Steven Cavallo

​

Steven Cavallo is a watercolourist whose work focuses on human rights, human trafficking and more specifically, forced sexual slaves of WWII known as Comfort Women and the systematic mass murder of Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators known as Holocaust.

Cavallo’s paintings consist of the human figure, most images being a combination of different models, put together in a way to show the underlying beauty of the human figure, and the grotesque images of what mankind has done. Cavallo uses the colors common to bruises in his work, and focus not on the war years, but his work concentrates on the years that follow. The years spent in silence, the years of speaking out and the years of being outcasts of society and now, in recent months, being forsaken by their own government.

​

​

 

Education

School of Visual Arts - New York, NY 1975 - 1979

 

Solo Exhibitions

2018  Manzanar National Park "Looking Back Seeing Ahead” - Independence, CA

2016  Bergen PAC "Kintsugi" - Englewood NJ

2016  Gallery d’Arte "Darkness at the Break of Noon" - Chelsea, NYC

2015  Nabi Museum of the Arts "In Our Dreams We Fly" - Teaneck, NJ

2015  Bergen Performing Art Center “I & I” - Englewood, NJ

2014  Nabi Museum of the Arts “From Many Wounds We Bleed” - Teaneck, NJ

2014  Old Bethpage Public Library “Longing for the Light” - Bethpage NY

2013  Korean Press Center Gallery “Eulogies” - Palisades Park NJ

2012  Eunnam Museum “There But For Fortune” - Gwangj, South Korea

2011  Narah Gallery “Lamentations” - Fort Lee, NJ

2009  FGS Gallery “Playing Army” - Englewood, NJ

2008  Atrium Gallery “Never Forgotten, Never Mentioned” - Washington Township NJ

1992  Old Church Cultural Center “On the Road” - Demarest, NJ

1988  Andiamo Art Gallery “Golgotha”  Palisades Park, NJ

 

 

Selected  Group Exhibitions

2018  Space Ciel “One Eleven Parthibition” - Pompton Lakes, NJ

2018  Belskie Museum “In The Bleak Midwinter” - Closter, NJ

2015  Fullerton Museum "Forgotten Faces" - Fullerton, California

2015  Union City Museum “Remembering Comfort Women” - Union City, NJ

2015  Kupferberg Holocaust Museum “I Will Not Be Silent” - Queens, NY

2015  Belskie Museum “The Beauty of Watercolor” - Closter, NJ

2015  Seoul Museum of Art “World Watercolor Triennial” - Seoul, South Korea

2015  New Jersey Council of the Arts “Issues” - Rahway, NJ

2015  Alpha Gallery “Watercolor and Mixed Media Exhibition” - New Brunswick, NJ

2015  John Jay College of Criminal Justice “Of Human Bondage” - New York City, NY

2014  Catholic University of America "Sorrow & Hope” - Washington, DC

2014  Nabi Museum of the Arts “Laundromat” - Teaneck, NJ

2014  Riverside Gallery “I Came So Far For Beauty” - Hackensack, NJ

2014  Rutgers University Newark Campus "27 Kinds of Silence” - Newark, NJ

2012  George Mason University “Comfort Women: The Untold Story” - Fairfax, Virginia

2012  Gallery Western “Cry of the Halmonie” - Los Angeles, California

2012  Greisinger Museum “Tolkien Exhibit” - Jenins, Switzerland

2012  Gallery 1 & 9 "Come From the Shadows” - Ridgefield, NJ

2012  Kupferberg Holocaust Museum “Come From the Shadows” - Queens, NY

2011  Yegam Gallery “You Can’t Deny Reality” - Queens, NY

2010  Palisades Park Multimedia Center “Comfort Women” Memorial Dedication - Palisades Park, NJ

2010  Ansan Art Center Ansan International Art Fair - Ansan, South Korea

2010  Bergen Performing Arts Center “Childhood’s End” - Englewood, NJ

2008  Brennan Gallery “Immigration” - Jersey City, NJ

2008  Maxim Lounge “Four Strong Winds” - New York City, NY

2007  Korean Central Cultural Gallery “Between Memory and Reality” - Fort Lee, NJ

2007  Gallery Oms “Winter Invitational” - Fort Lee, NJ

2007  Sanmaroo Gallery “Five Corners” - Tenafly, NJ

2007  Atrium Gallery “Immigration” - Washington Township, NJ

2006  Jersey City Court House “Identity” - Jersey City, NJ 

2001  Spoon Gallery “Summer Invitational” - New York City, NY

1988 Galaxy Gallery Group Exhibit - North Bergen, NJ

1986  Gallery of American Artists Group Show - New York City, NY

1981  Seraphim Gallery “Autumn Invitational” - Englewood, NJ

1979  Green Glass Gallery “Sports of the Future” - New York City, NY

1979  Alpine Gallery “Houses We Live In” - Closter, NJ

1979  School of Visual Arts Gallery - New York City, NY

 

