CLINTEL STEED: Mysteries from Past Moons

Clintel Steed’s students report that he urges them to “paint your truth.” It’s an approach that he himself follows, but Steed’s truth, as a visually sophisticated Black man in the United States, is complicated. He is a virtuoso painter whose work is at once responsive to the instability of the present moment, informed by the art of the past, and inflected by intense emotion. His truth is triggered by such diverse stimuli as the inequities and traumatic events of the present day, the long history of Black people, the relationship of men and women, parenthood, joy, tragedy, and more. Steed expresses his passionate feelings through potent metaphors, in purely painterly terms, through expressive paint handling and vibrant hues, commanding our attention with unignorable imagery, urgent facture, and ambiguous images that provoke multiple associations and interpretations. 

A seated couple, the man, in profile, a self-portrait, confronting a beautiful, richly dressed woman, seems, at first encounter, to be about a contemporary event, but soon suggests ancient Egypt and, by extension, Africa. Is it an alternative to slave narratives, testimony to a distinguished past and to survival? A dark-skinned male, crowned with laurel, and a rosy nude reach for each other; then we notice a sharp-eared creature embracing the woman. Is the dark hero rescuing her? The legacy of Picasso haunts a weird cluster of brown, black, and blond pink-fleshed personages against a background of pyramids. We think of Roman frescos, of Egyptian murals, of the history of Modernism, and of race relations, at the same time that we are deeply engaged by the lush, sensuous paint.

Steed explains his themes by saying “I feel like they allow me to talk about painting issues I find interesting. Time, space, and form. Weight and color and trying always to be in the now and aware of the world I am living in.” That “now” encompasses many things.

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Karen Wilkin

New York, March 2024

Clintel Steed was born in 1977 in Salt Lake City, Utah. He received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, an MFA from Indiana University, and Advanced Studies from the New York Studio School. Widely exhibited in solo and group exhibitions, Steed is the recipient of the John Koch Award of the National Academy of Arts and Letters. He has taught at Columbia University and teaches at the New York Studio School.