SAMANTHA STAS

After a lifetime of collecting visual references, Samantha Stas paints big-eyed females suspended between adolescence and adulthood; awkward, watchful, romantic and defiant. Their expressions are often difficult to place; shy but confrontational, fragile yet self-aware, as though they are caught in the moment of becoming.

Samantha was fascinated by the imagery of the scared and devotional art on display. In those sad looking intense gazes she see's in her own painted female faces, almost Saint-like. These references are painted through a nostalgic retro lens. The exaggerated eyes in her work act as emotional amplifiers. They invite connection, revealing an inner world that feels intimate but ultimately unreadable. Samantha is  interested in the awkward tension between wanting to be seen and wanting to disappear.

At the heart of her paintings is an interest in femininity, nostalgia and the beauty of awkwardness.