The Artist

Shoosty (Stephen Shooster, BFA, University of Florida, 1989) luxury designer, fine artist and author, retired from a family-owned mid-cap call center headquartered in South Florida where he was Co-CEO. In charge of technology for 43 years, he enabled his company to scale and serve many of the finest brands: Toyota; Lane Bryant; Zara; Hermes; Wolford; The Metropolitan Museum of Art; MoMA; and The Chicago Art Institute.The family company grew from 10 employees to 3,000 before his exit in 2019. It was six months before the pandemic.

Shooster is an avid arts lover and board member of The Florida Cultural Artists Alliance.

Part scientist, part artist, he identified early on a desire to shepherd his collection with documentation. In time, this became a remarkable catalogue raisonné comprising 3 volumes and 1,600 pages.

Stephen Shooster is also a writer. His work as an author includes The Horse Adjutant a book about the survival of Leon Schagrin, a victim of the Nazi Holocaust. Shooster and Schagrin speak on the subject of bullying, hate, and antisemitism. He also wrote The Biography of Herman Shooster, his father.

The Brand

Shooster signs all of his art Shoosty®. The trademark was registered in 2020.

You can make a lot of art over a lifetime. Documenting it preserves its place in a timeline. Documenting all of it is called a Catalogue Raisonné. Shoosty® completed his complete catalog in 2023. It is three volumes with over 1,600 pages, a monumental accomplishment. 

The main branches of the Shoosty® brand include: Shoosty® Exhibition Services, Installations and Exhibits Shoosty® Fine Art, The Portfolio and Galleries; Shoosty® Bugs, the store, including luxury goods; Shoosty® Art Licensing, Licensed products.

The Power of Consistency

Making art daily is joyful and exhilarating, with focus and a touch of luck rich with epiphanies. Documenting the work creates a baseline for progress, where each page becomes a milestone and is viewed in its entirety as a time machine. In sports, scoring is the same term used in creating a piece of music.

In 2023 Shoosty® has recently completed an international tour displaying his scope of scale and themes taking over the entire Mills gallery in Orlando for his whimsical collection of Shoosty® Bugs, the entire building of the Hillsboro Historical Society for his Shoosty® Landscapes, and he joined the Orlando City Center group show for The Art of Music. These shows all ran concurrently.

A New Art Movement

Shoosty®, coined the term, Chromatic Fusionism in 2023 to create a fresh artistic lexicon that explains his work. Chromatic-Fusionism refers to a bridge between the tangible and the intangible, the scientific and the soulful.

Chromatic

This facet delves into the scientific realm of art. It encompasses the creation of pigments, materials, and the intricate chemistry behind visual expression. From the vibrant hues on canvas to the subtle interplay of light, Chromatic-Fusionism celebrates the technical foundation that underpins artistic creation.

It extends beyond the canvas to all aspects of the arts, such as the resonance of the electrified gear musicians use.

Fusionism

Here lies the heart of purpose. Fusionism intertwines the humanities with materiality.

It’s not merely about technique; it’s about intention—the purpose applied to each stroke, note, and texture.

Fusionism acknowledges that art transcends mere aesthetics—it carries meaning, emotion, and connection.

A Way to Explore Endless Creativity

Shooster coined the term Frenetic Drawing a few years ago to explain his method of sketching musicians as they play.

Frenetic Drawing thrives on spontaneity and energy. It can’t be done in a quiet room. It is a form of speed drawing that embraces the moment’s immediacy. The heartbeat of frenetic drawing lies in its synergy with live music. When the band strikes its first chord, his pen starts dancing. The rhythm and emotion of the music establish the tone of the work.

Shooster draws as often as possible, especially when he is on a tour. You can find him frequently at museums or temples, drawing during the day or at a bar in the evening surrounded by live music. He frequently incorporates the daytime drawings into his night work. Other times, he may incorporate something he is studying. The point is that whatever is in his mind mixes with the music, and his hand captures the whole thing.

This method of sketching has rules, but they are not hard and fast. The first is the start-stop rule. The drawing begins when the band starts and stops when the band finishes. This temporal constraint fuels the frenzy. 

Second, he accepts mistakes as conceptual ideas. The imperfections become signatures of the experience. Frenetic drawing revels in serendipity. Each “mistake” contributes to the raw authenticity.

Third, conceptual exploration. Let whatever is in your mind mix with the drawing. Accept spontaneous ideas. Just let go, make marks and study them later.  

Drawing sharpens your mind and enhances focus. Your hand may move fast, but your mind will slow in contemplation. 

Shooster has years of experience doing this type of Drawing. He almost exclusively uses Pilot V7 precise needlepoint pens. He claims they are the fastest pens he has ever found. It is crucial to use tools that keep your pace moving.

The outcome? A visual symphony—an amalgamation of music, movement, and creativity. Frenetic drawing captures the pulse of live performance, translating sound waves into ink blots.

Armed with a pen and paper, my hand dances to the rhythm embraces the chaos, and each moment that echos the band’s melodies, as well as my artistic spirit, feeds my imagination. – Shoosty

A Precise Way to Draw

Vector painting is an artistic technique where the digital artist creates images using volumes of vectors—mathematically defined points. Unlike traditional raster-based painting, which relies on pixels, vector painting allows for precise, scalable, and high-quality artwork. 

Vector artists construct shapes, lines, and curves using mathematical equations. These vectors are coordinates that define the position and direction of each element. Because they are based on math, vectors remain sharp and clear regardless of the image’s size or resolution. The computer handles the math. The artist uses elegant tools designed for visual thinkers.

One of the key advantages of vector painting is its scalability. Since vectors are resolution-independent, the artwork can be resized without losing quality. Whether you’re creating a small icon or a large billboard, vector-based images maintain their clarity regardless of size.

Vector graphics produce clean, precise lines and shapes. It’s commonly used for logos, illustrations, technical drawings, and graphic design. The absence of pixelation ensures a professional finish.

The iPad Pro, equipped with powerful drawing tools and apps, provides an ideal platform for vector artists. Artists can create and manipulate vectors effortlessly with the freedom to work directly on the screen. A stylus pen enhances the creative process, allowing for a unified flow. It is an elegant drawing setup. Vector painting does not work well with a desktop computer and a mouse. You need a tablet and digital pen to achieve the relaxed freedom required to create hundreds of shapes that form a vector painting.

In summary, vector painting combines mathematical precision with artistic expression, resulting in visually striking and infinitely scalable professional artwork.

My portfolio repeats themes over an extended period, including The Art of Music, frenetic sketches and paintings; Shoosty Landscapes that currently have evolved in Vector Paintings; Shoosty Bugs, an exquisite collection of fanciful bugs merged with the patterns of history; Conceptual Art, where imagination meets illustration; Naïve art, the study of ancient traditions, add oddities that catch my attention. I try to keep stylistic channels open by maintaining a wide perspective augmented with travel and study.

These pages will introduce you to my work and offer virtual hyperjumps (clicks) to additional pages and websites that drive each element of the brand.