Artist Statement

Nov 1

Written By Steve Firkins

I began to use the word Curvism in 1978 to describe my art and philosophy.

Curvism grew out of the landscape. The horizon, the hills and valleys, the flow of water, the shape of rocks, plants and animals, and the human figure are composed of curves. Nature is curved with few exceptions.

Mother Earth, Father Sky (The Birth of Curvism - 1978)

The straight lined, angular, man-made world sharply contrasts with the natural world. Curvism believes that humans have boxed themselves into their own world, isolating themselves from the curved, spiritual world of nature.

Western culture is man-made, built from a male perspective. It is the view of science and technology, reason and logic, power and aggression, conformity and competition, materialism and commercialism, quantity and packaging, fragmentation and separation. This world view is symbolized by the straight line, the rectangle, the square and the cube.

During the Twentieth Century the power of this world view increased exponentially with science and commerce gaining almost total control over the way the world and humans are viewed and defined. Modern art began with Cubism and has since been dominated by the symbolism of the square and the exploration of the rectangular format.

Curvism seeks to move out of the square, rectangular, cubed world and into the sphere of the curved line, the circle and the ellipse.

Curvism views the world from a more female perspective. Curvism speaks of nature and the earth, the environment and the ecological. Curvism seeks wisdom. It is about wholeness and diversity and concerns itself with quality.

Curvism values the senses and the sensual, the intuitive and the experiential, the emotions and empathy, caring and cooperation. It is oriented to cycles and the nonlinear, to both spontaneity and reflection. Curvism is concerned with relationships and ultimately involves love.

For too long the spiritual world of nature and the female qualities of humans have been dominated, suppressed, repressed and destroyed by the forces of the man-made Western, square world view.

There has been a growing awareness that the modern-postmodern culture of science and commerce cannot feed the soul’s deeper longings or satisfy spirituality’s higher aspirations.

Curvism believes that cultural renewal and a new balance can be achieved by moving toward and through the spiritual curved world view.

Steve Firkins

Art and Philosophy