Kahaluu man's 'playful art'
provokes serious interest

By: JANINE TULLY Staff Writer
Windward Sun Press, January 1991

KANEOHE - It's clear that for Glenn Steinberg painting is synonymous with having fun.

In fact, sometimes it's hard to tell whether Steinberg is simply teasing the viewer with his volcanoes and fish spewing colorful balloons, or if he's venturing into some form of Dadaism.

Yet the Kaneohe artist has never been more serious about his work than he is now.

For the past decade, Steinberg has been perfecting what could be termed "playful art" ­ a highly stylized form of realistic painting, using bold colors and simple, almost childlike lines and shapes.

Indeed, he'll be the first one to admit that one of his abstract paintings could be the work of a mad painter or a preschooler experimenting with finger paints. Either way, the result is a large canvas on which many colors of acrylic paints have been squeezed out of tubes, creating undulating patterns.

A self-taught artist who's been dabbling in the field ever since he was a youngster, Steinberg never received a formal art education.

"In the early part of my painting phase, I was afraid of not doing what you were supposed to do. Now I'm doing what I want to do and let the results speak for themselves," Steinberg says, pointing to the many paintings strewn around his Temple Valley townhouse.

The offshoot of giving free rein to his imagination is the creation of unique, humorous paintings with an underlying Hawaiian theme - and recognition from Honolulu's art community.

"When James Dimitrion (director of the Hirshhorn Museum of contemporary art at the Smithsonian) said that my art was good enough to be shown at the 1988 Honolulu Academy of Arts local artists exhibit, that was it. It boosted my confidence enormously."

Today Steinberg's work can be found in private collections on the Mainland, in Japan and Guam, and has been shown in several galleries, including the Contemporary Museum at the News Building.

His originals can also be seen at the Juniper Arts Gallery. He's also this year's official state artist for Festival of the Pacific.

"People who like my work tend to be fun-loving people who have a positive attitude," says Steinberg.

Steinberg's paintings range from outrageously bold to simply wacko.

Take the one with the two fish swimming amidst coral, blowing bubbles that turn into balloons.
"That (scene) came out of nowhere two weeks ago," he notes.

Or how about the tree where every tiny leaf is a different color stroke.
"I don't like that one," he adds, "I've got to try again."

For the most part, however, Steinberg is pretty happy with his paintings, to the point that he's not too eager to part with them." I rarely want to part with my originals," he says. But this week, Steinberg sold one of his favorite paintings, "Diamond Head Serenity," for several thousand dollars to a woman in Los Angeles' who told him "she just had to have the painting."

In the last few months, however, Steinberg has started to focus on making prints from his originals. His prints are sold at all Frame Shack and Art Avenue stores, and The Art Board.

His most recent print, "Volcano Surprise," will be among Steinberg's pieces sold at a benefit for the Muscular Dystrophy Association at 8 p.m. Saturday at Mamiya Theater. The event, titled "A Celebration of Sight and Sound," will' feature Gabe Baltazar, Jimmy Borges and Jar Brenner.