legendary smuggler, "an equalizer of inequities", who once flu a wrongly imprisoned, framed for murder innocent man out of a Mexican prison. Vic's story was depicted in the 1975 classic "Breakout" and Charles Bronson plaid Vic in it. 

Vic just passed away few weeks ago at 95 and, appropriately, not in his own bed. Flying his chopper till last days without a glitch, he died in a car accident.

 

  "Self Portrait with a Forty Day Beard" 
oil on linen board 24" x 18"

This is my first self portrait in 30 years. I painted it after 40 day of Russian mourning period. The first work after my Dad's passing.

 So strange that this show comes up right around Dia de los Muertos, a day of reuniting with our own and celebrating together our unbreakable bond over which even the Death itself cannot rule.  ART has the same power. 

And just to make sure to emphasize what a short step it is from Divine to Profane - there will be a surprise "mystery' piece that I did for a show and if you are  coming you will be able to help me solve a burning question - your vote will count!

How cool is this, that the museum picked for the title of this personally significant show my Classical Underground motto:

In ART We Trust! 

“Moondance” – My New Painting for “The External and The Contemplative” Show at American Legacy Fine Arts

There are special  moments in nature when the light fills the world and everything in it with an etherial sensation. I love witnessing those moments and translating their sense into paint. I love the sensation of a flight that we experience when we encounter birds in their gracious and forceful path. First and foremost, I love the expressive language of the human form as a pinnacle of Nature’s grace and power. I also love the authenticity of a true and extraordinary human character, their manifestations live through time. 

"Moondance” oil on linen 36” x 48” 

at

American Legacy Fine Arts 

I am concentrating on developing these themes in my resent work as they present a perfect subject for the technical qualities of painting I am looking for currently. In my search for authentic and extraordinary characters I love working with artists, musicians, creators. 

In the “Moondance” I was fortunate to enjoy all things that I love. 

It was a rare privilege to work for this piece with one of the foremost Ballet Dancers of our time, a winner of this year’s landmark Bari competition in both, Classical and Contemporary categories and the principle dancer of the Kremlin Ballet in Moscow (being an American), an incomparable Joy Womack. As it turned out we share in common with Joy the belief that ART is an extreme sport. What Joy, as any true Artist, proves is that “impossible” just an excuse for the lack of courage.

What fascinated me always in ballet dancers is precisely what is often missed behind their deceptively “genteel” veneer. At the top professional level ballet is an extreme sport requiring nothing less than a pick performance at a pick form. Joy is at such pick level and the language of her gesture authentically represents the pinnacle of what humans can do. As such it is a force of Nature itself.

As it happened, during the week of our intense live sessions was a rare blue moon, so we loaded my Bronco and departed to the ocean for the night. What I got to witness right in front of me and capture was a perfect unity of all elements I love and that is what created “Moondance”

My new paintings "Forty Day Beard" & "Melting Away" at CAC Anual Gold Medal Show

My new paintings 

at 

California Art Club 

104th Annual 

Gold Medal Juried Exhibition

"Forty Day Beard"  detail 

I haven't done a self-portrait for 30 years. All last years my Dad was asking me to make one. So after 40 days of Russian mourning period I painted this one.
It's called "Forty Day Beard."

It is now exhibited in the California Art Club show along with my new painting "Melting Away" from one of my favorite and tranquil Malibu spots.

March 29-April 19, 2015

USC Fisher Museum of Art
823 West Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles 90089

"Forty Day Beard" oil on linen 24' x 18"

It was pretty hard, meaningful and in this way beautiful couple of months.
Made me feel everything ART is made of and for.  

ART transcends all human experiences.  

ART heals.

in ART we trust.

Alexey

 

"Melting Away" oil on linen 9" x 12"  

  For more information go to  
 CAC website   

"Daughter of a Shoeshiner"

 "Daughter of a Shoeshiner" oil on canvas 40" X 54"

When I met Jay and his daughter Gaby in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, the reverence I inherited from my Dad and the Russian Realist School for the nobility in common man came to full force. 

In their striking quintessential characters I immediately recognized a link between all the Americas as a sort of “hemispheric” story. Jay spent ten years in Texas before returning to his father’s old shoe shining spot in Mexico. Jay showed me his symbolic drawings representing escape and freedom. His demeanor was that of a rider, his soul was one of an artist and in his heart he was Texan. He served his fellow men.

As I painted them I thought of Garcia Marquez’s multi-generational story, ‘One Hundred Years of Solitude’. The composition of Jay, Gaby and the old man made me think of Leonardo’s ‘Annunciation’ and Andrei Rublev's ‘Trinity’.

Creating "Visual Verse" in Multi-Figure Work

Gaby



 
Jay



 
 Hands of an Artist



 
Boots and Pink Laces




Old "King"

Lone Star and Long Road