Steven Harvey (b. 1965, Sydney) undertook a Bachelor of Art (Education) at the City Art Institute in Sydney (1986) and completed a Post Graduate Diploma in 1989 before graduating in 1994 with a Masters of Art (Painting) from University of New South Wales, College of Fine Arts.
Harvey’s paintings give form to his sense of immersion and participation in the environment – whether the “exterior” landscape, or the “interior” studio space. For Harvey, journeys into the Australian desert and coastline, as well as remote locations including the islands of Papua New Guinea, the Polish highlands, the Rajasthan desert, India or the Daintree Rainforest have formed an integral element in his process, as he translates his subjective experiences into archetypal pictorial dramas. Whilst his work sits within the abstract idiom, it is ground in a sense of place or nature, yet also retains open-ended interpretations.
Characteristic to his formal aesthetic are heavily impastoed surfaces, the laborious accretion of layers of oil paint on canvas that become sculptural forms in themselves. The surface of the paintings, in a topographical sense, create an environment where evolving layers of paint are eroded and rebuilt through a process of sanding and grinding to reveal dormant reservoirs of colour. Working mainly with oils, inks and acrylics, Harvey wields colour in textured slabs to create a strong material presence. The paintings exude physicality, not only in their scale, but also in the grit, rasp and coagulation of paint.
From 1993 to 1999, Harvey exhibited work in solo and group exhibitions at the Coventry Gallery, Sydney. Harvey has held solo exhibitions with Martin Browne Fine Art in Sydney and Niagara Galleries, Melbourne, and is now represented by Liverpool Street Gallery, Sydney. Harvey’s solo exhibitions include, Float (1997), Coventry Gallery; Grace (2002), Martin Browne Gallery; Apostle (2003), Niagara Gallery; Finn’s Raft (2008), Ark 44: Paintings from Kakadu (2009), Azulith: The Night Bird Prophecies (2011), Neanderthal Scholar: Where I left it was where I found it (2012), and Audi, Vide, Tace (2013) at Liverpool Street Gallery.
In 1996, Harvey took part in the Artist in Residence program at Arthur Boyd’s Bundanon Trust Studio, and in 1998 he was selected as the Inaugural Artist in Residence for the University of New South Wales. He has participated in a number of group exhibitions, including Painting 2002 (2002) at the S.H. Ervin National Trust Gallery, Sydney and A Tribute to Western Australia (2003) at the Holmes à Court Gallery, Perth.
Steven Harvey is represented in public collections including Art Bank, The University of New South Wales, Tamworth Regional Gallery, The Macquarie Group Collection, New England Regional Art Museum, and private collections in America, England, Australia and New Zealand.
Steven Harvey lives and works in Sydney.
- Writers:
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- Date written:
- 2013
- Last updated:
- 2013
