Master Showcase: Steve Forster

Steve Forster, I'll Fly Away, oil, 48x32” 

I have a strong interest in painting stories through portraiture. This can be a difficult task because the subject needs to be close enough to paint a dynamic face, but also surrounded with a context that alludes to something larger. I prefer to paint these stories without an overt social statement because over-explaining tends to take away some of the magic of interpretation, which is what Art is all about. These stories are perhaps a visual riddle or meditation on a given subject. When I was painting I’ll Fly Away, I was thinking about the present generation being participants in the life cycle – inheriting beautiful things from the past but also difficulties. The people that have come before us are flawed but also warriors of the human spirit: the injustices they faced, the problems they created, the humanity they experienced. These are ideas that flow through my consciousness more and more every day since the passing of my mother, so while the subject of this painting may not be exactly a self-portrait, there is a relationship between her and myself that makes sense to me. After all, it is said that every painting you make is a self-portrait. I’ll Fly Away also has another narrative that suggests a more complicated legacy that America has with race and spirituality, but I also feel it suggests a more positive notion that one day we pass on from this life to the next and be united, understanding how each of our roles in this life fits together, far beyond material difficulties of this world.

As a somewhat realistic painter, I tend to think about the formal qualities of the work first: the abstract layout and composition, the overall feel and style of the painting, the model I want to paint. However, I am discovering that very often it’s better to start off with a strong idea so that the idea guides these formal decisions. With I’ll Fly Away in particular, I was thinking more along the lines of this generational conversation explained in the previous question; it’s something that will probably be a subtext in my work for many years to come.

Regarding the idea or the formal qualities, it's kind of like a chicken and egg conversation. I love to hear musicians discuss how they write songs – do the lyrics come first, or does the music? In I’ll Fly Away, the idea came before the layout. The actual process of making a work like this usually goes through many iterations. It often starts as a thumbnail sketch or a collage of different imagery that I find, in order to Frankenstein a layout together in Photoshop. Then often it goes through a Notan design phase, where I'm thinking about the black, gray and white shapes, and how they would lay out in a graphic way (devoid of any feeling from the portraiture). Then there is a photoshoot with the model to get the particular features and expression that I am looking for. Finally, after all this planning, I'm excited enough to get started on painting and then midway through there's some kind of problem, in which I have to usually reshoot or rearrange some things in order to bring the painting across the finish line. I wish it was easier, but I try to do as much planning as possible using digital painting and other modern tools to put the piece together. To make a rich composition, an artist has to create a world and surround that world with ideas. Great references and great visual ideas birth a painting that feels meaningful.

Don't miss the Master Showcase section of International Artist magazine, issue 159, featuring this work by Steve Forster along with three other works by master artists.