Steven Epstein

Steven Epstein considers himself a semi-educated artist in that he’s taken classes at places like the Art Students League and the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan but doesn’t have any degrees in art and tries to learn through working. Steven was a featured artist in the “Emerging Artist Series” at the Monmouth Museum in Lincroft, N.J. in 2014. he shared a show called “Road Work” at the Hamilton Street Gallery in Bound Brook, N.J. in 2015 and had a solo show called “Midnight Mercury” there in 2019. Before retiring, Steven was an x-ray tech in a hospital and was a winner of a cover competition for a trade magazine called “Radiologic Technology.” After the initial magazine cover was published, he was contracted to Illustrate 6 more. He’s exhibited in numerous shows in the NY/NJ area.

“There are creations that are skilled. There are creations that are entertaining and of course there are those that are both and those that are neither. When something goes beyond entertainment and skill and resonates at a deeper level of human experience I believe it becomes “Art.” Perhaps this is too high a standard and difficult for anyone, especially myself, to accomplish but the quest is to reach for aesthetic connections not immediately discernible by observation using an investment of emotion and skill to capture the underlying essence of a frozen moment. If effectively communicated it becomes “Art.”

“To me painting is often an adventure in a search for meaning, a record of a discourse between what’s going on inside of me and what’s going on outside of me. My paintings are places or events I choose to dwell in for a while. I like to use heightened impressions of ordinary surroundings finding atmosphere and mood in the commonplace. I paint what I see feel or imagine, often trying to combine all options. My motivations are often based on contradictory impulses often leading to an indefinite conclusion rather than trying for a vision or ideal which is out of reach. A lot of more recent work was based on impressions from my long drives home from work going North up route 1 in New Jersey. My pressures and frustrations from the workday would dissolve into the colors of night as I decompressed. The neon lights against the dark streets, the penumbra of the traffic lights, the darkened geometries and odd shadows from the artificial light on the strip malls that I passed with their lit-up window displays. The reflections on a wet night. I like the feeling of the boundaries dissolving between the real and the abstract. I try to put some of that magic atmosphere, mystery and mood in my paintings.”