Stephen Pitliuk

Some might view Stephen Pitliuk’s paintings as irreverent, but he truly loves the island and is simply poking fun at its occasional quirkiness in his tongue-in-cheek depictions of such things as “Nantucket Red” pants, navigating the Milestone rotary, ‘Sconset’s recommended speed limit, real estate and Bartlett Farm’s tomatoes.

PHOTOS BY ROB BENCHLEY “It’s fun,” he said of watching people observe paintings that spring from his fertile imagination. “I like to see people laughing when they look at them.”

While he is as serious about his work as any artist, Pitliuk threads humor throughout his pieces as well as about his career.

“One of my first island paintings sold from the bathroom at Cinco,” he joked.

Born and raised in Miami, Fla., Pitliuk began painting and drawing in a neo-expressionist style when he was just four years old.

“White Trash” “The style I paint in now is the same style I painted in kindergarten,” he explained.

During his school years, he spent time at places such as Miami’s South Center for the Arts in junior high and the Performing and Visual Arts Center in high school. He was among those in the first graduating class of the New World School of the Arts, but beyond that, he has no other formal education.

Pitliuk painted for the joy of it until he moved here in 2001 and approached his art from a more professional standpoint. Using acrylics, oil pastels, graphite and resin to finish his works with a glossy coat, and commonly filling canvases from 40-by-40-inches to four-by-four-feet, he initially painted modern figurative pieces, but discovered that conservative New England art patrons did not fancy the look.

Not wanting to depart from his preferred style, Pitliuk continued incorporating graffiti in his paintings, something he had done long before knowing of Basquiat, famous in the 1980s as a graffiti artist, and whose work is often likened today with that of Pitliuk’s.

Pitliuk also enjoys occasional landscapes and portraits, including dogs and a recently completed painting of a baby, all done in high colors outlined in black. While the portraits are strictly rendered in Pitliuk’s original style, they have an Andy Warhol feeling and are also compared to paintings by Roy Lichtenstin, a regarded pop artist during the 1960s.

Pitliuk was introduced to the island when he came to visit friends, and after recognizing he wanted a change of place, decided Nantucket was where he wished to relocate. “It seemed another universe,” he said.

He works part-time at the hospital as an X-ray technician and paints in his tiny basement apartment kitchen daily during the summer, using the winter as a break period.

Asked what inspires him, Pitliuk said, “Cash. Anyone who tells you otherwise is making it up.”

Actually, however, he finds his muses in flashes of ideas, objects that lends themselves to concepts or even from something he hears or hears about. Listing his favorite artists as Miro, Matisse, Picasso and Basquiat, Pitliuk said he is uncertain about future ideas for paintings other than to develop his abstract expressionism without added graffiti.

“The Nantucket hu- mor theme has been so popular. I’m not trying to move away from it, but to do what I like to do, too,” he explained.

Calling his art “free therapy,” Pitliuk said he finds the process exhilarating and takes pleasure in seeing people appreciate his sense of humor, particularly when that results in a purchase.

“Once I start I can’t stop,” he said of the creative momentum painting gives him. “I go into trance mode. I just enjoy painting.”

Pitliuk exhibits at the Artists Association, Gallery Blue, Cavalier Gallery and at currentVintage. I