ABOUT THE ARTIST: John Steenhoven

When first approached by his biographer and asked to describe himself and his vision, John Steenhoven referred the writer to a quote referencing the creator of Broadway’s “La Boheme.” Steenhoven avowed that, in fact, there could be no more apt description of himself than as ….”an artist who seems destined for an enduring career ranging across who-knows-how-many forms of media, but one who will forever remain a starry-eyed youth at heart."

Presently focused upon ceramic expressionism, Steenhoven finds inspiration from his past creation of massive live entertainment spectacles and attractions for such diverse and seemingly incongruous patrons of bohemianism as New York’s Radio City Music Hall, Madison Square Garden, Las Vegas’ “Fremont Street Experience” and The Walt Disney Company. To date Steenhoven’s creative focus has found expression almost exclusively in the eclectic realms of music, fireworks, dance, architectural form, and ice – 1.5-million pounds of ice recently sculpted by artisans of Harbin, China. Now, with the issuance of this body of important ceramic works, the vision of this “starry-eyed youth” transitions from the spectacle of motion to that of the soul’s inspiration. Led by a muse who “will twist and turn and soar and then be very still,” Steenhoven clearly relishes the journey as much as he anticipates its many destinations.