Stephanie Manzi

Country where you live:

United States

City where you live:

Philadelphia

Website:

http://www.stephanie-manzi.com

Instagram:

http://www.instagram.com/badpoet_ry

Statement :

I make paintings around the complexities and connections of relationships. I think about the visible process of growth, and what that process could mean; the building and carving away at a surface, the affect of history overtime, the process of fragments blending and weaving together to construct the identity of a place, an ecosystem, or a moment. I think often of the power struggle of environmental interactions, and the history of landscape painting linked to control and abundance. My surfaces are rooted in ecology and the deep, interwoven tentacularity that cannot be contained, but crosses outside of itself, onto another, beginning and ending without clear linearity. It has led me to consider spacial relationships by layering marks and moves to reveal and conceal certain elements through a game of pushing back and forth. My paintings use color, pattern, fractal research and density to celebrate and grieve those histories. Often, the surface images reveals board game -like structures or softened grids, representing how the paintings straddle ecological curiosity and expression, play and serious inquiry, material and image.

In the Thick of It

oil on canvas, 32" x 28"

Work Credit:

Stephanie Manzi, 2022

Bound

oil on canvas, 13.5" x 19./75"

Work Credit:

Stephanie Manzi, 2022

Bio:

Stephanie Manzi is a painter and educator from Upstate, NY, residing near Philadelphia, PA. She received her MFA in Painting at Tyler School of Art / Temple University Rome in 2022 and her BFA in Painting from SUNY Purchase in 2014. Manzi has shown throughout Upstate New York, Brooklyn, Norwalk, CT, Wausau, WI and Philadelphia, PA. In 2018, Manzi received the Award of Excellence at Conception Arts NYC, the MFA Project Completion Grant in 2021 and the cover of Tinge Magazine in 2021. In 2019, she guest curated at the Philly Art Collective and a collaborative curation at Temple Contemporary in 2021. Manzi was a remote resident artist for Dear Artists in December 2022 and is featured in the Friend of the Artist publication for Winter 2023. Most recently, she was selected for the 215 | 610 Contemporary 2022 Exhibition at Delaware County Community College, Biafarin Awards 2022 and the 2023 International Juried Exhibition at the Center for Contemporary Art in Bedminster, NJ. Manzi is currently running the art classes at the Center for Education in Martlon, NJ and teaching in the Foundations Department at Pennsylvania Academy of Art and Design in Lancaster, PA.