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Stephen Scott Young: Human Chiaroscuro
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10078 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
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4 / 1993 |
344 Words |
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Widely considered one of the finest watercolorists in America today, Stephen Scott Young was born in Honolulu in 1958 and studied in Florida, graduating from the Ringling School of Art and Design in 1981.
Young did not reach his mature style until 1987, when he traveled to the Bahamas and began painting black subjects there. At first he was attracted to this place and its people for purely formalistic reasons, but as he continued to revisit the Bahamas and got to know his models better, his depictions became more intimate and personal. His favorite subjects continue it be the people and places of the Bahamas and of the region in Florida where he lives.
An avid student of realism and chiaroscuro, Young studied the work of Old Masters such as Caravaggio, Zurbaran, Rembrandt, and David. But it was the work of nineteenth--and early twentieth-century American artists that most interested him. The watercolors of Thomas Eakins, Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, and Andrew Wyeth had strong impact on his development. His restrained, careful application of watercolor, for example, building layer upon layer almost as if it were oil paint, was inspired by techniques used by Eakins and Wyeth.
Young always takes subjects from life, but freely alters and combines elements from different locales. He says that the first thing that attracts his interest in a subject is dramatic contrast between light and dark. Yet, though a formal element may first inspire him, it is the human element that invokes his extraordinary power as an artist. As he works in a locale over a period of time, he develops a deep emotional attachment to the place and its inhabitants and this
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