Steven G. Thomas Fine Art

Biography

An artist and illustrator for over 40 years, Steven works in a variety of media but his favorite tool, the one on which he honed his artistic skills in his youth, is still the pencil.

"Because graphite doesn’t rely on color, other aspects, such as values and composition, have to be exceptionally strong.”
On his formative youth, Steven says he never went anywhere without a pencil and a pad. In fact,his mother insists he came out of the womb with pencil and pad in hand. “My first conscious recollection of drawing was around the age of five or six. As a first-grader, I drew my first drawing using perspective, and by the age of nine, I was drawing recognizable portraits of relatives and classmates. It is a gift endowed by the Creator. This is not to suggest, however, that the ability to draw doesn’t involve work, practice and perseverance. To the contrary, it is a craft that is advanced through constant practice and observation."

"Obviously, to be sure, I had exhibited early on a desire to re-create on paper the things I observed through young eyes, and that my hands could be an extension of those eyes. In fact, I can still remember the thought processes that filled my head as I drew my mother as she sat on a chair in a corner of the living room. I noted how the lines of the room seemed to converge out on some distant horizon."

"Additionally, I reasoned through observation that there was a distinct relationship between the size and shape of objects and saw that even complex forms could be broken down into simplified shapes. I distinctly remember thinking, ‘If one sees a line of a particular length in relation to other lines, and made note of its particular angle, all one had to do is to simply draw the length and angle as one saw it: and all this at the age of about seven.”

“As I see it, the main difference between an artist and the rest of humanity can be expressed by the difference between looking and seeing. Most people merely look at objects, recognizing them for what they are, before moving on. They may even recognize and appreciate the object's beauty, but in such a casual way as to be merely transient in nature, makeing only a casual impact upon their consciousness. We look but we do not see.”

Steven has lived most of his life at the foot of the Wasatch Range near Salt Lake City, but a day doesn’t go by that he doesn’t look at their magnificent beauty and see them in a whole new light, whether swathed in storm clouds or bathed in the warm alpenglow of a spectacular sunset. “I sometimes get lost in their massive monolithic blocks of tilted and uplifted stone, and in all of the little nuances of each crag and nook and cranny. This is really seeing!”

William Saroyan once wrote this about seeing: “There is such a thing as creative seeing. What constitutes such looking? Clarity, intelligence, imagination and love. You make a point of looking at the object. You look steadily and clearly. You see the object, and you see it again. You notice the true nature of it in its entirety and in its parts. You relate its reality to all reality, to all time and space and action. You admire its survival and you love its commonness and its individuality.”

Though drawing and painting have been lifelong pursuits, Steven began his professional life as an artist rather late in life, taking a circuitous route that led to dual vocations that might, at first, seem unrelated. Following high school, he enrolled at the University of Utah where his photo-realistic approach to art was severely criticized. Discouraged, he enlisted in the Coast Guard for four years and later received his formal art training at the San Francisco Academy of Art College. But as it often does, life threw him a curve, and took him in another direction. However, he was able to put his art training to good use as a forensic artist, creating composite images of suspects for more than 20 years. His sketches have been instrumental in identifying many criminal suspects including several in high profile homicide cases.

Steven has done composite sketches for many state, local and federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI and the Secret Service. In recognition of his work, he was the recipient of the Salt Lake County Sheriff’s Distinguished Service Medal. His drawings and reconstructions have also appeared in both Salt Lake City newspapers, as well as on all of the TV news programs in the Salt Lake City market. He is a graduate of the FBI’s Forensic Art Course, where he studied the art and science of 3-D facial reconstruction on unidentified skulls and is also a graduate of Westminster College of Salt Lake with a B.S. in Behavioral Science.

His fine-art work has appeared in Utah Holiday Magazine and in Salt Lake City’s Art Barn Gallery. He is frequently commissioned to do portraits and his illustrations have appeared in numerous Salt Lake County annual reports and the State of Utah’s annual Crime Report.

By his first marriage he was blessed with two sons and currently lives in South Jordan, Utah, with his wife.

Steven G. Thomas Fine Art

Biography

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