Stephen Gay (b. 1993) makes gestural paintings that treat the process of painting as subject and record. His work emphasizes mark making and explores the relationship between bodily movement and the physical traces left behind on a painted surface. Referencing the visual language of painters like Cézanne, de Kooning, and Mitchell, Stephen uses abstraction to make paintings with a strong physical presence that resist the disembodied nature of the digital imagery that saturates contemporary life.

Stephen’s painting process is energetic and intuitive, and his layered canvases reflect the repeated searching that is foundational to his mark making. Varying in scale, Stephen’s paintings are often brightly colored, belying a darker sense of urgency that pervades the painting process. Large shapes are broken by individual marks and look like they are on the verge of either coalescing into something solid or shattering completely. Stephen allows the tension of the painting process to remain visible in the finished picture, insisting on the value of slow, tactile attention.

Stephen lives and works in Bozeman, MT. He earned his MFA from the New York Academy of Art and his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. While completing his MFA he received Academy Scholar Awards for both years of study and received a Patrons Scholar Award. Stephen has received a Fulbright Grant and completed residencies in Nantucket and at the Kylemore Notre Dame Global Center in Ireland. He has exhibited internationally in both solo and group exhibitions. 

View CV here.