Steve Walker - (1961-2012)

Steve Walker - 1961-2012


Notes for 2004 calendar "Still Lives"

“The idea for paintings comes from everywhere. From that which I have personally seen or
experienced, to things that are a more universal part of the human condition. I tend to be able to
look at life as a whole, made up of individual moments. I may think for years before making a
specific painting, while another idea may become a painting days after the initial inspiration. I
constantly make notes and sketches of ideas, for fear that I may forget them.” 2003.


“I think of my paintings as songs. The visual impact of the painting is the music, and the actual
content (what is happening) is the words. Of course, for many people, the words do not matter,
and for others, vice versa.” 2003


“It simply never occurred to me to paint about these themes in any other context than that of my
own life as a person who happens to be gay. Why would I create paintings whose context was
anything other than the truth of my life as a gay man?”2003


“The guys who model for me are a very important element of my work. They are like actors are to
a director. They come from all walks of life. As I live in Toronto, Canada, all of the guys have lived
here when I worked with them, although most have origins in places far from Canada. Most have
never modeled before. Many models seem to like to send reproductions of the paintings they are
in to their mothers." 2003


“I see my work as a documentation, an interpretation, a crystallization of singular moments
rendered in line, color, light, shadow, using a hundred brushes, a thousand colors, and a million
brush strokes. I strive to make people stop, if only for a moment, think and actually feel
something. My paintings contain as many questions as answers.” 2000


“I have never pretended to represent, depict, or even understand every homosexual or the sub-
cultures within a gay culture. No heterosexual has ever represented all heterosexual people or all
of their life experiences. It would be both naïve and false for me to even attempt to do so with gay
people.” 2002

“Love, Light, Loss, Life.
Touching, Watching, Thinking.
Yearning, Reflecting, Fearing.
I paint about life, mine and yours.
My sexual orientation is unapologetically,
Simple part of that.”

“I have worked within the confines of a realist painter, depicting moments. I think my paintings are
far more about the experience of life, than “gay life”.” 2002

“Realism, Classicism, Romanticism…I really do not think too much about what “style” I am painting
in. I taught myself, so I guess it is my own style. I’m sure that I have been greatly affected (both
positively and negatively, both consciously and subconsciously) by everything my eyes have
seen. My mind processes this information into an image, and my right hand creates a painting. I
hope that my paintings inspire, entertain, provoke, challenge, and in a small way make this world
a more beautiful place to live. I hope that they live on long after all of us.” 2004