Steve Penley

 

Amidst the holiday hustle of Buckhead, across from Whole Foods, in the shadow of the opulent St Regis, near the Atlanta History Center, sits a nondescript storefront with color bursting from the windows.

Steve Penley and his studio are a source of enlightenment in a generic, high dollar zip code.

Born in Chattanooga, raised in Macon, schooled in Athens, living in Atlanta, Steve is as southern as Grizzard, Bisher, and Governor Joe Frank Harris.

“The South influences everything I paint, and everything I am.”

Steve is an amusing conversationalist, you have to pay attention to discern truth from “tongue in cheek.”

He is a combustible mix of modesty and self-confidence, his long fingers coated in colorful paint.

“When I was young, I discovered my ability to create. When the teachers left the classroom, I would draw on the chalkboard; U.S. soldiers destroying Nazi’s in WWII. These battle scenes helped give definition, get me attention among my classmates.”

When I spoke to the much-in-demand artist, he had just returned from Nashville (the Ryman Auditorium) after presenting a painting, a mural, thanking first responders for their heroism stopping a mass shooter inside Coventry Christian School.

Weeks earlier his expansive Georgia mural was front and center for the opening for Gray Communications studio complex in Doraville.

Steve began his art career after college when a friend needed to decorate the walls of a new restaurant. He was given a short deadline with a request for color.

He delivered ahead of schedule.

Today, the UGA graduate still delivers, the rare artist who works well on deadline and has a sense of organization.

Scattered and smothered, he isn’t.

Churchill, JFK, Reagan, FDR, Atlanta, Georgia, Flowers, Vince Dooley, Ali, Hemingway, Coca Cola.

“Painting is always a fight, a battle, I imagine a project one way, and it turns out differently in the end.”

He is always stirred by America, “it’s an extraordinary place. We aren’t perfect but there has never been anything like it in the history of the world.”

Steve's work is viewed in so many places in the country, from the halls of congress in Washington, Atlanta restaurants, businesses, homes, Sea Island.

His art has become a signature of the state.

A Penley brush, creating a portrait, is an extraordinary honor, the requests are many.

Chatting with the artist is a delight, a uniquely Atlanta experience, as varied and colorful as his work.

Creative people speak a language of their own. The more I’ve been around Steve, the better I understand.

Like everything else in the South, complicated, interesting, full of surprises.

Steve Penley is all that.

“Every thing I paint is never done, I could keep on working with everything in front of me.”

Thanks for putting my face on a basketball Steve!