Artist Statement
"There are special moments in nature when the light fills the world and everything in it with an ethereal sensation. I love witnessing those moments and translating their sense into paint. I love the sensation of a flight that we experience when we encounter birds in their gracious and forceful path. First and foremost, I love the expressive language of the human form as a pinnacle of Nature’s grace and power. I also love the authenticity of a true and extraordinary human character, their manifestations live through time.
I am concentrating on developing these themes in my resent work as they present a perfect subject for the technical qualities of painting I am looking for currently. In my search for authentic and extraordinary characters I love working with artists, musicians, creators.
In the “Moondance” I was fortunate to enjoy all things that I love. Firstly, I was privileged to collaborate in this work with an extraordinary artist, one of today’s foremost world class ballet dancers Joy Womack, who took two first places in the landmark Bari competition this year. I look at my subjects as my heroes and Joy is certainly a hero.
A Santa Monica girl with a dream of big dance she became good enough to enter at age 14 the Main Program of the famed Bolshoi Ballet School, first American ever to do so, graduated first in her class and got to work on the stage of Bolshoi before becoming a soloist at the presidential Kremlin Ballet…all that in today’s Russia being an American. There is no such thing as impossible for heroes.
What fascinated me always in ballet dancers is precisely what is often missed behind their deceptively “genteel” veneer. At the top professional level ballet is an ultimate extreme sport requiring nothing less than a pick performance at a pick form. Joy is at such pick level and the language of her gesture authentically represents the pinnacle of what humans can do. As such it is a force of Nature itself.
As it happened, during the week of our intense live sessions was a rare blue moon, so we loaded my Bronco and departed to the ocean for the night. What I got to witness right in front of me and capture was a perfect unity of all elements I love and that is what created "Moondance"."
-- Alexey Steele