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RANDOLPH, Feb. 7, 2008 – Gifted Randolph Center painter Carolyn Steward’s beautiful oils will be on display in the Gifford Art Gallery beginning Feb. 13.
This is a show not to be missed. Steward paints incredible landscapes and still lifes that appear impressionistic and are born from a family of artists and a lifetime of developing her personal style.
Steward’s mother did watercolor portraits and sceneries, and for many years worked for a New York City company painting porcelain plates. Steward’s father trained as a sculptor in Belgium prior to World War II and went on to work as the chief sculptor for Ben Cooper, Disney and Mattel. Most notably, he made the first molds for the Barbie doll line that are still in use today.
With two artists as parents, Steward’s interest in art began in childhood, and carried into adulthood. She spent a year at the Fashion Institute of Technology, was an illustrator in the military and earned her bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Goddard College.
Influenced by her father, Steward’s first works were of “life studies.” “I worked continually from life making self-portraits, sculptures, drawing objects and other people,” she says.
In 1986, her style changed when she became interested in the beauty of icons. She was introduced to a leading iconographer and taught the “correct” way to write an icon, she says. Applying egg tempera and following the Church dogma, Steward mastered the medium quickly, but four years later found herself sickened by the smell of oil paint and turned to acrylics.
“Too sick to work from life, I allowed myself for the first time to work from my imagination,” Steward says. “I felt I had to express ideas.”
Her works started out primitive after years of creating flat icons, but eventually Steward’s health improved. She returned to oils, moved outside (en plein air, as the French say) into nature, studied impressionism and, she says, “my ability to spontaneously record in paint emerged.”
“My work had left off my early years of scholastic burdens. I was painting out of my visual understanding,” Steward says.
“The importance of fine art as individual expression inspires me to paint,” she says. “This conviction helped me gain self-respect for my gift as a visual thinker and artist. … Although I am not interested in painting to ‘fool the eye,’ I am concerned with visual truth and find art that is solely abstract a betrayal of that. When one views my work they are drawn into the process of painting the art. This opens the art experience to the viewer.”
Steward occasionally does shows, takes on private students and teaches at the White River Craft Center in Randolph. Her work has also gained some recognition. In 2006, her work was recognized by, and since has been used by, large publisher Applejack Art Partners. You can view Steward’s works at www.applejackart.com (choose “licensing group” and then do an artist search for Steward).
And you can see Steward’s works firsthand at the Gifford Gallery through March 26. The gallery is located just left of the hospital’s main lobby. Gifford Medical Center is at 44 S. Main St. (also Route 12) in Randolph.