statement

I am a figurative painter who prefers to work from life when possible. I paint to find out what I think about the world; to discover the things I do not have words for. I savor the slips of the hand that express one's unconscious feelings. I am interested in the tension between abstraction and realism. I do not want to make an academic copy of the model or a photorealistic illustration. My paintings explore the tension between what needs to be shown and what does not, the seen and the unseen.

In my studio practice I utilize collage as a formal element; a way of putting down tone or erasing previous marks. There is a randomness in collage, a secondary meaning in the text or image, that becomes an important part of the finished work. Collage provides a method of capturing the fast-paced, often fragmented moving images of our 21st Century postmodern culture. It brings together multiple images and text from multiple sources into a final portrait. Collage is a way of capturing time that allows me to layer multiple images over the scaffolding of a drawing.

bio

born: 1960, New York, New York

education

Slade School of Fine Art, London, MFA 2007
Albany Law School, JD, 1986
Bard College, BA, 1982

selected awards/honors

Juror's Choice Award for  XL-XS, Juror Barry Nemett,  Maryland Federation of Art, 2012
Short list, Celeste Art Prize, London, 2006
Dean's Prize, New York Studio School, NY, 2004

selected publications

Peripheral ARTeries, February 2013 issue, online, http://issuu.com/artpress/docs/peripheral_arteries_art_review_-_february_2013/1
Baez, Anulfo, The Big Bad at Nave Gallery, Big Red & Shiny, October 13, 2012, online, http://www.bigredandshiny.com/cgi-bin/BRS.cgi?article=2012-09-13-075513325975459365
Hartigan, Philip A., A View From the Easel, Pt. 26, Hyperallergic.com, September 26, 2012, online, http://hyperallergic.com/57523/a-view-from-the-easel-12/
Chayka, Kyle, Summer Fridays for Art in conjunction with Tumblr Storyboard and Artinfo, Artist feature & interview, August 24, 2012, online, http://summerfridays.tumblr.com/post/30101294843/storyboard-summer-art-friday-collagist-geoffrey

selected solo or two-person exhibits

Goodenough Gallery: Working Process: Drawings & Collages by Geoffrey Stein, London, 2007

selected group shows

Saatchi Online: Face to Face: New Portraits, curator Rebecca Wilson, 2013
The Cooper Center for Communication Arts, South Texas College: 8th Annual Human Rights Exhibt,  McAllen, TX, 2013
Buchanan Center for the Arts: America: Now and Here, Juror Eric Fischl, Monmouth, IL, 2012
Six Summit Gallery: Juxtaposed, Juror Alyssa Monks, Ivoryton, CT, 2011