Steve
Harlow
Bio
Steve Harlow
In 1944, Stephen Lee Harlow was born and raised in the inner suburbs of Los Angeles, California.
After touring Eastern Asia while in the US Navy, Harlow's adult years were split between rural Northern California and the cities of San Francisco and New York.
His institutional art education began in 1962 at Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles and culminated in 1970 with a BA in Art(Studio) from Sonoma State University.
Harlow's lifetime of painting practice has been continuously informed by formal and independent study of historical and contemporary paintings from around the world.
Pieces
Number of items found:
50
Artist's Statement
Steve Harlow brings to Techne Art Center's "blockbuster exhibition," ENDLESS SUMMER, an installation of recently completed works from his on-going cycle, DEMOGRAPHICS.
Two quadtychs, two triptychs, and one diptych, produced in the past year, are abutted side by side on two walls of the "L" shaped upstairs hallway of the Techne Art Center. On a third wall in hallway is mounted twenty two inkjet printed digital photo montages Harlow used as reference images for the paintings.
The oil paintings are on 22" x 30" sheets of printmaker's paper held nakedly on the wall with magnatacks. They regularly feature a half figure on one painting's edge completed by another half figure on an adjoining painting's edge celebrating human entanglement.
Art historically, the DEMOGRAPHICS paintings in installation, refer to Abstract Expressionist "all over" composition with intuitive colors and gestural brushstrokes. Harlow cites Jackson Pollack as his earliest influence and David Park as an early encouragement to carry the esthetic into contemporary figuration.
The first one hundred paintings of the cycle were exhibited in January 2024 at Oolong Gallery's Glass Factory Annex in Encinitas, curated by Eric Long.
A selective twenty DEMOGRAPHICS paintings were exhibited in September through October, 2024 at Techne Art Center's FLORA & FAUNA, curated by Charles Thomas.
A triptych, "DEMOGRAPHICS 63 - Flower Stall," from the cycle was exhibited in November 2025 - March 2026 at Oceanside Museum of Art's ARTIST ALLIANCE BIENNIAL, curated by Chantel Paul, Patric Stillman, and Katie Dolgov.
From the cycle, another triptych, "DEMOGRAPHICS 28 - Tijuana Kids with Bug," was exhibited in November - December 2025 at Mesa College Art Gallery's REIMAGINING LA LINEA, curated by Museum Studies class, Professor Alessandra Moctezuma.
A diptych, "DEMOGRAPHICS 20 - Downtown," from the cycle was exhibited in June - September, 2024 at Oceanside Museum of Art's MORE DISRUPTION: REPRESENTATIONAL ART IN FLUX, curated by John Seed, Aleah Chapin, and Timothy Robert Smith.
The center panel from "DEMOGRAPHICS 17 - Valdonica" was exhibited in November, 2023 at San Diego Museum of Art Artists Guild's FALL MEMBERSHIP EXHIBITION in Gallery 21, curated by Katie Dolgov.
A prototype for the DEMOGRAPHICS cycle, a triptych, "Humans," was exhibited in January 2022 at Mesa College Art Gallery's SOWING SEEDS OF UNIVERSAL LANGUAGE, curated by Museum Studies class, Professor Alessandra Moctezuma.