User:Lilepe/sandbox

Steve Hickok (born January 31, 1959) is an American artist who lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. He exhibits his paintings and photographs internationally.

Life
Hickok was born in Phoenix, Arizona. A direct descendant of legendary cowboy Wild Bill Hickok, he was at an early age captivated by his ancestor’s exploits. This interest led to a deep and lifelong interest in Native American culture and its iconic forms.

Steve knew from an early age that he was born to be an artist. He recalls when he was a grade-school boy creating a mural with pencil and covering the entire hallway of the Phoenix house. His father praised his efforts, but then got him some paper to draw on.

In addition his painting and drawing, Hickok is a noted photographer. He is the founder of Awake Images, a database of 25,000 photographs that are used in churches around the world to create atmosphere, mood and intensity to augment the worship service.

Education and Mentoring
Hickok received his BS in Art Education from BJU in Greenville, South Carolina, and has taught art in elementary and secondary schools.

For over twelve years he has collaborated with younger artists, educating and encouraging them.

Work
Hickok’s paintings are a blend of Asian, European and North American elements. His artistic vision was molded by the harsh beauty and rough topography of the American Southwest. His art is characterized by the use of strong and powerful shapes, textures and contrasts that reflect the undulating sand of the desert with its broad mesas and hogbacks, its red skies and twisted columns. The tepee, the arrowhead and the zig-zag border motifs on Native American artifacts—these, along with the biomorphs of the desert, form the underlying geometry of his art.

His work is exhibited throughout North America, as well as in London, Paris, and Seoul.

He was the youngest artist to show his work at the Suzanne Brown Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona where he exhibited along with Fritz Scholder and Ed Mell.

Hickok’s work covers a wide range of styles and subjects. Some of his Series include:

Minimal Scapes
Hickok feels most at home working with strong, powerful shapes. In this series, he cut out mock-ups from black and white construction paper, arranged them and then removed them one by one to create the most potent composition. In Minimal Scapes, the straight line represents the rational, the geometric. But it is the simple, massive shape of the black mountain that compels him.

Limerence
Dreamy and baroque, the paintings in Limerence represent the state of infatuation and total attachment to the object of affection. To access that state, Hickok works blindfolded or in his non-dominant hand. Working in the media of charcoal, he lodges the sticks between the fingers of one hand, while he lays down paint with the other.

Bloom
Bloom represents growing, developing, an outward movement of blessing, but also looseness, amusement and play. The emphasis on message, on communication, is reflected in the orthographic images throughout, including the alphabet—distorted, disconnected and incomplete.

Coalesce
These paintings are made up of square storyboards in a drama played out frame by frame, a chronicle of adoptions, many of them international. The squares tell stories of exclusion, chaos and pain, as well as expectation. Each painting bears the imprint of a child's hand.

Prism
Hickok’s grandfather was a carpenter and he’s channeling that energy here, drawing on his inner craftsman. He works with wood covering it with a coating of gesso and black shoe polish. After drying the surface is scraped and scarred with the beveled edge of an X-Acto knife. Long, straight lines turn abruptly at sharp angles to form a triangle or a square, an indication of the artist’s quest for change. In this quest he often works on three of four series at a time.

Passages
Hickok works at a feverish pace. “The other day someone was asking me how many hours a day I usually typically work and I said, honestly, it feels like 24/7, because some of my best ideas come to me in my sleep. I just wake up and keep working.”

Passages grew out of one such night-time vision which led to the idea of dream-steps. He sees them as real-life progress, taking one step at a time into a future that keeps rolling in at like waves. The steps signify the black and white of life, its Yesses and Nos—but also its grey Maybes.”

Exhibitions
2015

Installation at Sugar Hill - Suite Spot

Installation at Bertling & Clausen - Santa Barbara, CA

Installation at Carlyle Residence Penthouse - Beverly Hills, CA - Designer: Maxime Jacquet - Art Angels Gallery

2014

Able Fine Art Gallery - Solo Exhibition - New York

Gensler - Solo Exhibition - Phoenix

Steve Hickok - "Passage"- Able Fine Art Gallery - New York

AAF Exhibition - London

2013

George Schipporeit Installation - Interior Design & Art - 4 floors - Chicago

Novologic - 7 Room Installation - Atlanta, GA

Mural Installation - GSB-Tempe, AZ

2012

Summer Exhibition-TEW Gallery - Atlanta

Steve Hickok and Moon Lee joint exhibition at Able Fine Art Gallery - New York

Commission Argenta - San Francisco

Group Exhibition- Beyond Reality - New York

2011

Beyond Reality - Seoul Korea

Solo Exhibition - Able Fine Art Gallery - Seoul Korea

Able Fine Art Gallery - New York, NY

Opera Gallery - London

Opera Gallery - Paris

CAN New York exhibition

2010

Installation - San Sebastian, CA

London Art Invitational

Odeum, Scottsdale Installation

Opera Gallery - Paris

2009

Opera Gallery-London

Mod Installation - Santa Barbara, CA

2005-2008

The Bridge Solo Exhibition - Atlanta

2004

Scottsdale Solo Exhibition

1997-1994

Presden Gallery - Santa Fe, NM

White Horse Gallery - Boulder CO

El Prado Gallery - Sedona, AZ

Suzanne Brown Gallery - Scottsdale, AZ

1989-1993

Hickok/ Kaye Exhibition - Scottsdale, AZ

Commissions
Redbull Commissioned Product Design

Tribute to Chicago's Picasso - Chicago Burnham Pointe, Chicago

Awards
Winner of 2012 America Federation of the Arts Global Art Competition