MICHAEL STEIRNAGLE • PAINTINGS
MARCH 18 - 30, 2022
Artist Reception: Fri, March 18, 4-7 pm

When he worked as an advertising art director in the ’70s, Michael Steirnagle also began his own graphic design studio, from which he launched an 18-year career as a freelance illustrator. “I designed a lot of fairly realistic album covers and book jackets,” he says. When he transitioned to fine art, representatives that he had across the country as a commercial illustrator provided him with commission work for clients such as Chicago’s Lyric Opera, Shedd Aquarium, and Field Museum; American Airlines; and Major League Baseball. He also created baseball and hockey cards for Upper Deck.

Continuing the fine arts path, he studied how Bay Area Figurative Movement artists (Richard Diebenkorn being his favorite) bridged the gap between realism and abstraction. “I wanted to paint people, but to be more expressive in my work,” he says. He drew upon his experience creating book covers worthy of the stories they enveloped. While he has turned to abstraction, Michael pulls from 25 years of teaching life drawing/painting at Palomar College in San Marcos, California, as well as in workshops around the state and at Scottsdale Artists’ School in Arizona.

“Everywhere I go, I take pictures of interesting figures, not for facial features, but because of the way light is hitting someone and their body language,” he continues. “Body language is important to me as a narrative painter. I want to invite the viewer to get involved in the abstraction and create their own narrative too. I look for anything that’s going to give me a lot of shapes to play with; because the more shapes you have to play with, the more abstract you can push your work,” he says. “The less realistic the figures become, the more playful the painting can be, which really is my goal.”