dEMOCRACY IN AMERICA, 2024
Artwork has a poor if not feckless track record for being a relatively ineffective political tool. Picasso’s Guernica is a rare exception, which was only too accessible for years at MoMA and now hangs guarded be two watchful guards at the Reina Sofia in Madrid remaining powerful and arguably one of the best paintings of the 20th Century.
My dEMOCRACY IN AMERICA is at best a timely gesture in the shadow of the current Presidential Election, the July 4, 2026 250th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and the 2035 200th Anniversary of Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy In America. Having done this a while and slogans like The Washington Post’s Democracy Dies In Darkness, inspire me to create such a statement within an artwork. The other works like AZ helped light the pathway.
The completed painting, dEMOCRACY IN AMERICA
2024, mixed media on 18 uneven panels, 40″H x 155″L, ode to Alexis de Tocqueville
The first step was to map out the lettering and shapes with stencils.
Holes were drilled into the wood substrate to created the circular shapes.
Looking down from above once the drilling phase was completed.
The final phase — adding color — begins.
A detail of the completed work.
The Making of “AZ”, 2023
AZ, 7.5 feet H x 9 feet W, the completed work.
Detail of AZ.
Detail of AZ.
Artist Stephen Zaima, working outdoors on the painting AZ.
Initial sketches and plans for the painting.
Sketches, stencils and brushes used for the painting.
Lettering is sketched using stenciled forms.
Lettering outlines have been applied.
The lettering is painted.
French curve shapes are plotted out.
Then the curves are painted.
Power tools were used to finish the painting.
The completed work, finished in 2023 in Stone Ridge, New York.
Pandemic Painting Project: “Rabbit Hole”
The pandemic challenged many of us in unexpected ways, and for me that included a reckoning of sorts concerning my commitment to making art: Did I still have the creative juice to go big and bold? I believe this 16-foot-long triptych answers that question.
Rabbit Hole, a 7’H x 16’W triptych, was painted entirely outdoors.
I made this small grid drawing of two French curves that I then transferred to a larger grid.
The full-scale grid drawing was then attached to the linen canvas with the two French curves at full size.
Once attached to the painting, the large cartoon (a full-scale preparatory drawing) was punched with holes and used to paint marks that form a pattern once the paper is removed.
Oil paint is from Zecchi Colari Belle Arti in Florence, Italy and encaustic is from R&F Handmade Paints in Kingston, NY.
Work in process, including electric griddle and heat guns to work with encaustic and blue nitrile gloves to work with oils and solvents.
Two painted linen canvas footprints with grommets that were hand sewn onto painting with darning yarn.
Detail of the hole in the top right of the painting, which is surrounded by white encaustic.
Finished three-panel painting, with oil paint, encaustic pigment and mixed media applied to a linen canvas, with stretchers by Syman Art Services.
The painting was finished on September 11, 2021 in Stone Ridge, New York.