Today we’d like to introduce you to Steven Suiter.
Hi Steven, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
When I was little, I was obsessed with the art in Dungeons & Dragons. As I got older, I turned to anthropomorphic comics, skateboarding, punk, hardcore, hip-hop, and graffiti. Each one influenced me in a different way. It took me a while to get all these influences working together in a way that I was comfortable with but each one is a piece that built me. When I started turning to paint and canvases, my Costa Rican heritage inspired me with its bright colors, and my red-green color blindness forced me into painting with stark contrasts so I could see the difference in my colors. I took a smattering of art classes over the years at community college, but when I finally decided to get serious about school, I turned to literature and creative writing. But every time I read a book or write a story, I imagine it as a painting, and every time I paint, I imagine it as a small part of a much larger story.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
I was lucky to have found my partner early in life; she has helped make things easier in so many ways. But we went through some tough times early on where we struggled to have enough money even for the bare essentials, let alone to handle issues like our car breaking down. In those times, counting on art sales was too much of a risk when not making a sale could mean not paying rent. Being a successful artist is so much more than just drawing and painting. When I started making a little money with my art, I was naïve, thinking all it took was getting in a few shows and letting my work do the rest. I didn’t understand it takes just as much time to work on self-promotion, networking, and marketing as it does to make a painting. I was not prepared for the social interaction and business side and ended up fading out of the art world. I worked odd, low-paying jobs for years. Also, the imposter syndrome is very real, the feeling that I’m not good enough and shouldn’t be sharing wall space with these other amazing artists. It took me a long time to stop comparing my art to that of other artists and accept that it’s just different.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
My work falls within the realm of magical realism. I see each of my paintings as a part of a larger world that is an amalgamation of humanity and nature. Odd creatures going about their daily lives. I love storytelling, and I want viewers to wonder what has happened and what is going to happen. What I imagine is almost never the same as what someone else might see, and I want people to create their own stories when they look at my work. Recently my work has shifted to more illustration as I have been doing a lot of beer labels. I have been homebrewing for the last ten years and am a BJCP-certified beer judge, so some of my art started crossing over with my brewing. I was contacted by an amazing brewery called Brujos Brewing that wanted me to create a few designs for them, which led to more work. In 2016, I was contacted by a brewery out of Rancho Cucamonga called Sour Cellars. Since then, I have designed fonts and drawn over 50 original creatures for them, each centered on an individual beer. In my mind, each creature populates a shared world and is part of the larger story of this fantastic brewery.
What were you like growing up?
I was one of five children and until my little brother was born when I was a teenager, I was the youngest. I was completely influenced by my older siblings. My brother Doug got me into art. He is an amazing artist, and every time I would harass him while he was drawing, he would hand me a piece of paper and a pencil and have me sit down with him. Besides D&D, things like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Usagi Yojimbo, and Groo really sparked my imagination and my love for drawing. After a while, sharing music became an important part of our art sessions. In the early 90s, I started skateboarding and DJing hip-hop with my other brother Wayne. He taught me a lot about the local hardcore and punk scene. Chula Vista had such a diverse mix of influences. I spent every weekend skateboarding for miles to backyard punk shows or catching the trolley to see whatever hip-hop group was in town. Other local punks introduced me to graffiti, and my delving into hip-hop taught me its history. I feel like, after all these years, each of these things has equal weight in my work, and in a very personal way, my work represents the Chula Vista that I grew up in.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/stevensuiterart
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stevensuiterart
Image Credits
Carly Delso-Saavedra
