About the Artist
Steve L'Homme
The Art of Art
About
Steve L’Homme is a Digital Abstract Realism artist. After years of searching for his own style and identity, he finally found what made him intensely happy: mixed media.
Steve draws and paints portraits and figurative works, among other things, and then edits them digitally to create a unique end result.
Mainly characterized by a black background, Steve’s works are then accentuated by bright, saturated, sometimes neon lines that reflect the incidence of light on his dark depictions.
Philosophy
“I enjoy using a black background, often with a strong use of subjectivity, and placing the focus on what you can see and what that signifies. It takes me back a few years to a wonderful autumn evening when my son noticed that the afternoon was ending and, with it, the daylight.
‘The light is off and the dark is on!’
When he said that, I immediately understood what he meant. You don't expect such a philosophical statement from a 3 year old. And he gave me this meaningful look, as if he knew what he was talking about.
Light and dark. Does the light make it dark or does the dark make it light? This question occupied me after my son's statement.
When I was my son's age, I heard Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Could You Be Loved on the radio. In the first verse I always thought I heard ‘I guess the darkness must come out from the light.’ But in reality, the lyrics are ‘A-in the darkness ya must come out to light.’
I admired Bob Marley’s strength, particularly in the philosophical sense, and I spent more than 20 years mulling over these words. And even after I found out that I had misunderstood the lyrics, it remained a quest for light and dark for me, until my son gave his philosophical view on light and dark on that autumn evening.
I realized that these two are inextricably linked. Light enables us to see more, but light also creates shadow, which is a light form of dark. On the other side of the coin, however, darkness cannot create a light form of the light.
Light is linked to the positive and the dark to the negative, but what is the gradation of light and what is the gradation of dark?
The dark allows us to take a step back so we can rest from our active lives in the light. This is one of the many positive aspects of the dark.
Life in the light always casts a shadow. This provides contrast and a two-dimensional life in the light. Without contrast, life would be dull.
The light is only visible when it is dark and not the other way around.
In the dark you see the things upon which the light shines, which is why I use this philosophy in my art.
Light in the dark and not the other way around.
So when your light is on, know that the dark was already on before and will always stay on.”
Poem
Below is a poem written by Shannon K. Mckenzie, in response to Benjamin Oliver's "Broken Society" at the international composers meeting in the Netherlands.
Only when you shed
Light on the dark
Can you see the darkness
We need to see the dark
To appreciate the light
Otherwise we remain blind
Blind to what’s broken
Unaware and unable
To mend what we can’t perceive
Some shine in the light
Others see it
Yet no one fixes it.
Steve L’Homme
The Art of Art.
