Steve Sas Schwartz

Paintings shouldn’t be explained, they just are—something that’s emerged from someone’s vat of impulses, spilled out and edited on a surface, existing because they need to. That said, many find the artist’s words give them a foothold for comprehension.

The collision between our built and natural worlds is what compels me. The random, Dadaist verbiage of strip-mall signs; visual tropes like palm trees and setting suns; wild animals living among us—coyotes, raccoons, bats, owls, mountain lions, bears—and the invasion of tech into every aspect of our lives all occupy the same landscape. There’s something both beautiful and menacing in it, a kind of random poetry and bizarreness of the ordinary that we navigate constantly, barely noticing. It creates this dynamic, low hum of friction we all swim in. That’s what I paint, mined from the subconscious, with the rational providing guardrails.

Columbia University in the city of New York, MFA
UC Berkeley, BA, MA

SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025 The San Francisco Art Gallery
2025 The Supper Club, LA
2007 The Lowe Gallery, LA, CA, “Geologic Portraits”
2005 The Lowe Gallery, LA, CA*, “The White Paintings”
2004 The Lowe Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2003 The Lowe Gallery, LA, CA
1999 Holly Solomon Gallery, NY
1998 DAC, BKLYN, NY
1996 Agenda Gallery, LA, CA
1996 Luna Gallery, New York, NY
1996 Renegade Gallery, Providence, RI
1995 Bess Cutler Gallery, New York, NY
1993 Alleged Gallery, New York, NY
1990 Gracie Mansion, New York, NY
1990 Maxwells, Hoboken, NJ
1988 William Patterson College Museum, Patterson, NJ
1986 Alexander Wood Gallery, New York, NY
1982 Flood Gallery, San Francisco, CA
1981 Eschelman Gallery, Berkeley, CA
1980 Bowdoin Arts Center, Brunswick, ME
‘87-91 SKATE N.Y.C. - A conceptual piece concerning the culture of skateboards created around an
interactive skateshop, with the conceptual artist Thomas Keiji Agawa.
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024 Stone/Age Gallery, LA, CA, ‘Beneath The Paving Stones’
2023 Shit Art Club, LA, CA, Carnivalus Maximus
2019 DTLA Gallery, LA, CA, Steve Sas Schwartz and Geoff Seelinger, New Works
2018 Department of Cultural Affairs, LA, CA, ‘Glitter, Blister & Trees’ with Geoff Seelinger
2015 Teri Appel Gallery, LA CA, ‘INFLUX,’ S...