AMBER
oil on masonite
27.75 x 22 in.
framed
$1,760

DAVID
oil on masonite
22 x 26 in.
framed
$1,650

KATE
graphite on paper
14 x 11 in.
framed
$495

LORI
graphite on paper
15 x 11 in.
framed
$550

BANANA
oil on canvas
48 x 67 in.
framed
$6,600

STUDIO INTERIOR (LOOKING TOWARD THE BACK)
oil on board
24 x 30 in.
framed
$1,980

SELF PORTRAIT WITH GREEN SPIKES
oil on board
24 x 24 in.
framed
$1,650

STUDIO LATE-AFTERNOON SUN
oil on board
24 x 24 in.
framed
$1,650

STUDIO OVERCAST
oil on masonite
24 x 24 in.
framed
$1,650

TWO LEMONS AND A METAL BOWL 2
pencil crayon on paper
8.25 x 12 in.
framed
$385

FOUR PEARS IN A BOWL
oil on canvas
38.5 x 43.25 in.
framed
$3,850

VAN GOGH CUP AND SPOON
oil on board
23.5 x 18 in.
framed
$1,595

Stephen May was born in Témiscaming, Quebec in 1957. In 1976, after one year of study in the Photographic Arts Program at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto, Stephen began to attend art classes at the Ottawa School of Art. Three years later he enrolled in the Fine Arts program at Mount Allison University, from which he graduated in 1983 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. During his fourth year of study, while in the process of creating a landscape painting, he came to understand the relationship between the success of a painting and the spirit of the painter. Stephen realized that drawing and painting were the media most natural to him. His convictions in that respect remain strong to this day.

Following his formal education, Stephen travelled through Europe for eight months exploring collections of great art to deepen his appreciation and knowledge. On his return from Europe , he accepted a seasonal position with Theatre New Brunswick as a prop builder, allowing him five months per year to pursue painting full time. After being awarded a Canada Council “B” grant in 1992, Stephen was able to take a one-year sabbatical from Theatre New Brunswick which provided a stepping stone to his decision to resign and paint full time, which he has been successfully doing since 1996.

Stephen has been a resident of Fredericton since 1984. In that time, he has exhibited extensively, been an active member of the arts community both professionally and as a volunteer, raised two daughters, and been formally recognized as one of the province's most respected painters. Gallery 78 has represented Stephen since he assumed residency in Fredericton, and has presented many solo and group exhibitions of his work. In 2006 the Beaverbrook Art Gallery presented Stephen May: Embodiments, a solo retrospective, and in April 2007 Stephen was awarded the prestigious Miller Brittain Award for Excellence in the Visual Arts.

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

I've come to understand art as the embodiment of the artist. When you encounter a work of art you have the privilege of being with the best of what that artist could find within himself or herself to offer. You can be nurtured, inspired, comforted, challenged, etc by what I would call a kind of communion with the artist.

I see my responsibility as an artist to be someone worthy of that communion. If I can find something within myself that could be described as goodness or greatness then I will have the privilege of offering the world something valuable.

My challenge as an artist is to understand the nature of goodness or greatness. Does anything have lasting value? Does something exist that has universal value? Truth seems to be the only thing I've found that has those values. So I try to be truthful. Truthful about what painting is, about what I am, and about what I perceive. I try not to lie.

In a movie I saw recently Ghandi's character addressed a crowd of people who had come to see him at a train station. He said to them “I used to believe that God is Truth, now I know that Truth is God.”

My hope for my paintings is for them to make us feel bigger, feel larger in spirit. Not so that we place ourselves near the top of the hierarchy of beings, something I feel to be an illusion, but to dissolve that sense of hierarchy. To dissolve any sense of separateness. I want to feel and make felt the wonder of being. I think it's a tragedy to ask too little of art.