He knows the girls who sat for these paintings well: they aren't professional models, they are friends. The canvasses don't merely portray what the girls look like, they give insight into who they are. He paints with sympathy, warmth and precision. He paints realistically because he has the skill to do so. Is he simply another male artist seeking to portray the feminine ideal? More than likely but, as he says, he can live with it.

The artist Max Beckham is much quoted: “Love, art and passion are closely related because they all hinge on the realisation of beauty, or in it’s pleasure taking. And the intoxication is exquisite.”

Steve Bonner was born in Huntingdon, in the United Kingdom. He is a self-taught figurative artist who, apart from sitting his entrance exam, has never set foot in an art school.  He passed that particular event with the highest marks achieved that year, even though he'd submitted the smallest body of work: a curiosity which drew comment from the examining board even as they accepted him.

It wasn't to be. Returning to his old school prior to the start of the Art School term, Bonner managed to incense his headmaster to such a degree he was escorted from the premises with the stricture never to return. Forced to do something, and do it quickly, he managed to acquire a motorbike, and a job as a junior display artist in a prestigious department store group. He simply never bothered to turn up again at Guildford School of Art. A pattern which, he admits, has followed him throughout much of his life in one way or another.

Bonner freelanced as a graphic artist for most of his working life: 'working life' being the way he describes the years he spent doing what he thought he had to do - before he realised he didn't. He spent many of those years producing the hand-painted marketing material for the top night clubs in London and the South East. Whilst he remains proud of the heavily illustrated and cartooned work he produced in those days it became monotonous - although he is the first to admit that the accompanying lifestyle was far from it. From the artistic point of view those years were far from wasted. His graphic background, although not as easily discernable as it once was, is still present in his most recent work, and his unashamed hedonism still shines through delightfully in his unique and highly individual style.

By the late-nineties he had decided to concentrate on fine art: that it was all or nothing. And it's often been next to nothing: life for many professional painters is a mixture of success and struggle, but it is a good life, and one he wouldn't swap for the world.

He paints every day but could never be described as being prolific: for one thing his technique won't allow it and for another he refuses to let his passion simply become a job of work. Bonner rarely exhibits: For one thing, he explains, he is not prepared to put up with all the stress and emotion involved in holding an exhibition. "Ninety percent of professional painters", he says, "are business people first and artists second. You'll rarely find more then a handful of an artists best pieces at any show. An exhibition is a device for making money. The work is invariably produced to a deadline and it's produced to sell, with all the compromises that must accompany those pressures. As a consequence the artist rides this emotional roller coaster where the achievement of making sales is tarnished with the secret shame of knowing they've done nothing well. And if they don't sell - well you've only got yourself to blame. I've been there, I've done it - and I'd rather not do it again."

A.A.

Steve Bonner is represented in the Caribbean by The Gallery of Caribbean Art, Speightstown, Barbados. He has been published for over 25 years and both originals and reproductions of his work can be found in collections all over the world.

All the paintings on this site not already sold, are for sale. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you require any further information. The artist is also happy to consider commissions, please click here and fill in the reply form with your enquiry.

Follow this link to Paintings of the Caribbean the website featuring Steve Bonner's Caribbean Paintings.

Steve Bonner maybe contacted at: PO Box 181, Petersfield, GU32 9AB. United Kingdom.