Stephanie Spitz
Stephanie Spitz received her MFA in Studio Art from Montclair State University and her BFA in Painting from Drake University. She explores the parallels between art making and home building through painting, drawing, video, and installation. She has exhibited internationally and in 2016 she was an artist-in-residence at the New Rochelle Downtown Artist Residency in conjunction with Residency Unlimited. She currently works as a Higher Education Administrator and Adjunct Professor in Montclair, New Jersey.
Artist Statement
Stephanie Spitz focuses on the home as a structure for family dynamics by recreating aspects of home renovation and daily life.
Her paintings use remembered domestic colors and construction materials that she often uses while renovating houses with her family. The process of painting and drawing involves a technique that resembles paint by number, speaking to the generic nature of interior decorating and the ongoing process of renovation.
The home is also a structure for the construction of personal identity. In her video and photography work she combines re-enactments and destructive actions of renovation with the joyful scenes of her childhood from home videos to demonstrate how repeated domestic activity becomes part of her identity.
Installations explore the idea of space as malleable and temporary. Renovation materials and actions are utilized again as a form of drawing and ultimately reveal the fragility of walls, homes, and self-identity.