STEVE COOMBS
I am a long-time musician who more recently was inspired to paint. I am a passionate guitar player and singer, gigging over the years in Western Canada in bands, duos and solo. I was born in Ontario, moving throughout Canada with my family before leaving home at 15. I settled in Calgary, where I lived for more than 20 years, eventually ending up in Vancouver for 15 years. I am looking forward to my next chapter on the Naramata Bench.
For most of my life I believed I could create more than music. When I moved to Pennsylvania in 2000 and found myself in search of a creative outlet, I took the opportunity to sign up for a couple of art classes at a local community college and began painting. When I moved back to Canada in 2004, I continued to paint and play music at local venues in the Vancouver area.
As a largely self-taught artist, I have experimented with a number of subjects and media. I currently devote most of my energy towards painting pictures of musical instruments in acrylic, which perfectly blends my love of both music and art. I strive for realism in my work, which takes hundreds of hours with small brushes, resulting in only one or two paintings a year. I wish I was faster, but haven’t got that figured out yet!
My paintings and prints hang in private collections in British Columbia and Alberta and my contributions were recognized in the B.C. lower mainland in a public opinion poll taken by The Tri-City News, being named one of the Tri-Cities’ favourite local artists in both 2013 and 2014.