Art comes from a deep inner sense of direction. It starts with a reevaluation of                            -   ,.., ,~_~your own life, from a search for the source of the impulses and the mystery of it all.I think of myself as an emotional realist. I'm not a photo-realist.Emotion id what I want to portray. Realism is just my way of doing it.

Steve Hanks is first and foremost a figure painter. His watercolor paintings are infused with emotion and a kind of poetry formed by light and shadow in his compositions. He often paints what he refers to as "moments of introspective solitude;' with deep respect for the privacy of the individual lost in reflection.Each painting holds a mystery that is also a personal story about the artist as he expresses his own emotional unfolding through art.

Just as writers are urged to "write what you know" Steve Hanks paints what he lives. When his children were born his work was filled with the profound intimacy between infants and parents, the unexpected joy of toddlers,and the wonder of    

                               -Oyoungsters finding their way in the outside world.

Throughout his body of work, the study of the figure is primary and nowhere is this more in evidence than in Hanks'nudes. Forms are defined by light slanting through windows and sunlight through fabric or the drape of a sheet. Through Steve's mastery of composition, shadow and light, his figures emerge from the paper fully formed, unique, and mysterious.

The emotional impact of these detailed and highly realistic paintings is undeniable.Whatever the subject--children, families,women, nudes, landscape, water, or textile patterns--the paintings are also about light and shadow, and reflect a personal challenge, pain, or joy of the artist.

The paintings in this volume represent the most extensive collection of the artist's work in over ten years. Some time after his divorce in the 1990s, Steve began a series of paintings about healing.The paitings in this series are both deeply personal in their symbolism of the artist's own life and universal in their emotion and xeperience."I want my whole body of work to tell a story when I'm gone,"says Steve,"It will tell the story of my life emotionally."

INTRODUCTION

 THE POWER OF ART TO HEAL AND COMFORT

CHAPTER ONE

 FOR GENERATIONS TO COME TO

CHAPTER TWO

 TRAVELING AT THE SPEED OF LIFE

CHAPTER THREE

 WHERE THE HEALING BEGINS

CHAPTER FOUR

 WONDERS OF A WOMAN

ARTIST'S EPILOGUE

STEVE HANKS BIOGRAPHY

INDEX OF PAINTINGS