Hard edge art by Steve Fortier
Hello Steve, who are you?
I’m an artist, based in Vancouver, Canada. I have been painting full time for the last couple years after painting part time while working in graphic design for 35 years.
How has your current style evolved?
I’m a self-taught painter. After years exploring mediums, styles and various processes, including high realism, still lifes and landscape paintings. This has led me to work in hard edge, using mostly acrylic on wood panel, which is able to stand up to the multiple layers of masking involved in my painting process. I’m interested in pixelation and how the viewer understands the pixel patterns and how abstraction can become a form of realism depending on the distance of the viewer to the object. Proximity, then, becomes the arbiter.
Please describe to us your modus operandi
My present work is all hard edged. I deconstruct the subjects by stripping away all the details and then recreating the subject with different complex patterns. My process of painting is complex and time-consuming with some larger paintings taking more than 200 hours.
Your goals?
To keep painting every day and expose my work to a wider audience.
Philosophy
My present artistic practice is very complex but I have always followed what interests me when it comes to painting and not what is trending.
Steve’s final statement
Hard edged painting has held my interest longer than all my earlier works. The whole process of deconstruction and recreating the subjects with my own complex patterns drives me to keep painting every day.
Steve Fortier ★ Artist resume
As a self-taught painter I have spent several years exploring mediums, styles and various processes, including producing a series of High Realist still lifes and landscape paintings. This wide variety of experimentation has led me to work exclusively in Hard Edge, using mostly acrylic paint on wood panel, which is able to stand up to the multiple layers of masking involved in my painting process. I have found this to be the fullest and most profound expression of my fascination with the various ways in which the viewer visualizes the subject.
Thank you very much, Steve.
Web: stevefortier.ca
Instagram: @stevefortier_art
Facebook: @sfortier.art
