Stephen Kasun - Artist Statement
Painting is about communicating and sharing experience and vision. I paint my subjects from the natural world that I live, love, immerse myself into, and study them until they feel intimate. I draw my influence from Romantic painting, and I use age-old glazing techniques to build a luminous illusion of space, time and light.
Stephen Kasun
On the Abstract Works:
I find alchemy in creating abstract work that has its own life force and vision. Strong, emotive color, on a richly textural surface, is the playground in which the paintings come alive, engaging the viewer with its story. As artist, I reveal the story through a multi-layered process that is liberating, exciting, frustrating, but always worthwhile.
I call myself a colorist. Each painting is an exciting journey unto itself, which I collaborate with many different colors. The painting is a stage where the colors are characters. Each one has an inherent personality, yet then develops a new one as it interacts with the others around it. Some create tension while others strike a harmony. Some step into the spotlight and become the star; others are painted out altogether. By the end of the painting’s creation, I have discovered their story, shown it in a dramatic way, and then close the curtain.
Color relationships in painting can be so powerful, that I have abandoned representational forms altogether to explore them. With a background in portraiture, still life, and landscape painting, I have discovered that I only feel true artistic freedom and honesty when creating pure, non-objective, abstract painting—and that is actually a much more challenging and exiting journey than merely capturing an image. With that goal in mind, my paintings have steadily evolved from figurative to abstract for the past 15 years.
Although I like to draw and sketch daily, I find that the best paintings do not come from a sketch, but from the creating process itself. Too many variables being predetermined stifle the life of the painting. I constantly am reading and learning about color theory, but when it comes down to the painting, I clear my mind of all the rules and theory and let intuition take over.
While I enjoy the challenges in working with all media, the ones that really free me to create are oil paints. Oils lend themselves well for my colorful works for several reasons: one, their slow drying time gives ample time to blend and manipulate them on the canvas. Two, oil paint contains the highest pigment load (strongest and purest color). The range of workability enables endless explorations through the media.
On the Seascapes:
When I moved from the Midwest to Florida several years ago, I was immediately overwhelmed by the presence of the sea. Standing ashore gazing outward to the horizon proved to be enlightening; it was as if the great spirit of the universe spoke through the breaking of the waves at my feet about a timeless, vast, continuum in which I am intimately a part of. The tides and waves have for billions of years caressed the shores of Earth, and I find endless comfort there.
I try to project these emotions into each painting. I work in a multi-layered approach, and don’t stop until I feel the same emotional impact standing in front of painting as I do the sea itself. I push the colors and compositions until they go far beyond what is a literal translation of an image of the sea. This form of Realism is one that seeks what is truly real, and to share this is the highest order of what I, as an artist, can do.
The ocean is a powerful entity, one that is universally known across all cultures. I have found my voice exploring the magic generated by the seas. I respect and fear the sea. It briefly almost took my life as a child. My current focus is on the Atlantic Ocean, where I live, but I hope in my lifetime that I will get to explore and paint the seas on each continent.
© 2008 Stephen Kasun Email Me