Born November 5, 1971 the oldest boys born to Mark and Ernestine Cogle in Brooklyn, New York, Steven Cogle has had no formal training but says he has been painting and drawing "all the while" since childhood.
"My paintings display what is in me- tribal Africa crossed with urban blight," he says. A lot of bad stuff went down in East New York when I was growing up. By layering the paint on the canvas, I am also layering the experience of what I saw: tragedy, loss, confusion, hope, prayer, fantasy, survival. These things swirl around us all the time," says cogle.
Some folks call my work random. Random- maybe; I call it authentic, honest, and genuine. I've got to go with what I know,"