I live, work, and create in Gilbert, Arizona, in the Phoenix metro area.
I practiced art and music in various media from a young age, studying art in and out of school. I later trained in Graphic Design in university, worked as a designer in as the internet took off, and then subsequently spent a career in software development. In the 2010s I began to pick up fine art again in the form of metal work and sculpture, and then in 2021 I began painting.
Ideas from both fine art and graphic design can be found my work, and I find a lot of inspiration in the Color Field movement, Abstract Expressionism, and Minimalist movements of the American post-war period and late 20th century. I also find constant inspiration from many contemporary abstract and minimalist painters today, both local and across the world.
In my experience, my early art studies and practicing design as a discipline gave me a foundation in the traditional concepts of emphasis, balance, movement, rhythm, composition. But graphic design also gave me an understanding of, and appreciation for, the value of constraints. I'm still forming my own understanding of where fine art and constraints meet, and what that conjunction means for the artist and the appreciator.
And who knows what I'll be exploring next.
– Steve Ivy, May 2022