Stephen Hall

The Last Narcissus

2020

Stephen Hall, born in Aberdeen, Scotland, is an artist who takes a traditional approach to a modern subject. Now living in New York, his work is indicative of a surging talent, which has been refined over many years. Each of his paintings is a composition of numerous layers, executed without any modern trickery such as digital assistance or airbrush and the resulting lush density of color and variation of light owns the viewer’s attention. Through his work, Hall explores the relationships we have with not just each other, but times, places and surroundings - couple this with a desire to portray the underlying order in our increasingly chaotic lives and you end up with vivid, yet somewhat intoxicating imagery finished with a slick style and intense precision. Over the past several years, Hall has become more interested in the threat posed by a man on our environment and the wildlife living in it. Hall has not only been exhibiting worldwide since the early 80s, but his work also resides in corporate and private collections and has been featured in movies, music videos and magazines. On top of this, he has also illustrated book covers for A.A. Milne, J.G. Ballard and Russell Greenan amongst others. Hall is a self-taught painter exploring the life we live, finding the pattern in chaos and relishing the cacophony of color. Over the past few years, he has decided to be more specific in content and confront the seeming endemic stupidity and havoc wrought by mankind.