‘DEEPER UNDERSTANDING’ paintings by Stefanie Trow

About

Stefanie has always been fascinated with the human form and portraiture. She uses her paintings as a way of interpreting her surroundings, relationships, thoughts and feelings. The exhibition ‘Deeper Understanding’ specifically focuses on the female form through the exploration of colour and mark making. 

The paintings are built up using intuitive brush strokes of acrylic and oil paint, layering one on top of the other, creating a rich language. Stefanie wants the viewer to be intrigued, to draw them closer to the details of the work, discovering the layers of brush strokes that have been built up to create each piece. This creates a painting that up close can be seen in a semi abstract way but from afar remains realistic, enticing the viewer to interact and re-examine what they see in front of them.

The starting point for each work predominantly comes from carefully selected glossy magazine cuttings. Influenced by her own compositional cut and de-voiding the image of its original context, the subject then undergoes a multi-step process of representation. Initially the paintings start out as an exact representation, then become distorted and deconstructed.

Stefanie strives to use colour and contrasts in her paintings to create conflicting tensions within the imagery and surface; anxiety and urgency juxtaposed with calm and serenity. In doing this she hopes to reshape the original content and story of the imagery, and present her own feelings of unease within a society engrossed with perfection.