Steven Foy is very aware of the debt that he owes to abstract expressionism and to the artists who immediately followed it. Rothko is a particularly important influence especially the mood and colour that his paintings generate. But whatever he has absorbed from other artists, what first set him on course was a desire to produce images possibly unconsciously revealing an inner self.
As a young child, he spent long periods in an eye hospital undergoing four operations between the ages of two and ten. The time spent convalescing especially when he couldn't see at all heightened his sensitivity to his surroundings. He feels that those periods were traumatic, but they compelled him to look at things properly for the first time. And the perceived anonymity of being a hospital patient made him want to make people notice him.
But his schooling failed to develop his talents and his first real artistic expression came through punk music. He played in four bands but eventually realised that he was being pulled towards painting and drawing. He spent two years at Rochdale School of Art (enrolling almost by accident!) followed by three years at Ravensbourne. Since leaving Ravensbourne in 1986, he has worked continuously as an artist apart from two years when he returned to play in a band. That time was a period of disillusionment with fine art but provided the necessary catalyst to return to it.
He sees his work as an on going process, but not a seamless one, and he feels that it's essential to keep in touch with the everyday practice of life. To him, life and his work are a bitter-sweet experience; an entanglement and confusion. From this, he attempts to bring a sense of cohesion and meaning.
Tim Sayer, January 2001