Stephen Abela

I paint in a style for a period of a four to six weeks or so untill I get bored and pick up another style,
I tend alternate between tighter realist styles and looser more abstract styles, subject matter changes but there are definite reocurring themes. Beaches, pools, bathers, scenes from classic films, history... forming a backdrop to my own meditation on the subject. Within that space I focus on expressions of social dynamics. In this sense I feel I am more of a traditionalist as I attempt to relate back to painting history and pull away from the other media -film and photo- which ironically inform and are sometimes the starting point of my work.

On a formal level I am currently focused on extending and strengthening my colour palette, for example in many of the scenes I will incorporate primary and complementary colour dynamics - cool versus warm– to create spatial tension the way Richard Diebenkorn was able to so successfully; a large ocean/pool blue or tree green punctuated by a small area of skin tone or a bright red or yellow umbrella or swimming suit.

I find in much of my painting I cannot easily separate nostalgia for a bygone era, the sensual from more specific contemporary iconography of human interaction. I think t...

BA Honours Fine Art Guelph University 1994
Independent Study Fine Art Concordia University 1990
Art Fundamentals Sheridan College Ontario 1984