Artist Statement

Stephen Geldman has a BA in art from Cal State Los Angeles, and a MA from UC Irvine. Early influences include the feminist artist Judy Chicago, the painter Peter Krasnow and the sculptors Peter Alexander and Masami Teraoka, who showed with him at Space Gallery. He participated in many West Coast gallery exhibits. In 1980 he won the prestigious Rome Prize Fellowship in the annual competition and was chosen by Robert Motherwell to spend a year at the American Academy in Rome. The artist currently lives in New York City and along the Lackawaxen River in Pennsylvania. In 2009 he had a solo show at the Philip Alan gallery in the east Village, and in 2012 he showed at PaPa arts in Whitemills, PA. 

In the afternoon the sun starts down and reflects light across the Lackawaxen River, backlighting the trees around the house with an amazing glow. I have lived with this light for 25 years and it seeped into my paintings. The beauty of this landscape amazes me every day.

After many years the artist has developed a sense of what he wants from a painting, a certain coherence of the visual elements, while playing with an abstract pattern of paint strokes to engage and surprise, opening another way of seeing. Geldman's interchange of undulating light, form and color draw us into his personal landscape. Observing, we enter a scintillating, harmonious gathering that envelops us all.