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

My work "THE WAVE" at the California Art Club 108th Gold Medal Exhibition

My work   

"THE WAVE"  

at the  

California Art Club 

108th Gold Medal Exhibition   

  490 East Union Street, Pasadena, CA 91101

(Former location of  Pasadena Museum of California Art)

March 3 - 29, 2019
 

Alexey Steele  "The Wave"

30" x 40" oil on linen

  

Come see all the great paintings and sculptures at the exhibition! There are strong and exciting works across the widest stylistic and aesthetic range in the contemporary realist expression  at one of the most spectacular exhibition space in Los Angeles.
It is a privilege to be part of such a high level show.

 

Invitation: June 30 unveiling of "My Neighbor Series" new works

YOU ARE INVITED!

*** 

alexey steele

and 

The City of Carson Cultural Arts Commission
present

a special public viewing

of my new works from   

"My Neighbor Series:  

Capturing the Soul of America's Diverse City"

   

 created in collaboration with The City of Carson

through a grant from The City of Carson Cultural Arts Commission



"Ricky of Carson" oil on linen, 31" x 25"

join me in presentation of my project 

of adopting the power of ART 

into a tool of social action

following in the footsteps of my father 

I am bringing the kind of ART I believe in 

directly to the people
in the community that overcomes adversity

Thursday, June 30, 2016 

6:30-8:30 pm
at 

Carson Park Building

  21411 Orrick Ave, Carson, 90745

come to meet my remarkable neighbors and learn their story

"Mrs. O'Neal" sepia on Fabriano paper 30" x 22" 

The first result of this collaboration features Carson residents:

Mary Anne O'Neal, Lincoln Kaio

and Ricky Echevarria

"Ukulele Player" oil on canvas 48" x 60"

For me the answer to many difficult questions of modern world is in the simple principle "Love My Neighbor". I make my case with ongoing "My Neighbor Series" a collection of portrayals of my neighbors in the City of Carson, the 5th most diverse in the nation.

I was honored to be awarded a Cultural Arts grant for 2015/16 to continue working on "My Neighbor Series".

Every street and every neighborhood has its own widely loved neighbors. I want to capture that unique and iconic deeply human quality that makes those special people the true bedrock of the community, something real and solid to hold on to in the much troubled contemporary world. I want to capture people you cannot help but love and I want other people to see them and be inspired by them as much as I am.

At the kind of times that we live in I want ART to help people fill what I call The Dignity Gap. 

 

We look forward to seeing you. 

  

  

IN ART WE TRUST!

    

*** 

  

   

 visit his website 

and gallery at www.americanlegacyfinearts.com 

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”

Head Drawing for Painters Workshop with California Art Club

Had a great time with my three-day drawing workshop for the California Art Club.

The workshop was on the critical importance of drawing for the painters in the Russian Academic Tradition. Having spectacular examples of Dad’s class drawings from the golden slice of Russian Academy revival of the 1950s, examples of him applying this knowledge into his painting as well as showing how my own drawing affects my paintings I described to the class the principles and methods that I use in constructing my works.

I also showed the class the way I use my favorite Fabriano paper and Cretacolor sepia.

DAY 1 

Lecture on the key principles of Russian Academic teaching and of my personal approach

 

Discussion of my materials and demo of the way I prep the paper

Beginning stage of the demo and explanation of my "Inside Out" method and of my principles of construction

                                                                  DAY 2


Students start their work with the model, concentrating on the slow beginning stage and applying principles I described during my demo on the first day while I recapitulate my principles of construction.

                         Good lunch always helps...just don't fall asleep

                                   Always rely on trusted friends

                                   The development stage of my demo

                                                                  DAY 3

                  Organizational stage of the demo and of students work

                                                                "Steve"

30" x 22" Cretacolor Sepia and White Leads on the Fabriano Artistico Soft Press 300lb paper