Stephanie Serpick is a visual artist working primarily as a painter. She received her MFA from the University of Chicago, and her BFA from Carnegie Mellon University. Her work has been shown in various exhibitions in the U.S. and internationally. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, she currently lives and works in the New York area.
My work concerns the themes of isolation and grief. The challenges to our physical and mental health provides a shared experience from which to consider grief and eventual healing. In the work, feelings of grief and comfort are represented by unmade beds and tossed sheets on intentionally blank, somewhat rough backgrounds. In addition, images of windows, including blowing or transparent curtains, lend a feeling of being cut off from the outside world. These paintings are devoid of a human presence, and therefore feel lonely and isolating, reflecting what many experience during personal challenges. Both the empty bed and the windows represent a place for grief, solitude and healing.
Recently, I have been using the imagery in new and different ways, manipulating the images by splicing and reconfiguring them. These changes provide a fractured view of the grief many experience, as well as the difficulty in the healing process. Recent work has included split images of flowers. I see these as companions to the beds and windows, offering a vision of color and beauty to offset the difficult themes in the other work. As such, the work speaks to our shared feeling of trauma, with the understanding that while we all suffer in our individual ways, suffering is universal.
Source material for this work are found photographs, and the intimate size of the paintings references the intimate nature of the subject matter. The backgrounds of the paintings are repeatedly painted and sanded, to create a frame and backdrop for the imagery that is flat, yet rough with work and time. The bedding and windows are seen from different perspectives, but still indicate a scene of desolation and despair.