STEVE BONNER - ARTIST

The artist is the creator of beautiful things.

To reveal art and conceal the artist is arts aim.

Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.

They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only beauty.

All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors.

When critics disagree the artist is in accord with himself.

We can forgive a man for making a useful thing as long as he does not admire it. The only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely.

All art is quite useless.

The quotation above is from the prologue to 'A Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde. It may help you understand the artist. The paintings, I believe, speak for themselves.

Figure Paintings

and Nude Studies.

Paintings of the Figure

in oil on canvas.

By Steve Bonner

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Figure Studies in Watercolour.

By Steve Bonner

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Figure Paintings and Nude Studies by Steve Bonner

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So what is the difference between a figure painting and a nude? Surely naked is naked!

Don’t quote me on this but I believe that, properly speaking, a ‘nude’ has to be, not only naked (which pretty much goes without saying), but also posed - preferably in the classical style.

As far as my work is concerned my ‘nude studies’ are usually watercolours, sometimes quite detailed but often little more than sketches, where the model isn’t posed but relaxed.

In my ‘figure paintings’ the model is part of an overall concept. A piece of ‘art’, if you will, rather than an exercise in painting. The model may be the subject - but not the whole. The model, or models, need not be naked of course, it depends entirely on what one is painting. Mine usually are but that’s my choice - I happen to like them like that - and if I may throw down the gauntlet - if you have a problem with that may I suggest you read the Oscar Wilde quotation opposite! - SB

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