About The Artist

Stephen is a queer artist and designer living in Los Angeles, California.

After studying art and photography in college I went on to work in fashion and interior design. And over a decade later, I had made a career out of developing beautiful aesthetics for clients through fashion, design, and styling. I still painted on the side but it was always just a personal hobby more so than a passion I was pursuing.

During the pandemic in 2020, like many of us, I was rearranging and redecorating my home while in lockdown. I needed a piece of art for a large wall in my dining room and I wanted something that was impactful enough to take up the space but simple enough to not overwhelm the room. I couldn’t find anything in all my search, so for the first time in a long time I picked up my paint brushes and began to paint. It became a wonderful escape during lockdown and I quickly discovered a lot of people were looking for the same type of art I was. So I kept painting, my hobby that I had been playing with since a child and studied in school for over 4 years, finally became my passion… and that led me here.

Artist Statement

I think when I paint I’m searching for something. As a young creative queer kid growing up in a conservative small town, I never felt like a was in the right place and was always playing make-believe with my sister, trying to escape to somewhere in our imaginations.

My aunt taught me how to paint in oils when I was still a little kid and I would always hold my face as close as a could to the canvas, wishing I could fall into the pigment and escape to the little worlds I made up in my head.

In my 30s I am no longer trying to escape my current reality. But when I paint it is still driven by emotion and I truly use it as a form of therapy. Don’t get me wrong, I often role my eyes at artists that try to place great philosophical meaning behind a cluster of abstract stokes of paint on a board. After years in the corporate world of creating visually appealing aesthetics, I cannot deny that beauty, in and of itself is often my only goal.

However… I think any artist is, at their core, a hyper emotional person. And emotion is energy which is meant to be expelled. That’s why we create. And whether it’s a lifelike illustration, a silly cartoon, or a couple brush strokes on an empty canvas, we are driven to create art in order to release that energy out into the world. And yes, we seek art sometimes simply for the aesthetic, but we choose the art we curate for ourselves because we respond to it in a completely unique and personal way.

So whether you are drawn to something specific that connects you to my work, or you are simply looking for something to fill your empty walls like I was in 2020, I hope you enjoy what you find here. And thank you for supporting that little boy who just wanted to escape somewhere magical.

Stephen