Artist's Statement

Artist's Statement by Steven Mulak, alleged artist

Representational art, as I practice it, needs no interpretation. Rather, the paintings themselves are an interpretation of subjects as diverse and familiar as late day shadows or an interesting abstract created by a random arrangement of chairs. It is the aspect of beauty in everyday things that most appeals to the painter in me. My paintings endeavor to share the impact of a particular moment with the viewer.

Making paintings is both art and craft; If you have only the craft without the art, the result is boring and predictable. If you have the art without the craft, nobody knows what the hell you're talking about. Translating a subject into a painted image must include both elements, and just enough imagination to see what the final layer of the painting might look like before the first is applied. I strive to interpret the subject with a full range of values, a harmony of warm and cool tones, a saturation of color, a balanced design, and although this is an old-fashioned thing to admit, an accurate drawing beneath it all.

Such traditional ideals are automatically suspect and summarily dismissed by modern advocates of "serious art." Concept artists create distortions on purpose, but there is a part of me that suspects figures clumsily painted without depth and dimension are just poorly drawn.

From the beginning, I've been fascinated with the way the artists I admire make shiny things look shiny and glass objects appear transparent and water appear reflective and wet. Hands that look like hands intrigue me, and portraits that are recognizable as the people they represent seem the ultimate manifestation of a painter's skill. There has always been a part of me that wants to push his nose up close enough to the painting to "see how he did it." My love affair with the techniques of representational painting is abundantly evident in my work.

I grew up watching John Gnagy on TV. I must have somehow assimilated perspective drawing through him, because I cannot remember ever learning it. I still have a carbon pencil from one of his "learn-to-draw" kits that I got one Christmas. Half a lifetime later, I'm still that same kid who wouldn't stop drawing, albeit now with fallen arches and a graying moustache.

For 23 years I went to sea and worked as an engineer - hardly the sort of thing a painter might sight in his development. But in virtually every day of my professional career I called upon my drawing ability to explain problems both complex and simple. I can testify to the truth of the adage that a picture can be worth a thousand words. Those I worked with regularly said, "You should become an artist." Of course, I'm now told that I paint like an engineer. I don't fight it. You can't get away from who you are. I remain committed to the explanative aspect of representational painting.

Later, I took courses with Don Wilheim. His ideas on technique are at the foundation of my thinking about oil painting. When I came to HCC as a middle-aged student, I met Frank Cressotti. He challenged me to reconsider some hide-bound ideas I clung to and to see that the "art" part of painting could co-exist with the "craft." At HCC I made friends with the most talented artist I know: Don Kendrew and I painted watercolors together for years and probably learned most of what we know while working together.

I try to paint like the artists I admire - all those virtuosos who were masters of the craft and seemed to be able to make a picture with a minimum number of brushstrokes. Among them, I learned from John Singer Sargent that no matter how hard you labor, make the painting look like you just whipped it off. I admire the young Corot, who's motto seemed to be "simplify, simplify." Rowland Hilder's watercolors are marvels that lend veracity to his statement, "The one most important aspect of watercolor painting, and a reason why practice is important, is the feel for the eventual delicacy of the final product." Monet showed me that detail need only be suggested, and I know Renoir was talking to me when he said, "We should not be afraid to make pretty pictures."

Me, I paint things. There is not one shred of evidence to support the idea that art must be serious, and I have no wish to be taken seriously. For that matter, I'm unsure if I meet my own definition of the term "artist." However, I will continue to paint representational pictures in the hopes that the viewer might recognize something of beauty inside the frame around my paintings.

Steven Mulak
June 2003

This site was last updated 09/20/06