About Steve
Hi, I'm Steve. I've been painting since I was a kid - 50+ years - and full-time for the last 11, after a 35-year career in software development. Years of debugging taught me patience, which turns out to be the main ingredient in oil painting.
I am an Ontario painter with Irish roots. I paint what I love: Canadian wildlife, dramatic seascapes, quiet landscapes, and pet portraits - including all my past canine and feline partners in crime. My work has been shown at art fairs in Ontario and hangs in homes across Canada, England, Ireland and the United States. My career was in the Greater Toronto Area. Most of my work is the Canadian wild I love - and a few paintings go back to where my family came from.
Everything here is an original oil painting, one of a kind. When a piece sells, it's gone - which is exactly how it should be. If you are wondering whether I'd be fun to work with on a commission: yes, I would.
Artist Statement
I paint the Canadian wild — the wildlife, seascapes, and landscapes I've spent a lifetime around. I'm an outdoorsman, fisherman, and hunter. That's given my work something no classroom can: thousands of hours sitting motionless in the woods, watching animals on their own terms — or exploring over the next ridge to run into wildlife in the middle of their day, with me at the disadvantage.
I'm a realist, and I work only in oils — nothing else gives me the depth of light I'm looking for. My brushwork is invisible. All you'll find on the canvas is the subject itself, as close to life as I can get it. I build a painting slowly, layer over layer; a large canvas may take weeks, but the resulting details make it worth it.
If a reference looks like more than I can handle, that's the one I have to paint. It's why the work covers every genre. The harder it looks, the better.
What I'm after is the moment that stops you: a moose lifting its head, a deer stepping out right beside where you're sitting, a trophy fish breaking the mirror-like surface of a lake, or a bobcat that steps out in the middle of the day and stares you down for twenty minutes. If the painting holds you there for a second, it's done its job.
I am a member of the Lakeshore Art Trail, Arts on the Credit & Mississauga Arts Council. I am also a member of the Federation of Canadian Artists.