 

Select Commercial Art Experience

1985 - 2001  Asimov Science Fiction Magazine - Interior Illustrations 

1985 - 2001  Ellery Queen Magazine - Interior Illustrations 

1985 - 2001  Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine - Interior Illustrations

1985 - 2001  Analog Science Fiction and Fact Magazine - Interior Illustrations 

1987 - 1988  March of Dimes International 

1990 - 1998  Simon & Schuster - Book Illustrations 

1985 - 1988  Wall Street Journal - Pen and Ink Illustrations 

1983 - 1985  Scholastic Magazine 

1980 - 1992  Walker Books 

1979 Hispanic World’s Fair "Subway Poster and Car Card"

1979 - 1981  Manor Books - Paperback Book Covers 

 

 

Teaching and Judging

2015 - Present  School Of Visual Arts, Figure Drawing and Watercolors

2005 - 2007  Tappan School of Art and Music

1989 - 1999  Parson’s School of Design, Guest Lecturer

2005 - 2007  Art & I, Cresskill, NJ

1999 - 2007  Sharon’s Art Center, Fairfield, NJ

1998 - 2011  Fort Lee Artist Guild (Lecturer and Demo)

2007  Pascack Artist Guild (Lecturer and Demo)

2006  Allendale Artist Guild(Lecturer and Demo)

1994  Ridgefield Artist Guild (Lecturer and Demo)

1989 - Present  Palisades Park Multimedia Center

2001 - Present  Bergen County Teen Arts Festival

​

​

​

Artgist Statement

​

In 2007 I began research of the issue of Comfort Women and spent time with these victims who were forced into sexual slavery during WWII. I have traveled both in Korea and the United States with these women, we have eaten together, protested together and spoke side by side at countless venues in their fight for justice and to have their testimonies be heard.  I have learned from these victims the methods and effects of human trafficking in 1942 Asia.

 

Although still active in the Comfort Women cause, my newest paintings are focused on Human Trafficking today. The method of abduction has not changed much, since the days of 1942 that the comfort women speak of. The stigmas attached to the victims, the struggles to reenter society, the lies told, the lives destroyed, and how the families are effected.

The stories I portray in this series of watercolors are depicted as twisted bodies, often using the Biblical symbols of crucifixion, scavenger birds and thorns to portray sin, the ultimate humiliation and shame hoisted upon these victims. The color scheme that I tend to use are the colors of bruises, and the human forms are often from several models, not just one, but a cast of models molded into one figure, beautiful features twisted into what mankind has made.

My large watercolors are usually multi-panel installations using large sheets of watercolor paper, often pinned together roughly, not limited to square or rectangle boarders, but panels that break the boundaries of traditional paintings. There is nothing pretty about the figures at first sight, however, i strive to convey an underlying beauty to each human figure to portray who they once were, who they might have been and who they dreamed of being.

In a multi-panel piece entitled "There but for Fortune" (Inspired by a 1960s song by protest singer Phil Ochs) there are a series of watercolor portraits of battered faces on torn and burnt paper, mounted on burlap. "We have no place to rest our feet" comes from a quote by a former comfort women, but is still applicable today in these aging sex workers with no promise for the future, a series of contorted bodies floating in mid-air, not belonging anywhere but drifting through life. "Identity" shows a woman removing the mask of youth, beauty and servitude and revealing an aging Asian face. "From the Shadows" depicts scarecrow-like images, almost human, but falling short of being regarded as having human feelings and emotions. These paintings are a portrait of man's inhumanity toward man, of greed and destruction. They are paintings of beauty and horror and a crime that has not changed its face throughout the years.

In 2010 I had the honor of designing the first Comfort Women Memorial in the United States which is in Palisades Park NJ, as well as working with a team of Human Rights advocates in Glendale California in 2012 bringing awareness and support for the Glendale California Memorial that was unveiled one year later.

​

​

​