Jon Steingrimsson is an Icelandic American painter based in the high desert of Central Oregon whose pictures speak with an evocative poetics in light and space. Steingrimsson’s landscapes have a primordial presence with a come-hither feeling of adventure that becomes a compelling invitation to explore. There is an intangible mystery and fascination around his landscapes, but unmistakably it is the pure beauty of light and space itself that is the foundation of his work.

Steingrimsson’s background may help to explain his focus and uncanny mastery over light and space in his work. Steingrimsson is also a licensed California architect whose most outstanding buildings express a physical embodiment of light and space and are as imaginatively captivating as his paintings. For three decades his architecture and art were on separate career paths running parallel to each other. In an attempt to keep them apart, he worked in each under different names. However, eventually his artwork jumped the track and collided with his architecture resulting in a residential project that took more than ten years to complete. This collision brought him to where he is today. After closing his architecture practice in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2015, Steingrimsson relocated to the high desert of Central Oregon where he built his studio and currently resides. .

Steingrimsson’s watercolor painting technique lures the viewer into the picture through an optically constructed space of delicately nuanced interactions of color applied in transparent glazes. This can only be accomplished with a watercolor painting medium that Steingrimsson takes full advantage of by pushing the medium to its full potential from the darkest opacity to the lightest transparency.