"I don't work from photographs or slides. That just gives you a photographic look to your paintings, which I find repulsive."

Tom Steigerwald was born in Philadelphia, PA in 1945.

Residing in Elkins Park, PA, he continues to creates masterful trompe l´oeil botanical paintings of the flowers he loves. At first glance, you can see the power and vitality, a hallmark of his imagery. His work is wonderful: original, accurate and vital, the flowers and leaf forms so meticulously painted: minute details remain minute and convincing in the eyes of the beholder, despite the greatly magnified scale of the work.

Amazingly, these mural-like paintings are totally portable, moveable, and uniquely practical for today´s frequent nomadic lifestyle. To achieve this end each work must be designed with full knowledge of the plant´s growth habits. The paintings will be on masonite, not a square or rectangle similar to a canvas, but a series of pieces cut into flowers and leaf forms, then painted to give depth, life, and movement.

The spontaneous quality of these paintings belies the technical skill which produced them. A firm grounding in Art, draftsmanship, perspective, color harmony, and manual dexterity with saws and files as well as paintbrush were requisites Tom had acquired over the years as an artist. His realization that nature is a supreme and subtle designer, led him to grow and intensely study the plants and flowers he enjoys painting.