Conjuring Tenderness: Paintings from 1987, an exhibition of paintings and works on paper by Hugh Steers (1962–1995), recently opened at New York’s Alexander Gray Associates.
Steers painted queer life during the AIDS crisis with sensitivity, compassion, and sensuality— also with a sense of joy underscoring the banality and brutality of everyday existence. Influenced by historic figurative and landscape artists such as Caravagio, Van Gogh, and Edward Hopper, Steers’ work is beautifully melancholy.
According to the exhibition press release, Steers once described his work as “allegorical realism” created “to draw the viewer in through the lure of a comfortingly recognizable style and then confront him with a subject matter of a challenging nature.”
