EMILY STEDMAN

ARTIST STATEMENT:

Like rippling water in a shiny river, my watercolors spill and splash from paintbrush to stories on paper. I paint quickly, directly, and with the spontaneity that watercolor embraces. Each painting grows from the giddy mix of fantasy, realism, and a conviction that here is a person or place that strikes a universal note. Here is a situation, a gesture, a flower, a mood that will resonate across all barriers.

I have no particular mechanical process or theory that underlies the finished image. What I have is constant curiosity and a lifelong need to filter the chaos and jumble of life through the lens of color, design and drawing. My sketchbooks are filled with sources for later exploration as I capture whatever floats past, snagging my imagination. Nothing is out of bounds. With my sketchbook and my eyes always open, scanning, seeking, weighing, and sifting, I travel wherever the work takes me. However, a wider story will always be the guide. That story might be in a momentary gesture of a nude, or in paths radiating out from an ancient village, or in the transient nature of an anticipating blossom. The story can also be about something never really experienced, only dreamed of.

Bio:

Studio: YOHO Artists, Yonkers, NY

Born in New York City, Emily Stedman’s family moved to France when she was in first grade. She has lived in a number of places since, including Swarthmore PA, Tenafly, NJ, and Hartford, Conn. Emily is represented at NOHO/M55 Gallery in New York City. Her oil and watercolor paintings, exploring imagined narrative memories, have been shown in group and solo shows including The Brooklyn Museum; The Rotunda Gallery, Brooklyn, New York; Historic Northampton Museum, Northampton, MA; and numerous other galleries, publications and collections. She was Painter-in-Residence at Bryant Park in the summer of 2016 and created a street art mural for the City of Yonkers.