Today we’d like to introduce you to Steve Sherrell

Hi Steve, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.

Hi, My name is Steve Sherrell, I am an artist and educator with a career spanning over fifty years in the greater Chicago art scene. My father was a modern artist and display person in Muncie Indiana where I grew up. Having a passion for contemporary art, I pursued studies at Ball State University and the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where I was mentored by renowned artists such as Thomas Kapsalis, Ray Yoshida, and Whitney Halsted.
In the 1980s, I balanced part-time jobs, teaching, and establishing myself as an artist in the then thriving Chicago art scene. I participated in numerous exhibitions, co-curated shows, and became involved with the Hubbard Street scene co-founding West Hubbard Gallery and the Mythopians artist collective.
My teaching career progressed as I became Professor of Art at Joliet Junior College in Joliet Illinois, as I assisted cofounding the 33 Collective Gallery in Chicago with Sergio Gomez and Javier Chavira. In 2015, after retiring from teaching, I became the Director of Exhibitions at Water Street Studios in Batavia, Illinois, and co-founded the Water Street Studios Artist Collective.
Throughout my career, I have remained committed to promoting regional arts and my own artistic growth. I continue to curate, exhibit, paint, and create digital art from my studio in Yorkville, Illinois and mentor young artists in the area.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?

My father was an artist so the financial trouble that plagues artists was built-into my story.
I became an artist by epiphany. I took no art classes in high school and was never encouraged to be an artist. When I first took classes at Ball State University, the counselor advised me to take a drawing class because she didn’t know where to place me. I was a bad student with super high SAT scores. In my first real art class, as I was working on the drawing room floor on craft paper with charcoal, I realized like being hit by lightening that I was an artist and that I would make paintings for the rest of my life. My problem was that I was a bad student so it was hard to get people to realize that I was serious. Plus, from the beginning, I have done things differently. It was 1968 and I was being influenced by British Pop Art.
To make matters worse, a couple years later, my girlfriend (now my wife) was pregnant and I was advised that I needed to go to art school because :”They didn’t know what to do with me” This was 1971 so we got married, packed up and moved to Chicago. I took a job in a factory and signed up for a Saturday painting class at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and within a year I was studying with the great Chicago artist and teacher Ray Yoshida and received a full scholarship through my BFA ansd MFA, without which I wouldn’t have been able to continue my education. I had found my home.
Any difficulty that you can think of being an artist I have had. I’ve been poor, misunderstood, underrated, misrepresented, all of it. But I am tenacious and usually rejection and disparity just kicks me into gear. As the great Chicago blues players would say,” I’ve paid my dues”. Chicago is a tough town for the arts. It is a large, competitive and unsupportive city for the arts and but I have survived and thrived as an artist here. As my teacher, Stan Brackhage liked to say to students “Success in the arts is survival”. I have survived.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?

I am a painter and a computer artist. I paint, draw, do mixed media work, collage, digital painting and drawing, digital collage and combines of all of the above. I’m interested in composition, form, color and new variations on the true formal elements of art. I began doing computer art in 1991 with an Amiga and soon was showing digital artwork in galleries.
Subject matter wise, my work talks about many different things. Throughout my career the main emphasis of my artwork is exploration. I am interested in how people construct narratives from looking at things. Metaphor p[lays a great role in my exploration, but also often there is a sense of whimsy or unseriousness to what I do.
I do not want to have a brand, so I try not to have a signature style. I am more interested in creative freedom, following my creativity rather than harnessing it to one specific task. I have a reputation that I have earned through decades of doing ‘my own thing’ of being unpredictable, so I may show up with something completely different than what is expected.
This has caused me a great deal of trouble with commercial galleries but my exhibits are always well received. Because I am good at being experimental, many artists like my work because I show them something different than the norm. I’ve heard that I’m an artist’s artist.
Style-wise I am interested in every style of art, from primitivism to AI and beyond. However I can make something, if I can afford it, I will try.

Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?

I found my mentor with Ray Yoshida at SAIC. He was relentless, tough and had no problem telling you where you needed improvement or “where your work sucks”
.I have always felt that school is important for young artists for two reasons. It connects you with teachers and to other artists in similar circumstances as yourself. Art school or college challenges you to go beyond yourself, to expand.
I also believe that artists need to find their own teacher or mentor. If the school you ended up at doesn’t work for you, go somewhere and find somewhere that does. That may take you out of the college scene altogether. I was lucky. I had an artist father who helped me negotiate the pitfalls of the art world.
All of this takes money so I also suggest shopping for the best deal. My son, who is a sculptor, went to the New World School of Art in Miami, which is a state supported art school with in-state tuition rates. He set up residency in Florida before starting but received a full scholarship also. I would never encourage young artists to take on great debt to become an artist. Start by looking locally. There is someone nearby that can give you advice.
Back in the day, everybody here wanted to go to New York. Of all the people who left the Midwest for NYC over the years, only a few are famous. I believe in local scenes. Small towns may not be enough but most states have a city that hosts a vibrant art scene these days. That is a great place to start. Make friends, go to openings, be about art. Get a studio and WORK. Make enough for a show. Make another and another. Let it be known that you have shows ready. Be out there doing it.

Pricing:

• Pricing is negotiable.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.stevesherrell.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stevesherrell.art/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steve.art/

Image Credits
Portrait be Colin Sherrell