My name is Steve Palumbo, and art has been part of my life for as long as I can remember. My father was a passionate avocational artist, and growing up around painting and drawing shaped the way I saw the world from an early age. On weekends, my siblings and I often spent hours with him wandering through the Brooklyn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, experiences that left a lasting impression on me as a child. Over the years, I continued working in oil paint and collage, practices that have remained a constant source of curiosity and fulfillment for me.

For nearly forty years, I worked as a plastic surgeon. One of the reasons I was drawn to that field was because it allowed me to use the same sense of observation, balance, and creativity that I loved in art. Whether helping someone recover after an injury or simply feel more comfortable in their own skin, I always felt there was a connection between medicine and artistic expression.

Two artists had a profound influence on my work. The first was Jack Levine, whom I had the privilege of meeting in the 1980s. Jack was very generous, and let me watch him work in his studio on the top floor of his Greenwich Village townhouse, often for hours at a time. I learned a lot from Jack, especially the importance of glazing in representational painting — building layers slowly to create depth, warmth, and life within the figure.

The second was Romare Bearden. Although I never met him, his work had an enormous impact on me. Living for a while near the The Studio Museum in Harlem, where he was a founding presence, gave me the opportunity to study his collages closely for many years. Much of my own figurative collage work owes a debt to his vision and influence.

Today, my work often combines collage and oil paint, sometimes within the same piece. I’m grateful for the opportunity to share these works here, and most of all, I appreciate anyone who takes the time to visit the site and spends a few moments with the art.