Statement
The central goal of my work is to provoke, through the process of painting, direct encounters with the underlying reality beyond the self. This reality exists without obligation to the limitations of the human mind, which mundanely perceives the shadows of its own fears and desires in place of the world. To perceive the ineffable vastness that exists beyond the mind thus requires the death of internal constructions of the self. This experience is one of indescribable ecstasy and beauty, where a light greater then is capable of being contained within the individual mind reveals itself like thunder.
During the creation of my art, painting is used as a catalyst and intermediary for this process, which attempts to communicate transcendent experience through both subject and the physicalIty of the medium itself. While painting, working mediums of oil and cold wax are intentionally pushed into novel and difficult interactions that resist conscious control. This loss of control acts as a liminal expression of an accompanying psychological upheaval, which pursues points of tension until both internal and external forms merge and are simultaneously resolved in ecstatic experience.
It is my hope these paintings can act as bridge, and through the fiery residue of their creation a path can be discerned in the mind of the viewer. To this end, traces of the process are intentionally left unaltered in the forms of scrapes, gauges, and heavy impasto. If the viewer feels discomfort in these paintings, they perceive the instant of inspiration. This dissonance is the tension between a human mind that perceives suffering, destruction, and death, and a greater reality in which all phenomena shine as manifestations of indescribable perfection in the ineffable oneness of light.
Bio
Noah Alexander Isaac Stein is a self-taught artist living and working in Portland, OR. Focused on ecstatic oil paintings and large scale light-based installations, Stein’s work explores themes of spiritual transcendence, political discord, and environmental collapse.
For Stein, ecstatic experience represents both an underlying truth and the means to move beyond suffering. To communicate this to viewers, Stein explores both contemporary and traditional frameworks for their potential to provoke insight that leads to direct experience.
Shaped both by his multi-faith and bi-ethnic background, and his experiences living, working, and traveling throughout the world, for Stein all understanding draws from a common well. A current member of Blackfish Gallery, Stein is also a founding member of international peacemaking group Art Knows No Borders, and a voice for Portland artists as the president and founder of First Friday PDX.