Introducing Steve Staresina

Steve StaresomaSteve Staresina uses a modification of the ancient technique and medium called fresco, creating artwork using a trowel to apply multiple layers of marble and limestone plaster. With an undergraduate education at Kent State University, in Ohio, and years of experience working as an artisan, his love of natural materials combines with his love of expressionist and modern art.

Steve is an artist and artisan who has nurtured his love for the work of the expressionist and action/color field painters. The spontaneity, courage and beauty of their work had influence worldwide, from New York to Paris to Black Mountain College Retreat, near Asheville, North Carolina, and serves as inspiration for Steve’s work today.

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About my materials...

While creating a modern fresco requires a rare medium, the luminosity, depth, and timelessness of the all -natural marble and limestone plaster is exquisite. Traditionally, the artist Michaelangelo used the “buon” (pigment on wet plaster) fresco technique. Steve has combined what he terms “enfresco” (pigment in wet plaster) and traditional “buon” fresco to create the striking, energetic and emotion filled works of “our day.”

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What is Fresco ?

“I believe fresco is the most universal, simplest, the most direct, the most natural expression of the artist. Yet of all forms of painting, it demands the most of the artist. Throughout the day the capacity of the plaster to assimilate color varies-it is a living, changing thing. Part of the wonder of this enduring form of art is that at its completion the beauty of the work has just begun to radiate. Over the years, while the fresco feeds the hearts and souls of those fortunate enough to abide under its splendor, the chemical process of carbonization continues within,...continually increasing the visual unity and luminosity of the work.”

Sr. Lucia Wiley