About Steven Valiere
My name is Alexa Young
Steven Valiere is a self taught surf artist, born in North Dakota in the 1950s, who found his way to Hawai'i when he was 18.
After a lifetime of global surf travels, adventures, raising a family, more surfing, and plenty painting, Steven now lives in the north of Auckland, New Zealand, with his partner Julie.
Steve paints every day, and has recently started writing his auto-biography. He regularly sends batches of different sized paintings to the Aloha Images Gallery on Kaua'i, Hawai'i, where they can be viewed and purchased, and he is also open to painting commissions which can be sent anywhere in the world.
The Man...
Steven Valiere doesn't just know his subject matter, he's been living it every day of his life.
As a teenager in southern California during the sixties, surfing was the driving force, rock ‘n roll the heartbeat and art the soul that shaped Steven Valiere’s world.
The North Shore of O'ahu and Maui in the fall and winter of 1970 opened his mind and eyes. The new places and faces stimulated a curiosity to expand his horizon. In early 1972 he boarded a plane to Peru, promising to return to college in a year but his education was taking a different path. Valiere’s odyssey took him to some of the worlds most remote spots in an extraordinary adventure that most surfers only dream of. From Peru to Brazil, South Africa, Australia, Indonesia, and uncharted villages of Papua New Guinea... Steven surfed virgin tubes of no name and no end.
Steven lives a slower paced life these days, spending his time painting, gardening and landscaping, writing his auto-biography, and a bit of surf when he can.
"It's all these people that we meet along the way that really make the whole experience of your surfing so worth while. For me, it's a real heartfelt experience."
- Steven Valiere, The Temple of Surf Podcast
... The Art
Steve's art is alive with wild colour and epic surf scenes. All of his paintings are inspired by years of travelling, searching for perfect waves in hidden corners all around the world, the different cultures of people he lived amongst during those times, and of course, his two sons Evan & Shane who are both very talented surfers themselves.
Using acrylic on canvas, Steve has refined his technique over the years. He's dabbled in a few different styles, but mostly leans towards his unique and very recognisable scenes of thick & multi-coloured brush strokes, which invoke a sense of high energy, heavy, fast moving waves, with frothed-out surfers on the beach or in the water, having the absolute time of their lives, barefoot in paradise.
