Clintel Steed: Will You Be My Muse For Summer 2022?

Clintel Steed asks you the open-ended question; Will You Be My Muse For Summer 2022? Rather than seeking an answer to this invitation, he is looking for a new understanding of what a muse is today. The Impressionists Manet and Degas utilized women as muses, not simply as passive models but as essential partners, collaborators, and sometimes lovers and wives. With the instant gratification of 5G technology, everything at your fingertips bending time and space; knowledge, visuals, and desires are met instantly.Turning to history, Steed has found his muse and partner through the artistic transcriptions of the great modern master Jackson Pollock’s Autumn Rhythm, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Steed moves forward in his well-known impasto painting style with 14 different explorations by analyzing the composition, color, and value of Pollock’s undeniable signature style. Steed simplifies his interpretation down to strokes and marks with no identifiable figures or focal points to transcribe. He experiences Pollock’s harmonic communication of color like an intimate dance, one color leaning into the next anticipating the effect. Steeds’ work evades a focal point and reaches beyond the edge of the canvas into the immeasurable points in space. What is classically referred to as an “all over-abstraction.”