What does it all mean? Reconsider that comparison with Bergman�s work and add to it how these paintings push extremes. Begin with those elegantly painted, multi-layered surfaces. If left to just this treatment (and some artists are content to do just that) these paintings might
Wind Water and Stone: 6 AM, 1997, oil on canvas, 108 x 108 in
easily be dismissed as merely decorative edifices. This is chancy enough; striding the thin line between painting and decoration. But then Steir tosses in those blips and splats of paint placed just so. How do you measure the correct portion of scale and color for just the right amount of gesture yet still have the paintings hold together? How do you make it look effortless and natural yet also solid and substantial? Needless to say it is not an easy task and indeed requires many years of experience, skill and Zen-like confidence. But the combinations, as well as the juxtapositions, add up to the same sort of content one recognizes in an Ingmar Bergman film.
