Painting the Human Spirit with Stephen Towle

The Mirror on the Back Deck

Stephen Towle sits on his back deck in Wakefield, QC, where the wooden boards end and the forest begins. He works there during the summer months. The deer in the woods have grown so accustomed to his presence that they wander close to him while he paints. He looks out at a world that is forever changing colors. In this part of the country, the fall leaves and the harsh winters dominate the view. It’s a beautiful way to create art.

Stephen calls his work contemporary, though he is not entirely sure what label fits it best. He does not struggle with the process because it comes to him easily. It simply feels right. His path to this forest deck was not a direct one. He spent six years living in a fifth wheel trailer on Vancouver Island. During that time, he joined the Federation of Canadian Artists. By getting enough of his paintings into their shows, he eventually earned signature status with the group. He spent those years painting every style he could find. He was searching for himself and trying to figure out what he really wanted to do. Eventually, he arrived at the style he uses today.

His current series of paintings focuses on personality. Stephen is more interested in what the viewer sees than in his own explanations. He doesn’t think it’s important to explain every small thing he puts into a canvas. Instead, he gets satisfaction from the comments people make about what the work means to them. He compares the experience to a Rorschach test. Some of the things people say about his work are amazing – everything depends on perspective. Because every person has a different life experience, they see things that Stephen might not even notice. This fascination with perspective is why he finds joy when people love or even hate his work. People usually have an opinion. They might even see themselves in one of the faces because he paints extreme personalities. He is not trying to capture exactly what someone looks like. He wants to paint a personality. His canvases are full of sarcasm, joy, disgust, and the various emotions of a human being.

The technical side of his work begins with a wash of watered down acrylic paint on the canvas. Stephen rarely uses a preliminary sketch. He prefers to sketch with a brush directly on the surface. This means a lot of editing happens while he works. If a painting is off balance, he corrects those technical issues as he goes. He sees shapes and figures in the initial wash, then his own perspective guides the creation. Every time he sits in front of a canvas, it is a mystery what the final result will be. This makes the process exciting because he has no idea where the ideas come from. Sometimes he just sits with the work to look at everything closely.

Now that he’s older, Stephen finds that he has an obsession with his work. He is at his canvas almost every day. If he takes a day off, he misses it. He believes that having this kind of enthusiasm for anything as one gets older is a beautiful thing. He channels that joy into the canvas, and when to start a new piece, he simply lets it flow.