Carol Steinberg presents us with a very personal vision in her cityscape, still life and floral paintings. A favorite composition for this prolific painter combines all three of these genre. She frequently places a vase of flowers and other treasured objects on a small table on the balcony of her studio which faces south overlooking a panorama of Los Angeles. Her exuberant brushwork can be described as expressionist. Flowers look as though they are about to jump out of the vase. Colors are vivid. The view from her balcony is filled with the sunlight of Southern California.
    But Carol Steinberg's pictures of the every day world  compel us to look more closely. The quirkiness in her paintings call to mind intimate still life paintings by Bonnard, or the hidden camera quality of domesticity in paintings by Fairfield Porter, and the candor of an Alice Neel portrait. She achieves this, in part, by what looks like an offhand, casual approach to composition. A tea pot may be cropped oddly. Objects jut from the bottom of the canvas. Unusual tangencies are created when a cup meets an edge. Flowers seem to be arranged haphazardly. The effect is that of the real experience of how we see things around us.. The sidelong glance, just out of our field of vision, that when we turn to take a closer look, either arranges itself into a near perfect picture--or vanishes altogether. It is this quality in her paintings which causes a powerful connection with the viewer.

—Glenn Ossiander, Painter