Today we’d like to introduce you to Geoffrey Stein

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

I am a recovering lawyer, and figurative painter based in New York City. I paint in my midtown studio and have exhibited my artwork in museums and galleries throughout the United States and in London, Dublin, Paris, and Reykjavik. From 2022-23 I was the Artist-in-Residence at the Elizabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University in White Plains, NY.

While answering the CanvasRebel interview questions, it occurred to me that I have now been painting full time for the past 24 years, almost twice as long as I practiced law. My wife’s support has been crucial to my being able to leave the practice of law and pursue my passion—painting.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?

It was very much a process to go from being a lawyer who made art in his spare time, to being an artist who used to practice law.  For the first three years I was painting, whenever I was not in art school I worked as a contract lawyer at my old firm, in my old office, on my old cases. Eventually my cases started to settle and I began to resent the time I spent practicing law rather than painting. Still, I have kept my law license, and these days I occasionally help artist friends deal with landlords, go to small claims court, or write bad faith letters to insurance companies.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?

For the past six years, I have been working on a series of political collage portraits.  As an ex-lawyer and political junkie, I am interested in the political, financial and media worlds. It was a natural direction for me to make work about actors in these worlds, both those I admire and those I don’t.   Collage is the perfect medium for these political portraits. There is a randomness in collage; the secondary meaning in the text or image becomes an important part of the finished work.  Collage allows me to layer multiple images over the scaffolding of a drawing.

To make these portraits I use newspapers, text and photos related to the subject. This is a modern take on the Renaissance trope of putting objects into a portrait to illustrate the attributes of the subject, for example books to show the subject was educated. Instead of illustrating the attributes of the subject with a symbol, as a Renaissance era painter would, I collage the portraits with materials and text from the subject’s world. For example, Rock The Vote, my collage portrait of Taylor Swift is made using voter registration materials, an allusion to her viral influence in registering new voters.

Recently, in addition to the political collages, I have begun to work on some mixed media figurative works to play with different materials and experiment with mark making.

So maybe we end on discussing what matters most to you and why?

I think the basic act of showing up to the studio matters. In my studio I do a lot of looking, staring at the painting wall and trying to make the painting work. I crop the rectangle, add to it, sand the paint, add collage, paint over everything, scrape the canvas and keep going until something clicks.

When I was at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, I asked one of the tutors, Paul Richards who ran the Life Room, ‘how do you become a painter? What do you have to do when you leave school?’ Paul said that if you want to be a painter, just paint. Keep working. Go into the studio and make work. Paint even if no one is buying your work or showing it. Just paint.

At the time, I thought great – another Brit making fun of Americans. But in the years since I graduated in 2007, I have seen the value of that advice. Just paint. Work. Don’t worry about shows you get into or don’t. Don’t obsess about branding or signature images. Just make work–good work, bad work, just work.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.geoffreystein.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geoffreystein

Image Credits

Photo Detail Sheet

All photography by Rosie Lopeman

1. Photo of Geoffrey Stein in Studio

2. Rock The Vote
Collage material from NYS Voter Registration Forms; NYC Voter Registration Guide, Leauge of Women Voters of the City of New York; Huppke, Rex, Taylor Swift Has Power to Swing the Presidential Election, USA Today, September 27, 2023; acrylic and pencil on paper, 36 x 48 inches, 2024

3. President Barack Obama: Obamacare
Collage material from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, acrylic, and pencil on canvas, 40 x 30 inches, 2023

4. First Lady Michelle Obama
Collage material from altered photographs from Chuck Kennedy, The Obama Foundation; PBS 2; Mark Wilson, Getty Images; Michelle Obama: A Photographic Journey; Andrew Harnik, AP; Variety.web; Allure-michelle-obama-lede.webp; acrylic, graphite powder, and pencil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches, 2023

5. Liz Cheney
Collage material from C-Span Transcript of Representative Cheney’s Concession speech, August 16, 2022; Caspar Star Tribune, August 17, 2022; Wyoming Tribune Eagle, June 10, 2022; New York Times, August 17 and 18, 2022; acrylic, and pencil on canvas, 30 x 30 inches, 2023

6. A.P. Back Study
Pencil, ink, marker, gesso, acrylic, tape, and varnish on paper, 19 x 20.5 inches, 2024