The Spirit of the East Village-in a West-Side Studio
David Marku
Stephen Hall has been an artist all his life. During those forty-odd years he has moonlighted as an illustrator, a designer, and a cartoonist. But although he has found ample success in each of these fields, it is his painting that he has returned to time again to ground him in his artistic practices. And rightfully so. Hall’s colorful, large-scale depictions of the human form in various states of arousal and seduction are a feast to the eyes–a kind of citified folk art filtered through the lens of an East Village street fair, circa 1980. Hall lived in Alphabet City his first 14 years in New York, and although he was troubled by the endemic violence of the period, the influence of the East Village scene on his artistic philosophy remains apparent. "It was really exciting," says Hall, "It was gritty, but there was a gallery on every corner, and openings every other night." This attitude might seem out of place for a viewer steeped in the cool irony and blasé panculturalism of the contemporary New York art world, but one need only visit Hall at his West side live-in studio to gain perspective on the sub-genre of born-artists Hall represents–a brand of artists that has steadily corroded here in Manhattan since the days of Basquiat.
Hall’s artist-residence apartment is decorated with his own creations–a mosaic table, a series of surrealistic clocks–as well as various artifacts from his world travels. On a self-built pedestal at one corner of the room, a series of figurines from the Mexican Day of the Dead are crowded together like so many porcelain dolls. Hall celebrates the prevalence and accessibility of the artistic culture of Mexico, where he has spent much of his recent life–away from the Chelsea galleries located just a few blocks north of his residence. "It’s good to just keep my head down and enjoy the process of painting," says Hall, "I love my art, and I’ve been fortunate to sell a lot of work over the years, but its easy to get bombarded in this culture with fame and fortune and status and acquirement." Hall’s life-long attachment to painting belies such pretenses. "In places like Mexico it’s not so obvious that you have to have those things. It’s just, being an artist, and you have a place in society."
Nonetheless, during the 1980s Hall’s work became a hot commodity within the Japanese corporate sector. At one point he couldn’t produce enough work to meet the demand, and was forced to enlist an assistant to help paint the intricately patterned backgrounds of his works. Despite his successes, he became quickly bored with the mechanical process of self-reproduction, and, as at so many other times in his life, was forced to sacrifice monetary gain for artistic vision. "You lose something of the soul of the piece," he says, "having someone else working on your paintings." Hall is equally skeptical when questioned about the financially lucrative venue of sky-scraper lobbies and law offices. "When I go and look at some of those Frank Stellas, its almost gross. To have these random strokes rendered huge,
and that becomes valid enough."
Says Hall, "I’m painting about myself, mainly, what I’m going through emotionally." The product of these personal outpourings can be seen in a series of recent large-scale paintings, in which primitivistic figures are tightly rendered in contrast-heavy gradations of exotically colored acrylic paint. In Adam, 2004, an oriental take on Eden is the setting for a convivial depiction of man’s encounter with the tree of knowledge. Here, the first man is fixed in a pose that seems both exuberant and agonizing. The snaking patterns on the figure’s body suggest that original sin was rooted in mankind long before the Serpent’s seduction.
In Wants and Needs, 2004, another patterned figure strains to grasp a cartoon-ish doggy-bone hovering just out of his reach. A gold and ochre wallpaper of doves flutters in the background, suggesting that redemption is just around the corner. The obstructing element for the subject appears to be the figure’s own contorted body, and in this sense the painting acts as a metaphor for mankind’s self-constructed barriers–it is a less referential, but no less profound reflection on our need to possess that which is withheld from us.
Earlier in life, Hall held a career as a successful illustrator of paperback book covers. It was a vocation his talents were well suited for, but one for which he did not possess the same passion as he does for painting. Still, his works have retained an illustrative quality–one which is particularly prevalent in his non-figurative works. In paintings like Treehook, 1997, and Ghost, 1996, phantasmagoric abstractions that hold some resemblance to Dr. Seuss drawings gone three-dimensional slither and dance across wild, cubistic environs. Hall lures us in with his unusual mixture of humor and formalism. The objects in these works–a chair, a vase–possess the kinetic energy of an animation still, as though they might, at any moment, spring out of the canvas. Indeed, in a few earlier experimentations with sculpture and relief-making, they literally do.
When asked about his movement from abstract to figurative painting, Hall says, "People respond to people. I try not to over think the process, but, rather, let the subconscious dictate." The "symbolic metaphors" that arise out of this procedure are both particularly human and otherworldly. The spaces in which the figures appear is often a kind of creative dreamscape, furnished with surrealistically rendered everyday objects that are leant allegorical significance by their patterned exteriors and counter-intuitive placement.
Though there is an expressive element to Hall’s works, every detail is polished. "I never wanted people to look at my work and say, ‘I could do that.’ It might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but when people come and look at my work and are drawn in I say, see? I gotcha–that’s the most important thing for me." That, and getting his works out into the world. Several of Hall’s works were recently confiscated by the IRS–he he’s reluctant to fund certain government expenditure. Even here, he revealed his non-precious attitude. "They are going to go out into the world," he says, "and that’s where they belong."
