Canadian painter Steve Mitts is available for exhibitions throughout Alberta, and Canada.
His work is made with century old barn wood from Alberta grain silos, meticulously cut and arranged with either 20 year old canvas paintings from Steve’s earlier work, or painted directly onto the wood blocks.
The result is a unique mix of art and texture, sculpture and painting.
Held in Balance:
A Symmetry Between Structure and Narrative
Steve's latest exhibition, Held in Balance, explores how structure and narrative intertwine, inviting curiosity, reflection, and wonder.
Each piece carries a subtle story, creating a quiet dialogue between visual form and underlying meaning.
The work re-imagines prairie structures; buildings shaped by time, weather, and change. What was once obsolete becomes resonant through deliberate acts of material and conceptual renewal.
Displacement & Balance
Displacement guides Steve’s Canvas Series. He revisits paintings that had remained rolled and stored for 20 to 25 years, integrating them with wood salvaged from century-old grain bins. Composed entirely of reclaimed materials, the works are cropped, segmented, and reassembled into new compositions. Each fragment is re-contextualized through its relationship to the whole, allowing past and present to coexist within a renewed framework.
Balance is achieved through restraint and counterweight. The segmented wood carries visual weight through texture and history, while negative space actively shapes and defines the forms. Gaps and pauses allow the compositions to breathe, creating rhythm between solidity and absence. Equilibrium emerges not from symmetry, but from tension, where density is offset by openness and quiet.
Together, these elements create a state of suspension between instability and permanence. Each component retains its history while contributing to a narrative shaped by resilience and care. The work exists between what has endured and what is still becoming.
A Celebration of the Quiet, Contemplative Moments
This series continues Steve’s long-standing focus on quiet, contemplative moments. Subject matter and structure remain in delicate harmony, emphasizing essential aspects of each painted story without isolating them.
These works hold stories within stories; curious, playful, and detailed, inviting viewers to look closely and consider the delicate balance between what they are seeing and how they are seeing it.
See It In Person
Steve’s latest exhibit will be shown in two locations this spring through fall, 2026.
