The Thrill of Reinvention

Once again, the work has taken a turn—into a new series of colorful expressionist pieces. Throughout more than forty years of creating, I have rarely stayed in one lane. Galleries often encourage artists to find a niche and repeat what sells. I have never been comfortable with that. Landscape painting brought my greatest commercial success, yet I have continually wandered into new territories: abstraction, mixed-media, and even my HangUps series with faces suspended on clotheslines. With our move in 2019 to Oaxaca, Mexico, a group of paintings emerged from our Dos Venados studio: Memento Mori paintings of symbolic skeletons, honoring the Dia de Muertos motif.

Reinvention keeps the work alive.

This new chapter begins with pure abstraction:

Antes del Nombre, Oil on canvas, 70 x 80 cm

Fauve Mujer, Oil on canvas, 100 x 80 cm

I lay down color and motion without a plan, letting the paint lead. After that foundation is alive on the canvas, I look for what wants to emerge. In the first two paintings, that became luminous female portraits. I created them first using AI as a reference, then translated and transformed them in paint over the loose, expressive ground. They are larger than life, born from imagination and guided by technology, yet made human by the hand.

Sandia, Oil on canvas, 25 x 25 cm

Today, I shifted scale. Once the abstract background had dried, I set up a simple still life of a slice of watermelon on a plate. Working from a familiar, realistic subject sparked a different energy. A dialogue unfolded between the bold underpainting and the object before me. In the end, both voices found harmony: the grounded and the mysterious, the seen and the unforeseen.

The pleasure lies in not knowing exactly where the next brushstroke will lead. That is the freedom I have always trusted.

More: Steven Boone Fine Art

Also: https://stevenboone.myportfolio.com

Success

“There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way.”
Christopher Morley US author & journalist (1890 - 1957)
If this were a true statement, then some of the most inspiring people in history would have their accomplishments diminished. No, there is another, more important success: to overcome external circumstances through inner resourcefulness and the exercise of virtue. Would people know who Nelson Mandela is if he had not been a prisoner for 27 years and then emerged intact before becoming president of South Africa? Or what about the little man from India, Mahatma Gandhi, (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) who was the pioneer of satyagraha—resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience, firmly founded upon ahimsa or total non-violence—which led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world.
So we see that sometimes success is not about "spending life in your own way." Some souls prefer to be tested by external hardships so that they continue to grow from the inside, and thus prove that spirit can overcome matter.
A test for me these days has been my dearth of income. Yet I see it is what THE DREAM is giving me now, so I do not struggle so much as observe and take interest. I know that THE DREAM holds more than I can comprehend, and if I am faithful, I will be assisted and thrive. In fact my circumstances have been improving.