About Steve Shiells BA.Hons.Fine Art.

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Social comment and personal narrative have formed my art since the 1990’s, and I choose to illustrate those concepts with paint, pastel, photographs and digital media. I have been influenced by Pop Art and other Contemporary Painting and will continue to develop reflective narratives with elements of abstraction in my work.

I am a realist and a rationalist, and my work is driven by my concepts of life today.

The use of digital image manipulation and colour is instrumental in the transformation of my photographs, as a base to create drawings and paintings.

Inkjet and Giclee printing processes enable me to produce work in a wide range of colour and size, on canvas, paper, acrylic glass, and alluminium, for presentation as originals or limited edition prints of variable size and colour.

 

Life experience drives my work:

1. Kestrels Courting 1995, is partly photo-realist, but through a cloudy, grey sky and a fallen tree, conveys the conception of threats to the birds’ natural heathland habitat.

2. Orford Ness Legacy 2012, illustrates the concepts of beauty and ugliness in this beautiful, wild, landscape, scarred by mans’ intrusion.

3. Abyss 2014, is a comment on woman’s, beauty and Freud’s reference to mans’ supposed fear of her sexuality.

4. The Mayor’s Portrait 2014, is a contemporary portrait driven by my conception of his larger than life character, his impending retirement, and his future.

5. Aldeburgh Fog 2014/15, is presented as a collection/series of paintings, including Enamel on Aluminium and digital imagery, commenting on social conflict within this quaint Suffolk seaside town.

6. Broomhill Lido - Use it or lose it 2015, is presented as a collaborative collection of images in mixed media and comments on the seemingly eternal struggle to re-open this once important social amenity, which has been left to decay for many years.

7. Further experimentation with digital imagery has continued up to 2018 and onwards. 

 

All of this work, and almost everything I sketch/draw/paint/print/construct, is driven by my desire to tell a story.

My reference is from Pop Art and work by Andy Warhol, and Robert Rauschenberg, as well as Contemporary Painting by Allen Jones, Jonathan Yeo and Gary Hume.