Christa Stephens

My work is guided by close attention to natural processes as perceptual frameworks. Drawing inspiration from the botanical world, I respond to subtle shifts, organic rhythms, and temporal layering—allowing materials to accumulate, erode, and reconfigure through sustained engagement. Rather than working toward narrative or fixed imagery, I approach painting as an act of listening, where form is clarified through repetition, alteration, and discernment. Slowness and material honesty are central to my practice. I build surfaces intuitively, allowing pauses and uncertainty to shape each work’s internal structure. These processes reference felt experience, where clarity arises gradually—offering spaces that feel responsive, open, and contemplative. My background in music informs how I understand structure, rhythm, and tone, and sharpens my sensitivity to the relationships between sound and color. In my work, pigment is generative—hues behave as harmonies, intervals, and resonant fields that shift through repetition and improvisation. Through this lens, I explore how visual compositions unfold over time, finding coherence through duration, revision, and restraint.

Christa Stephens is an abstract artist based in Santa Fe. Born and raised on the high plains of eastern New Mexico, she grew up surrounded by wide open skies and stark, desolate landscapes—an early visual vocabulary that continues to inform her sense of form and structure. She is neurodivergent, and her work is shaped by deep attention to perception, pattern, and nuance. Stephens holds a bachelor’s degree in music and is a self-taught visual artist. Her musical background remains a prominent influence in how she builds her work—attentive to rhythm, tone, and tempo as compositional tools. These concerns guide decisions around color, interval, and the accumulation of layers across a surface. With a studio practice that centers on process-forward painting and mixed media, Stephens often works in series—using repetition and variation to explore how images emerge through patience and revision. Her materials vary according to each piece and frequently include acrylic, collage, colored pencil, graphite, ink, and vinyl emulsion. Her work has been exhibited in museums, galleries, and contemporary art centers throughout the American Southwest, and is held in private collections across the United States and Europe.

2-D, Collage/Mixed Media, Painting (all materials)