Clintel Steed and the Explosion of an Image
01/April/2016 Filed in: Artists
Clintel Steed. Working and exhibiting New York City artist. This is no small feat, my friends, in the City that Never Sleeps. But what brought this artist all the way from Utah, via Chicago, to New York City with his easel tied to the top of his 1968 Cadillac? The Hustle. What brings everyone to New York City.
Clintel holds a BFA in Painting from the Art Institute of Chicago, an MFA from Indiana University and completed Advanced Studies at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. You could say that he is quite the over-achiever. Clintel found representation with Mark Borghi Fine Art Gallery and is also a NARS Foundation Studio Artist. Clintel’s studio is in the Sunset Park area of Brooklyn, one of the last vestiges of unadulterated New York art studio space. “The battle between good and evil, heaven and hell was preached all the time. This struggle is still within me, the lust for money and the battle for power.”
Born in 1977 and raised in a devoutly Pentecostal Christian household in Utah, Clintel’s childhood centered around the church. This devotion prominently figures in his work to this day as an exploration of moments, feelings, situations and experiences through art. "My work is about being alive really. I am an African American male who was born in 1977. When you look at the history and the time I was born, a lot of things were happening. It was not just the end of the hippie period and the beginning of the club phase - which I believe me and my generation were feeling the residue of - it was not just about the party."
In 2001, Clintel drove to New York City with his easel tied to the top of his car and settled in Harlem. Representation with Borghi Gallery has led to exhibitions throughout New York City, the Hamptons, Philadelphia. He won the John Koch award from the Academy of Arts and Letters in 2015. Clintel is an artist who represents the urgency and grit that was synonymous with New York City in the 1970’s and 1980’s. “Painting is being open to what’s around you. But you are imagining, you are coming up with an idea, and you give in to ideas. It is always a push and pull. To me it’s like the computers. It’s the opportunity to make something epic. You ride the wave of the text until you get to the moment. The way we live life right now is that there is a lot of jumbling. Everything becomes fractured. Like how music now is different from what it was in the 1980s. Then, every song was five minutes. There was time to take a breath. Now they are all 2-3 minutes, and that seems long. But, I was reading this book about the sublime. The sublime is now. I think that everybody, when they are making a painting, is trying to be in the sublime: that moment when they are not thinking, but in the present.”
Visit Clintel's site by clicking here.
Clintel holds a BFA in Painting from the Art Institute of Chicago, an MFA from Indiana University and completed Advanced Studies at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. You could say that he is quite the over-achiever. Clintel found representation with Mark Borghi Fine Art Gallery and is also a NARS Foundation Studio Artist. Clintel’s studio is in the Sunset Park area of Brooklyn, one of the last vestiges of unadulterated New York art studio space. “The battle between good and evil, heaven and hell was preached all the time. This struggle is still within me, the lust for money and the battle for power.”
Born in 1977 and raised in a devoutly Pentecostal Christian household in Utah, Clintel’s childhood centered around the church. This devotion prominently figures in his work to this day as an exploration of moments, feelings, situations and experiences through art. "My work is about being alive really. I am an African American male who was born in 1977. When you look at the history and the time I was born, a lot of things were happening. It was not just the end of the hippie period and the beginning of the club phase - which I believe me and my generation were feeling the residue of - it was not just about the party."
In 2001, Clintel drove to New York City with his easel tied to the top of his car and settled in Harlem. Representation with Borghi Gallery has led to exhibitions throughout New York City, the Hamptons, Philadelphia. He won the John Koch award from the Academy of Arts and Letters in 2015. Clintel is an artist who represents the urgency and grit that was synonymous with New York City in the 1970’s and 1980’s. “Painting is being open to what’s around you. But you are imagining, you are coming up with an idea, and you give in to ideas. It is always a push and pull. To me it’s like the computers. It’s the opportunity to make something epic. You ride the wave of the text until you get to the moment. The way we live life right now is that there is a lot of jumbling. Everything becomes fractured. Like how music now is different from what it was in the 1980s. Then, every song was five minutes. There was time to take a breath. Now they are all 2-3 minutes, and that seems long. But, I was reading this book about the sublime. The sublime is now. I think that everybody, when they are making a painting, is trying to be in the sublime: that moment when they are not thinking, but in the present.”
Visit Clintel's site by clicking here.