inspired by... "the flayed angel" from jacques fabian gautier d'agoty, myologie complette en couleur et grandeur naturelle, 1746

In my work I take a hard heavy material and transform it into a lighter more flowing material. My work expresses the idea that metal can appear weightless and challenge the traditional concepts of balance and space. The use of the material and the circle, which can be found in most of my work, invokes a sense of continuousness, calm and tranquility.

Memories of my childhood play a tremendous role in my approach to creating art today. In my early years my mother a single parent lived in fear for my health due to the environmental hazards of San Francisco’s Hunters Point district. I suffered with asthma. Therefore, my innate interest to drawing and painting became that of a marriage over sports modeling my pursuit for constant spiritual mental and physical elevation. Having siblings among others as viewers of my work challenged me to go beyond my limitations. I remember my late grandmother a Barber and tailor sewing for hours at her machine after coming home from work. I would sit at her feet and draw on a paper bag with a pen, marker, crayon or a number two pencil. Art is an absolute liberation of my imagination, a tool I use to communicate and share my “inner-light.” I have regular memories of my childhood working at the local super market, helping elders with their shopping bags. Receiving tips helping my grandmother in her barber shop by sweeping up the hairs to find money mysteriously hidden in large clumps. At the end of each service, those who knew me would say, “Keep up the good work and never stop doing your art.” From these experiences, I have learned the treasure of focusing on minuet details. Eventually, I realized in my artistic process that I too would hide treasures. Living with this artistic expression is ritualistic in act and meditative in thought. Many times in the midst of creating, I experience dejavu. The realization of a single moment is obsolete only until it is captured by a memory of a stroke; a thought or pause for observation that I have discovered represents reincarnation of that tangible moment. Because of this, the very act of creating fine art is imparted with the relationship and responsibility I have with THE CREATOR. “The purpose of my existence.” I also feel it is my duty as self taught artist to have an internal dialog with the viewer and in many cases the ancestors, where at this point I find inspiration for artistic expression. Fathering my child, serving my community, drumming, martial arts, poetry, philosophy and ancestral facts (history), all helps with the enhancement of my expression, to captures the Black, experience in America. I enjoy manipulating dry water-based paints, oil pastels, ink pen, found objects or assemblage. Book illustrations, portraiture, and public art projects have brought me closer to my community. The purpose of my compositions is to elevate the social, political, environmental and spiritual issues of people deeply challenged by oppression. This has been my greatest enrapture. Kenya and Haiti are places for instance that influence the bold and dramatic colors in my works. Henry Ossawa Tanner, Aaron Douglas, John Biggers and Jean-Michel Basquiat (to name a few) has inspired my artistic direction. Being an artist and growing up with-in low-income housing projects, surrounded by the early stages of Hip-Hop, had an immense impact on my ability to create freely. Although this bold life style of music, poetry, art, dance, and intense research today seems barbaric. It nevertheless has influenced me to be boundless in my creative efforts to deliver messages of empowerment to the indigenous peoples of the world.

My work is referential, every day objects speak to me. I take these familiar shapes and weave them into conceptual and abstract sculpture. I explore time and space, blending concept with form. Many of my pieces scrutinize society and explore its decay.

With the mind of an architect and the soul of an alchemist, designer Sergio Penteado mixes balanced amounts of wit and poetry in his collections. His designs introduce elements of surprise with the movement of its parts, unexpected reflexions created by mirrored surfaces and, above all, by the flexibility they allow. By offering the possibility of multiple combinations, his work invites the wearer to play a fundamental part in the magical game of artistic creation and become its co-author.
Sergio graduated in Architecture and Industrial Design at the University of São Paulo, Brazil, and studied Multimedia, Web Design and 3D modeling at San Francisco State University in California. He perfected his skills as a goldsmith, model maker and gemologist at the Revere Academy in San Francisco. He also experimented with sculpture, ceramics, blacksmithing and photography.

My artwork ties into my training and skills as an engineer and manifests itself as kinematic art - involving motion both physical and perceived (light and sound giving the impression of motion.) I work with robotics, mechanics, light, and sound, creating mobiles, stabiles, and other geometric sculptures. I am examining the relationships of light and motion, reality and optical illusion, spinny and blinky.

Artist Statement I find glass as seductive as it is challenging. As a particularly unforgiving medium, an artist has endless creative opportunities to design for its unique properties--the only limitations are their imagination and skill in working with the material. I've always been captivated by how one can use this enigmatic material to achieve virtually any form, hold elements in suspension, and achieve great detail or soft abstraction. Its flexibility as a medium is matched by the difficulty it presents in using it to execute precise work. My current work is an intensive exploration of patterns, colors and transparency created through multi-layered cane and murrine (colored rods and patterned cross-sections of glass). While varied in composition and design, I most often create work within a series of graceful forms that I consider three dimensional canvases. The diversity in my compositions reflects my desire to constantly experiment and explore a variety of ideas simultaneously. Some themes in my work include windows into or through a piece, things hidden & revealed and extreme detail. Colors in contrasting and/or complimentary tertiary tones woven into complex patterns challenge expectations of the amount of detail glass can carry and its place in the art world. My influences include textiles, ethnically distinct colors and shapes as well as the marine environment. Creating my work begins with meticulous planning and designing of colors and patterns. After I pull the cane and murrine, I carefully compose these elements to design the final work, all days prior to blowing it. I enjoy this process of thoughtful creativity and the contrasting intensity of executing work in the hotshop, where the limited window to shape molten glass requires precision and urgency. The dual challenge of designing and executing complex work satisfies both the artist and the craftsman in me and I continually find it exciting to create a piece I've poured days over, watching it come to life in the fire. Bloom Recently I've been exploring a range of sculptural ideas which have evolved into a new body of work titled Bloom. Over the years I have experimented with the concept of precious things hidden and revealed and only recently found an expression for these ideas. Bloom are organic forms that reveal something unexpected and precious that reward close inquiry. Bloom are natural but non-representational and intentionally somewhat curious and hard to place. Since human brains are pattern matching machines ("oh, that looks like x"), I wanted Bloom to feel vaguely familiar but lack a single point of reference leaving it to the viewer to consider what it could be, how it evolved, what inspired it, what it communicates and what it could mean. Bloom are all one-of-a-kind works that vary in color, texture, interior pattern and overall form, but they are all of one 'species.'

Steve began a career as machinist and worked in the machining trades until 2005.  This experience is reflected in his mechanical assemblage works and large chamber pieces.  His love for throwing pottery began in 1985 at the Salt Lake Art Center and for sculpting while an undergrad at San Francisco State University, 2001-05.  Steve received an MFA from San Francisco State University in 2008.  His ceramic sculpture can be found in many private and permanent collections including the de Young Museum, Ceramics Research Center, Lincoln Public Library and Salinas Public Library.  He is an award-winning sculptor and has shown his work nationally and internationally.  He creates a variety of artwork from functional pottery to complex sculptural installations.