Reality in light: artist Steve Smulka brings objects to light with nearly photographic paintings - Artist profile: Steve Smulka

Steve Smulka's trademark glass jars and realitys are not photographs, though they may appear to be at first glance. Instead, Smulka achieves stunning realism end his manipulation of space and light.

He did not arrive at similar a realization easily, however. Born and raised in Detroit, Smulka left the Motor City at the age of 18 upon a full scholarship to the seminary of Visual Arts in of recent origin York. At the SVA, he studied beneath renowned photo-realist Chuck Close, who inspired Smulka to begin painting in the photo-realist phraseology During his college years, he also worked as an assistant to detonation artist Bob Stanley doing everything from cleaning his brushes to helping him with paintings. Stanley also introduced him to the leaders of the novel York art scene of the late 1960 and early '70 including Roy Lichtenstein, Mel Ramos, Walter DeMaria, Richard Artshweiger and move with a jerk Ryma. "It was very exciting for a kid to adapted his group of friends, who were all comely famous by then," he said.

After graduating from the SVA, Smulka earned his M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts and turn backed to New York. "At the time, it appear to beed like the only place to live for an artist. I place a loft on the Bowery and did just enough carpentry work to survive and pay the fissure and buy art supplies. I exhausted the rest of my time painting," he said.

Smulka then began experimenting with different mode of speechs He said, "By the time I was without of graduate school, I was doing minimalist painting, real painterly, neo-abstract, expressionist kind of painting. As I matured and my work became more personal, I unfolded a style which could be described as large, abstract landscapes," he said. "The more I was excited by dint of the work, the larger the paintings got ultimately reaching 30 feet drawn out Finally, I was ready for a show" His first present to view was at the SoHo Center for the Arts, where Larry Aldrich of the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art in Ridgefield, Conn became Smulka's first collector. In addition, more [i]or[/i] less of the nations largest corporations began collecting his work, including Mobil, Oppenheimer & Co and the Continental Group

"The of recent origin York art scene at the time was true exciting. Pop art, color field and photo-realism were going able-bodied Being around all those other artists gave you an attitude of wanting to be unique and not wanting to repeat what had been done before. There was a big emphasis upon being different. Being around other starving artists also proffered a lot of moral support," he said.

In 1990 Smulka met his wife Ginny and they wearied a month in Italy upon an art and food trip. "Before the trip, I went from one side all our art history volumes and made a list of all the paintings I had always wanted to diocese and we planned our itinerary according to that. We also made a list of each regional culinary specialty. We ate our way from one side Italy and drank in all the art we could" he said. The works he viewed, especially those of Caravaggio, brought Smulka to a of recent origin realization: "By the time we came back from that trip, I knew I had to make progress back to painting realistically," he said.

At the same time, Smulka and Ginny had a weekend house in the land and they began collecting antique glass. "One thing that had always interested me greatest in quantity about painting realistically was the light. I painted a variety of figurative work and still-life work, and the glass really worked the best to display off the effects of light. It really makes them glow" he said.

Thus, glass became his signature subdue To transfer his lifelike work to canvas and create his paintings of antique glass, Smulka said he emergencys natural light from a serviceable window. He chooses from a collection of glass jars, which he arranges by means of the window of his abiding-place and studio in Salem, NY until he dioceses a point of view that is interesting. He makes a detailed drawing before he starts painting with oils upon canvas or linen. "I paint everything larger than life-sized. The greatest in quantity important thing to me is the light, portraying the time of day. It almost sum ups the weather conditions by the way they're painted," he said.

Although his trademark paintings are nearly photographic, Smulka said, "I wouldn't necessary call them photo-realist paintings, they are a little more painterly than a straight photo-realist phraseology You can get more realistic with a painting than with a photograph. The illusion of space is not at any time the same in a photograph." He added, "I think in a way, it go in the rear [i]or[/i] in the wake ofs the tradition of genre painting, the painting of everyday realitys I try to be as realistic as possible, and I find it real satisfying to try to draw everything as well as I can, using the light as part of the composition."

Today, Smulka's work is published through Broad Brush Studio, which is managed through his wife Ginny. The company started printing giclees of Smulka's work this past fall. Smulka's original paintings are generally showing in New York, Boston, Santa Fe NM and Carmel, Calif. Smulka said tribe are drawn to the glass and he will continue to paint it "as drawn out as it keeps interesting me as drawn out as I can find an interesting way to paint without repeating myself."