Mosaic artist brings talent to Mt. Lebanon exhibit
Scenes of Pittsburgh are among those featured during Stevo Sadvary’s exhibit at the Artsmiths of Pittsburgh.
Stevo Sadvary’s elephant mosaic graces the wall of Needle & Pin in Dormont.
An example of an extrusion piece by Stevo Sadvary
Stevo Sadvary
Creating mosaics from glass, tile and similar items requires a measure of talent that escapes the great majority of us.
“But it’s just stick ’em on and grout the pieces,” Steven Sadvary might tell you.
Sure, that’s the gist of it. But it takes a skilled artist like Stevo, as he’s known professionally, to transform the raw materials into fascinatingly complex, colorful works.
Check it out for yourself at “Rivers of Glass: an Exhibit of Mosaics by Stevo Sadvary,” which runs through Sept. 7 at the Artsmiths of Pittsburgh in Mt. Lebanon. The exhibit explores two cities, Pittsburgh and Rome, that have had substantial influence on Sadvary.
A Bentleyville native, he earned his bachelor of fine arts from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania before moving to Pittsburgh and, as is the case with many artists who are just getting started, waited on tables.
“I bought a house in Highland Park, and there were a bunch of tiles in the basement,” he recalled, and he used those to redo his shower with a flourish. “I put a big lobster in there, and that was kind of how it all started. And it gradually has grown to where I can do art full-time.”
These days, Sadvary commutes regularly between his Stowe Township home and Squirrel Hill studio, getting plenty of opportunity to take in city sights that often appear in his art.
“I’m just kind of fascinated by the bridges, and then they’re just so beautiful,” he said. “And with the three rivers, there are just so many of them to see. Plus we have such a beautiful skyline. It’s just a real pleasure to re-create that in glass.”
Along with the familiar Pittsburgh scenes in the exhibit are pieces called extrusions, featuring repetitions of vibrant patterns.
“They’re inspired by trips to Italy, where you see in museums everything’s so ornate: the wallpaper, the door trim, the floor, the ceiling,” Sadvary explained. “I wanted to pull all those different patterns together in one piece and kind of get that feeling of excitement.”
For the exhibit, he worked mainly with stained glass and tile.
“It’s fun to select the colors that I’m going to use, and then it takes time to cut them up into the pieces and the shapes that I need,” he said. “Finding the right color glass – or making up colors, changes colors on a whim, that’s kind of fun, too. Once in a while, I’ll maybe use a little spray paint, or I’ll use a clear piece of glass with paint behind it.”
Sadvary has completed numerous private commissions, from kitchen backsplashes, showers, and fireplaces to pet portraits, commercial signage and public art. Locally, examples of his work decorate the walls of Needle & Pin, including a mosaic of a majestic elephant in honor of the Dormont restaurant’s Anglo-Indian cuisine.
Visit www.stevosphere.com and www.artsmithspgh.com.