Encaustic, or molten beeswax mixed with pigment, is Steeves’ medium of choice. The physicality of the encaustic medium is reinforced in the form of large renderings of fingerprints layered over the canvas surface. The prints are often Steeves’ own — he had himself ‘processed’ by the Vancouver Police Department in preparation for this work — and they serve to remind us not only of the existence of the painter, [...]
Randall Steeves' paintings celebrate the complexity of the natural world. The paintings are made from encaustic, a beeswax based paint that is heated and brushed onto the canvas where it hardens immediately. The process results in a complex surface that can be read as a chronology of the painting’s construction and a record the painter’s physical presence and actions. Viewing this work, one is reminded of John Cage’s famous dictum that [...]
. Randall Steeves’ thickly painted, textured paintings invite the viewer to reconsider the gesture of painting itself. The canvases explore the relationship between the photographic index and the painterly trace with a wry nod towards conceptual art practice. The subject of his canvases is the fingerprint. Steeves had himself “processed” by the Vancouver Police Department in preparation for this work and the pieces are made up entirely of his own [...]
