Steve Walker

Artist on VibrantCast

I’m a Northside Chicago guy, raised in a hardworking middle-class family. I’m the youngest of three and the only boy. Dad was a carpenter, Mom a dressmaker, and I think I picked up my appreciation for working with my hands from them. I got turned on to art at an early age. In elementary school, I was chosen for an art program that included weekly trips to the Art Institute of Chicago. Wandering those galleries and seeing artists like Calder, O’Keeffe, Picasso, Monet, Magritte and Dalí left a lasting impression and changed the way I looked at the world. I played football through high school and college, but I always knew making art was going to be part of my life. Sports and art became two different ways of exploring the same things — movement, energy, instinct and emotion. In many ways, my work is an attempt to bring together those two sides of me: the cerebral and the physical. I’ve been married to Salli, the love of my life, for 40 years, and we have two wonderful daughters, Shawn and Erin. My work has been exhibited or commissioned by institutions, galleries, businesses and private collectors throughout the Chicago area and beyond.