Clintel Steed is a true force of nature. As a person, he emanates an almost vibrational positive energy that reflects a deep love of life, creativity and seeing the truth through art. Always observing, and always obsessively painting in his small home studio, Steed gravitates towards a wide array of subjects when creating, but all of his works are rendered in the same unique, instantly identifiable hand with thick waves of oil paint and dense blocks of color that coalesce into recognizable forms when viewed as a whole.

In the dense stacks of paintings lining every wall of Clintel Steed’s studio, there are reproductions of ancient mosaics and frescoes, reinterpretations of old Master paintings, abstract works, and self portraits with more personal narratives. But recently, Steed has been consumed with exploring and painting athletes caught frozen in time, locked forever into moments of action and game day contemplation. Basketball players hover in the air chasing blazing orange orbs, exhausted boxers are still for a moment in between exchanges of blows, and stoic football players are seen with trepidatious expressions and mirrored reflections in their eyes behind protective masks that feel like cages.

These anonymous football heads, as Steed refers to them, are iconic and clearly function as emblems of American glory, but they also seem aghast with some sort of awareness that the system is broken. The angular and sharp representations of the athletes’ face masks and protective headgear are particularly arresting as there is a sense that these devices are somehow holding the players down as much as they are providing safety against the physical brutality of the game. The portraits also function as a metaphor for Steed’s own concepts of masculinity and race as he is a Black man who grew up seeing sports, particularly football, as a way out of trouble and hard circumstances. These individuals are not at rest or enjoying a leisurely game; they are worn down but roaring, and fully aware it will be a fight to get anywhere in this game of life.

Clintel Steed (b. 1977, Salt Lake City, UT) lives and works in Peekskill, New York, and holds a BFA in studio art from the Art Institute of Chicago as well as an MFA from Indiana University. He completed Advanced Studies at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture. Steed has exhibited his work in solo and group exhibitions at galleries including Steven Harvey Fine Art (NYC); Klaus von Nichtsagend (NYC), M+B Gallery (Los Angeles) and Regina Rex (NYC).