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Painting & Photography
LABADESSA, Steven
Painting serves for me as a physically enacted ritual of praise and contemplation. It is a process that allows me to view my attachments (memories, feelings, thoughts) with detachment by rendering an allusion to my private reality. Through the act of painting, the invisible is made visible, suspended in the timelessness of paint – still, but never silent.
They are figuratively and literally theatrical. Friends and relations, lasting & temporary, serve as a surrogate for me, as I re-render their flesh by “compositing” my imagery from a variety of observed, imaginary, photographic and digital
sources. This process frees me from verisimilitude to encompass a form of self-portraiture. Ultimately, the paintings consider the ways in which a person or persons can take on an iconic quality in memory, at the same time they emblematize, retrospectively, a more universal human experience. In doing so, paintings mark my explorations of contemporary visual aesthetics & languages in both popular & fringe cultures. I draw inspiration from forms of expression throughout the world aspiring towards a devout pursuit of a severe beauty, as well as pursuing virtuosity in practice seeking ever greater complexity in simplicity. Parallel interests in
Northern Renaissance Art (egs. Jan Van Eyck, Hans Memling), Japanese Art & Culture (particularly Butoh dance and Otaku, or "Anime Geek," subculture), and Western Comic Book Art contribute heavily in the creation of my work.
EDUCATION: Master of Fine Arts - 2001, University of Pennsylvania. Also studied at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Juris Doctor - 1997, Boston University, School of Law.
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