Fine Art Cafe

Since retiring in 2010 as editor-in-chief of The Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Steven Gibb has turned his attention to two longtime personal interests, painting and photography. Having spent most of his life on the prairies, he developed a strong love and appreciation of the vast open landscapes and the abundance of wildlife, both of which are heavily reflected in his work. Steven paints mostly in acrylics on canvas but also utilize a self-developed, labour-intensive style where many elements are hand-drawn on other media, before being hand-cut, affixed to the canvas, carefully sanded and then painted. Although time consuming, the process gives the paintings an added interesting three-dimensional quality. Steven has also long enjoyed photographing Saskatchewan landscapes and wildlife, and has recently begun experimenting with some of these digital images. By digitally manipulating elements of the image, particularly the colours, shadows and exposure, (although not changing the content) Steven creates photographs that are somewhat reminiscent of pastel pencil drawings or watercolour paintings.