The art of Stevens Vaughn has been described variously as abstract, organic, wild, spontaneous and free. In fact the process of his art is the performance of highly unique and ever changing rituals connecting the spiritual world, his individual thoughts and physical action.

 

The works which we see are relics of these rituals.

 

In his works Baptism of Color, he takes on pollution.

 

Pollution of the environment, of thought, of ideals.

 

He does not accept a grey polluted world whether it is the manmade grayness of this winter in Beijing or the political winter of the inauguration of Donald Trump in Washington D.C. or the ruins of Allepo.

 

The absolution of his tools in water represents his love of purity in nature, human interaction and direct experience.

The water though polluted itself is at it most basic a substance of purification.

Water is changeless, powerful, mysterious and all encompassing in his world.

 

In performing the Baptism of Color, the artist entered the water to cleanse his body and his thoughts and merge them with the physical world.

The application of color, meditation on the current state of the world and the work created were complete when he joins the work on the sand.

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Rodney Cone