How do your paintings come together?
Spontaneously. My pieces are all process paintings. I’ll start them with no preconceived notion of the final image. I just dive into the canvas, get to work, and keep working. I’ll go through a developing process of adding different layers of paint, and fine-tuning the color and composition. I’ll respond to what’s happening with the paint, maybe build things up in the foreground and leave the background alone. An implied space emerges, and then I’ll continue to develop it. When the space feels complete, I stop.
So, It’s not an intellectual process.
Not for me. It’s not how I work. If I sat in front of a canvas and tried to impose my will, I’d never get anywhere. For me, painting is something that happens in the moment. It’s nothing I can think ahead about. I discover what I’m painting in the act of painting.
Born in Coca Beach, Florida.
B.F.A. from Ringling College of Art & Design in Sarasota, Florida
Tom Stephens’ paintings have been featured in solo and group exhibitions thought the United States. Stephens’ work is in corporate, and public collections including those of the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Morgan Stanley, Ringling College of Art & Design, PNC Bank and over 85 Private Collections in USA and abroad.
Represented by:
Mary Woerner Fine Arts in West Palm Beach
Mikel Hunter in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts