About
Stefan Nyman is a painter, mystic, and caretaker of the world’s coolest cat. Multifaceted, he is also known for being a singer, a composer, and a published author. Similarly, his paintings seemingly fall within a broad spectrum of genres. Rejecting formulaic styles, he lets every painting bloom in whatever way it wants. The result may look like everything from classical realism to abstract expressionism.
His first paintings were made at the exact same time his childhood ended, as if to preserve some of consciousness’ original sense of magic in the artificial state of numb adulthood. Painting became shamanic journeys into worlds about to be forgotten, bringing back sacred artifacts of paint as reminders in the “ordinary” world.
Later he would approach art in a more prosaic and methodical way, studying the old masters and replicating their techniques. Today, he once again paints with his original shamanic mindset, now with much stronger technical abilities to manifest his inner visions in physical paint, in whatever way it needs to be done.
Woman with phone
Inspiration
For Stefan, the need to paint has always been a call back to a more true, original, and authentic way of being, freed from the mind’s desperate clinging to artificial symbols and concepts. Therefore, inspiration to paint must come from a place inexpressible in any other way, beyond the “ordinary” world of human affairs. Ideally, every painting by him should be a result of nothing less than a mystical experience, not a commentary on societal matters nor an expression of individual feelings.
In fact, the act of painting should be a mystical experience in itself, a true moment of "inspiration", a dialogue between the conscious mind and the subconscious soul, reflected in the dialogue between the inner vision and the physical paint.
This means the very act of painting can be inspiration in itself.
Self-taught.
Not counting one year of art school, which actually put him off painting for a couple of years and gave him a temporary distaste for "art" in general.
Experienced in most mediums, he currently works mainly in oils and acrylics, tending to use oils when painting realistically, and acrylics when the “style” is more abstract.
Inspired by old masters and classical painting techniques, he enjoys making his own paints, varnishes, and mediums. This is especially true regarding his oil paintings.
His painting process is intimately connected with his inspiration. Roughly, it can be divided into two categories:
1. Intuitive, where the entirety of the process happens during the actual act of painting. Basically, he just starts laying down pigments, and the rest is a dialogue between the inner vision, and what happens on the canvas.
2. Methodical, where the inner work is mostly ready before starting to paint. This means the image may be totally “done”, ready to just be “copied” onto the canvas.
Most of the time, these two approaches merge. For example, he might start with a very straight forward rendering of a realistic subject, which suddenly shatters into cubist fragments, taking on a life of their own, eventually evolving into something totally abstract, or into a subject matter very far removed from the original one.
Similar Artists
