At the end of 2024, artist Steven Bohls found himself face-to-face with President Donald Trump, presenting him with a resin portrait of the President himself. “The President loved it,” Steven says. So much, in fact, that the two other pieces Steven brought with him on his visit are now set to hang in the Presidential Library.
“It’s been a crazy journey and super exciting,” Steven says. The famous musician Kid Rock first commissioned Steven to create a piece of President Trump, and invited Steven to come along to show the President. After that, the folks at Mar-a-Lago asked Steven to bring four more pieces to the America’s Future auction in December 2025.
Art isn’t new to Steven, because he’s always been the creative type. Although he worked in software engineering for years, Steven says, “All I do is gravitate toward art.” In fact, he is also a successful author, having collaborated with Brandon Sanderson on novels, like Lux: A Texas Reckoners Novel and writing Jed and the Junkyard War for Disney.
But how did this local artist invent an entirely new art form that made its way to the President of the United States? That’s the question on my mind as I enter the Veiled Resin studio. The beautiful art pieces that greet me are huge and incredibly detailed. They draw me in in a way that the two-dimensional photos of the artwork cannot quite replicate. Past the first wall is Steven Bohls’ creation space, full of in-progress artwork, slabs of acrylic plexiglass, pigments and powders, and a huge CNC router. This is where the magic happens.
But how did Steven develop such a process? It’s certainly not an intuitive one, at least to someone like me.
It all started with stained glass. Steven had worked in stained glass for many years and wanted a way to cut finer details, rather than blocky larger pieces. He tried a water jet but found that it cracked the glass, so he thought, “What if I used resin instead of glass in those smaller pockets?”
After several iterations of the process, he started working with the combination of resin and the acrylic plexiglass substrate, which gives his pieces their unique three-dimensional look. “This was supposed to be a hobby,” Steven jokes. “Things went really well, so it transitioned into a full-time career.”
As our conversation continues, Steven walks me through the innovative process he invented for creating his artwork. First, he creates a design in CAD, then places a sheet of acrylic plexiglass substrate on his router. The router follows the CAD file, cutting into the material. Then, Steven fills the cavities that are left behind with an epoxy resin mixed with mica powder to give it a shiny look. Most of the time, resin artwork is poured from the back, making what’s on the front what you get. This is what makes his technique so unique.
The process is painstakingly slow. Layer by layer, and day by day, those protrusions of resin build an image. At the end, he unclamps it from the machine and slowly peels away the paper protecting the front surface, revealing a beautiful, intricate art piece.
If creating a completely unique artistic process wasn’t enough, Steven also makes the complex frames that encompass his works of art, including the custom side lighting he adds within those frames, which can take another week or so to create.
But he doesn’t work alone. Steve works alongside his childhood best friend, Dr. Matthew Graff, who owns Inspire Health Clinics in South Jordan. “He was with me from the beginning on ideation,” Steven says.
“Trying to be the person who pioneers a new art style is a totally different type of artist,” Dr. Graff says. “We’re talking about literal blood, sweat, and tears to try to make this thing happen.”
Despite his growing list of high-profile clients, Steven remains grounded. “I think the best kind of art comes when you aren’t trying to sell it,” he says. “The more I focused on trying to make something amazing because I loved what I was doing, the better the art got.”
You can find Steven Bohls’s work online at VeiledResin.com. Studio visits can be scheduled by emailing sbohls@gmail.com or calling (385) 201-7070. His work is also available at Art DeCoeur in Bluffdale and Alpine Art Center in Alpine.
I think the best kind of art comes when you aren’t trying to sell it