Steven Mark Rosenthal

Artist Statement

Artist’s Statement Steven Mark Rosenthal
Cityscapes and landscapes have been a focus of much of my work. I often use an outdoor easel, as well as on-the-spot sketches for reference when painting indoors. I enjoy studying patterns which have evolved in nature over the course of eons, one of the earliest motivations for art. I believe the depiction of civilization invites a more judgmental approach, as our society is a product of our intellect and emotions, engaging our sense of morality. I consider dissolving the illustrative portrayal of our world, as we have done in varying degrees and at varying times throughout art history, to be a rewarding endeavor as well. I work in watercolor, pastel, oil, urethane, linocut, etching and woodcut.
During the course of a cityscape, pedestrians pass by exhibiting many activities, gestures and moods. I think of these paintings, in part, as a time-lapse record. Concepts of pattern recognition and cognition have influenced my compositions. I try to discover not only spatial configurations, but also a sequence in which design milestones may be perceived and lead to what we may understand as a representational image. I believe that some sketching practices which have been handed down from generations of artists – circumscribing form using overlapping, closed-shape, curved forms in particular – find correlation in pattern recognition as spatially and temporally sequential hierarchies of shape concepts, which subdivide and coalesce. I believe these processes enabled our ancestors to see figures in constellations, have helped artists to express their mind’s eye, and help to enable memory storage and retrieval.
Painting subway scenes has also been a focus of my work and has inspired me compositionally and as a societal, existential chronicle. As in my landscape and cityscape work, I have often tried to encompass as much scenery as possible.
Exploring interlocking figures and their relation to abstraction has also been a focus of interest.
A number of my paintings employ curved canvas or panel structures. I find organic formats provide a receptive backdrop for recording perception and imagination, and it is my hope that they may also help parse the passage of perception between representation and abstraction.
Artistic growth is nourished by beauty and joy as well as by disconcerting subject matter, political and environmental concerns, probing the mundane, exploring alternative scenarios of existence, recording one’s feelings in forms of notation not always easily accessible to others, and by maintaining our ability to record and convey our imagination and memories. Both the artist and viewers of the artist’s time period may not be aware of certain aspects of a work, which may only become apparent to future generations.