Hi, I’m Stefanie

I’ve always loved stories. As a child, I got lost in books, often reading late into the early hours. I spent hours wandering the halls of the Met and MoMA, falling in love with the chiaroscuro of Da Vinci and Rembrandt—the way shadow could feel like silence and light could speak. Then, in my teens, I discovered Salvador Dalí and the beautifully strange. His collaboration with Disney on the short film Destino changed everything for me. It showed me that art could be classical and surreal, meticulous and full of dream logic. It could be everything.

Animation soon became another great love. I collected books on animated films and studied every behind-the-scenes sketch I could find. This passion led me to an undergraduate degree in filmmaking and later a master’s in Visual Development for Animation. But through it all, I kept coming back to my own two hands—drawing, painting, experimenting. Over the years, I’ve explored charcoal, oils, acrylics, watercolors, pastels, collage, bookbinding, and more. I never lost that hunger to learn. New materials excite me. I’m constantly chasing that alchemy of process and discovery.

While my work spans styles and mediums, at its core is a reverence for beauty, a love of the liminal, and a deep respect for classical technique. I believe realism and imagination don’t cancel each other out—they expand one another. I create to evoke something visceral and meaningful, whether through a single figure rendered in shadow or a surreal, symbolic scene that feels just slightly out of time.

Alongside visual art, I’m also a writer. I craft poems and short stories, and I’m currently developing personal projects that blend my love of writing, art, and animation—comics filled with heart and mystery, and an animated television series that weaves emotional depth with magical whimsy. I have a soft spot for stories that challenge expectations while offering comfort and warmth and I hope my own stories offer that same sense of wonder and humanity.

In the end, my work is an invitation: to explore the tension between the real and the imagined, to find quiet magic in the details, and to feel—deeply, fully, and without apology.