The Art of Language

Stephen Green loves words and wordplay. And in a somewhat counterintuitive approach, he shows that love in pictures. Green is the founder of Studio 82, the newest art gallery on the Upper East Side. Born and raised in the neighborhood, Green currently has 13 works of art on display, all of them depicting plays on words. There"s â??Running Red Lights 2, where two rosy light bulbs scamper across Fifth Avenue. A visually impaired couple enjoy each other"s company in â??Blind Date. And pictures like â??Man Eating Shark and â??Man Eating Tiger depict exactly what their titles say they do. In a racier play on words, one of Green"s paintings shows a large, black rooster; readers can guess what that title might involve. â??I"m not trying to be provocative, said Green, 28. â??Someone came in recently and said to me, â??You should consider getting arrested. It"s great publicity and all the artists are doing it." I was like, â??No, I"m not getting arrested. I"d just rather go sit and read The Federalist Papers, he said, gesturing at a thumbed-through copy that sits on a nearby table. Green"s fascination with wordplay and art began as a student at Boston College, where he majored in sociology. In one painting class, he was assigned to do cross-hatching, a drawing in which light effects are created by shading. â??I drew a cross literally hatching from an egg, and shaded it artistically, Green said. â??My professor asked me, â??What is this?" I said, â??It"s what you asked for." And the next day, he put me in the advanced painting course. After graduating, Green worked briefly in an art gallery on Long Island, but soon settled into life as an actor, primarily working on commercials and an episode of Law and Order: SVU. He painted during his downtime. The 2007-2008 writers strike put Green out of work for long periods of time, and drew him back to art. He began looking for space to display his work, some of which dated back to 2002. Initially, his ambitions were thwarted by high rents. â??I must have been to every single storefront on the Upper East Side, he said. After prices started falling, Green found a suitable space at 349 E. 82nd St., between First and Second avenues's an address he shares with pet boutique Groomingdale"s's and officially opened in January. He supports the gallery through the sale of his own work, as well as charging rent to any artist who wants to use the space. The gallery is open every day from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m.; then Green goes home to eat and paint. He says he likes to work in the evening when his neighbors are relatively quiet. He is currently sharing the gallery with portrait artist Lucy Phillips, whose works are displayed at the back of the split-level space. He"s planning an April show by Paris-born artist Eliette Markhbein, founder of the Therapeutic Arts Program at Mount Sinai Medical Center. And he"s still coming up with ideas. â??You like baseball? Green asked as he displayed an idea he"s been working on since January. Titled â??Pitchers Painting Corners, the sketch depicts star hurlers Johan Santana and C.C. Sabathia in uniform in front of canvases. â??What I want to do with [this artwork] is to give everyone a chance to understand it, he said. â??I"d like people to come in and enjoy themselves. Even if they know nothing about art, they can laugh out loud and not feel bad, because that"s my original intent. So far, Green has only sold four paintings for about $1,000 each. But he"s not bothered by the slow start. â??My real goal is to provide a service to the community, he said. â??When I was younger, there used to be all sorts of places like this that you could go. Now, it"s all very homogenous, all Duane Reades and nail salons. How many nail salons do you need?