Featured Artist Steg

British artist Steg shares his strange and fascinating digital imagery. Enjoy his work and see more of his portfolio by visiting his website.

 

 

I am not particularly at ease with the notion of being “an artist” or even art itself, but these reservations can appear somewhat whimsical and precious, which I dislike even more. As a man in my more mature years, I should probably know better!

 

 

I have always seen and created images, but the materials used to record them have varied over the years. At so-called art school, I reacted to something by creating a piece in household paint against the wishes and expectations of my tutors. An empty gesture perhaps. But in all honesty, with the exception of commissions, I create things for myself, and once satisfied with it the process is complete. Any critical or commercial acclaim is a bonus.  I have spent many years in independent music retail specialising in vinyl, and this has to an extent subsidised my image-making.

 

 

Recently I have been feeling that commercial accomplishment should possibly be more of a focus, and have started to create work with that in mind. I used to work solely with oils and acrylics, as well as some inks and monochromatic materials. I was lucky enough to be asked to create an album cover for a dear friend, which was a hit in its day and pleasing to have experienced.

 

 

A couple of other album opportunities followed, and I was delighted to be able to justify indulging in some Jimi Hendrix imagery for a retrospective collection. Latterly, I have discovered the digital world; formerly a self-convinced technophobe, it has become a comfortable and satisfying environment.

 

 

Initially indulging in dark, perhaps rather gothic imaginings, I now work on creating lighter, more colourful representations sourced from my own photographs as well as some in the public domain with a lot of digital manipulation, noodling and electrochemistry.

 

 

I hope to have some success with this new work, if for nothing else than to indulge in one of my other obsessions, guitars and music in general. I set up my first dedicated website in April 2016 in collaboration with a friend, with the idea of making accessible and inexpensive art available in a greeting card format. We soon realised that by adding a simple frame, the card and gift could become one quite pleasing offering.

 

 

Expanding that to include fine art print options was the next step, and now with a soft commercial focus we hope to gradually grow awareness and through many different channels see where the journey takes us. This effort with Artsy Shark being a case in point, was partly the rationale to go to my local city of Oxford where the above photograph was taken.

 

 

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