Stephen Bluto

ASMA, NEWS

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Lives & works in Forest Hills, NY

 

Only in men's imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence.  Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life”

 Joseph Conrad

 

Art has always been an important essence of my life; it is the concrete application of our imaginations. Since my youth I have felt a connection with art and having it form an important part of my life. My father was very artistic, I spent my childhood watching him sit at his easel painting and drawing beautiful images of nature. I was amazed at how he could take a material object like a tube of paint and use the colors to transform a blank canvas into a painting. By watching my father at work and by studying works of art completed by other artists I became aware of the connection with art, the imagination and how nature is intertwined. The whole essence of art became very spiritual.

I came to the conclusion that if I wanted to search for an ideal in the material than I would have to search with art as a tool. At first my artwork was very symbolic, using images to try and say something. As I learned more and grew artistically I began to realize that using art in symbolic form was only superficial. To really go below the surface and see the truth of nature required something more, I wanted to get to the essence of what nature is. So my journey began.

 

For my undergraduate degree I received a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in Art History and Illustration from Syracuse University. After graduation I moved to New York City and spent five years training at the Art Students League as well as the Spring Street Studio. I decided that if I was going to continue my training then I should get an advanced degree. I did a lot of research and found that the New York Academy of Art, Graduate School for the Figurative Studies offered the best and most intensive program.

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My work has been shown at the Basil Lawrence Gallery in New York City. I have also participated in several group shows in New York and the vicinity, some of the notable examples include the North East Watercolor Society Annual show in which I won the Camelia Artist Award,  “Take Home a Nude”, in the Franklin Gallery at NYAA, The Erie Canal Art Fair, Syracuse NY, and also at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.