Portland-based Alex Steckly is relentlessly creative. Upon walking into his studio loft you cross a threshold into his whole world, a wide and bright working space with a couple simple corners carved out for living, into what looks and feels like the surprisingly cozy diary of his brain spilled out onto the walls in various stages of completion.
His process starts with a loose wash in oil, keeping canvases visceral, allowing the colors to be almost aggressively bright, building organic layers and letting gravity pull the pigments around whichever way it wants. From there he begins a long meditative process of weaving a mask of tape into precise shapes and patterns in a process he describes as nearing sculptural, allowing him to work and approach the painting in a physical manner. Opaque layers of tone on tone automotive enamels in alternating finishes are then spayed on, as the masks are stripped away to form patterns. Working strictly in daylight, his timeframe for each day’s studio time is limited, and his process can sometimes take months as he lives amongst his works and allows their growth to come at a natural pace.
Steckly’s paintings are deceptive; standing five feet back from one it’s tempting to see the canvas as a silky smooth surface with barely undulating colors and textures. But with closer inspection you start to become aware of the almost overwhelmingly elaborate surface, the sharp lines fade with a soft feel that carries a reminder of a grainy film stock or an image shown just slightly out of focus. Steckly’s obsession with light and texture reveals itself slowly, the complexities unfurling the longer you allow yourself to stand and be drawn in to the abstract images, discovering tiny variations amongst the strict order in the geometric shapes. Rich velvety textures zap the light and look dead flat while the luminous sheen of the enamel lines strike hard and vibrate lying next to them. Steckly’s voice is heard loudly and clearly through his work, through the repetition, exploration, and controlled, but obvious, joy in the colors and patterns he weaves into his paintings.
See more of his work at alexsteckly.com