The Alicat Gallery - Representing over fifty local and Western Canadian artists and artisans. Native Art, ceramics, carvings, sculture and ironwork.

Steven Armstrong

Biography | Art | Exhibitions | Galleries

Biography

Steven is the second of three children born to a geologist father and artist mother. Steven grew up in various remote parts of rural Canada until moving to the West Coast in 1966. He's always pursued creative adventures. Part of an artistic family, Steven developed a deep, early interest in visual arts, music, and language. After graduating high school he attended Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design.

Landscape is Steven's primary focus, and expresses his strong affinity to the diverse Canadian landscape. The process and experience of getting out into nature to collect images is an important part of what inspires and engages Steven as an artist. His paintings often depict Vancouver Island's dramatic forests and coastal zones, as well as the Coast Range Mountains, Nootka Sound and the Gulf Islands.

Steven often paints outdoors directly from the natural environment - "plein air". He works with acrylic on canvas and attempts to create a dynamic sense of movement, immediacy and place. "To me, a successful painting has different elements which work together to direct the viewer's attention around the canvas, even though the painting is itself physically static. It's a wonderful challenge to work creating images that express the proper harmony or balance of composition, colour, tone and brushwork, while also suggesting the natural world's constant change, interplay and motion. I'm attempting to paint an ongoing conversation with nature."

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