Stephen Haigh: invite, 2016, mixed media on denim, 24" x 48" x 2"

About:

The city environment around us is alive and each piece of it has its own unique story to share, if we look, if we listen. My current painting work explores the seemingly chaotic nature of these occurrences, while trying to contain, mask and organize its energy. I seek a balance of organic gesture, contrasted against what has been designed. Like the city around me, my pieces move in similar stride, collecting, sharing, and reveling layers of stories while somehow finding a comfort in the uncertainty of where and how it ends.

Bio:

A Philadelphia born artist, whose paintings pull influence from the textures, personalities, designs and stories gathered by urban design and weathered walls from the surrounding city landscape. Stephen has long been attracted to the rusted, decayed and worn surfaces that wear the marks of life. The stories they collect and the personalities they share are authentic. The walls, he believes are the diaries of the city.
As a kid growing up in Philadelphia in the 1980's and through the 1990's, drawing and airbrushing were of primary interests. Stephen was also drawn to the expressive mark making and energy of graffiti and the murals that colored city surfaces in those years. A commercial art major, at a city vocational and technical high school brought the practice of poster design, sign lettering and advertisement layout to his artistic interests.
While studying design in his early years at college, Stephen explored different ways of using script and text in his work, while maintaining an interest in traditional mediums of collage and assemblage. Stephen started exploring these mediums more and started painting as a departure from the intensive computer work that comes with studying graphic arts. The collage, assemblage and paintings weren't as rigid, as the hours spent designing at the computer. An idea to combine the formal and geometric aspects with the raw emotion and energy in painting and graffiti started to take shape. Layering with discarded items, advertisements papers and paint transparencies, brought an elated feeling that better expressed his interest as well as the desire for the intimate and visceral aspects that came with the development of each piece.
Concepts dealing with time, decay, construction, change, and reflection, as well as the commentaries about them followed in the work. An obvious attention was closely given to the "living" environment and the design of such as the inspiration in his work. Stephen now lives in Bala Cynwyd with his wife, son, dog and cat. He works as a cement mason while painting and illustrating out of his studio in the Fairmount section of Philadelphia.

www.stephenhaigh.net