LIVIA STEIN
Artist’s Bio and Statement

BIO

Livia Stein was born in Dallas, Texas, and is descended from Russian refugees who fled the Pogroms in Eastern Europe at the turn of the last century. Her family relocated to California in 1950, and she grew up in and around Los Angeles and Orange County.

She attended the University of California, Berkeley, where she studied History, and later pursued a master’s degree in South Asian Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her time in India as a student sparked a lifelong connection, and she has continued to travel there over the past 20 years.

Inspired by her father, a talented amateur photographer, Livia studied at Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles.

While working on her Master’s Degree at San Francisco State University's Center for Interdisciplinary and Experimental Art, she shifted her artistic focus from Photography to Painting.

Livia currently lives and maintains a studio in Oakland. She is a former Professor of Art at Dominican University in San Rafael, California, and has one son, Theo Vincent Fram, whose love of toys, animals, and machines has greatly influenced her art.

Livia's work has been exhibited in Europe, South America, India, and throughout the United States. She received an NDEA Fellowship while studying Indian History and Art at the University of Pennsylvania and has been an Artist in Residence in Baroda, India, and at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. In 2012, she had a Painting Residency just outside New Delhi, and in November 2015, she was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome.

Her work is included in the collections of the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Oakland Museum of California, Dominican University, and the University of Iowa Art Museum, among others.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

WHY I MAKE ART AND WHAT IT ALL MEANS

Most of the time I believe in the power of words to convey an emotion thought or idea. That is true except when it comes to discussing or explaining or describing A R T, which by its very nature uses many skills that are beyond or removed from words.

I can say I paint because it is a way of understanding life. I can also say that I paint order to reign in personal demons.

I can say I paint to express experiences of personal sorrow, grief, isolation and joy. This would all be true but at the same time fiction, a book with confusing, ambiguous prose. I paint to see what I want to paint. I create a world that is drenched in color, light, forms, patterns and textures. I paint to learn what I can and cannot do.

I paint and give a nod to the words akin to someone waving at a tornado full of bombastic fragments. These particles all swirl around and finally settle down quietly to contemplate a visual poem. The poem itself lacking all words.