Telling stories, whether about alien suicide cults or of past love, is a fundamental part of what Stefhany Y. Lozano tries to do. She creates these narratives with intriguing characters in mysterious acrylic scenes.
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The curious people and the various places Stefhany stages them within evolve from ideas and real events that she is interested in. It is an extremely important part of her work, often mapping out a series in its entirety before beginning the first piece.
In her project ‘The Ride of the Away Team’, Stefhany looked at the intriguing story of Heaven’s Gate suicide cult, which believed that there was an alien space craft following Comet Hale–Bopp.
Stefhany talks to us about this, her painting process, and other things that inspire her work.
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I crossed the Atlantic ocean 5 years ago from Colombia to Germany to find my self focusing entirely on illustration. In these years I have been experimenting with many materials but definitely acrylics and paper are my favorite things to work with.
I love to have a heavy paper that has layers and layers of acrylics on and is so convenient when comes to traveling.
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Another thing I love to do is embroidery, the only problem is that takes ages till you see the final result but its worth it!
I always try to conceive my ideas into a big project or series of paintings before I start working.
I never paint just because. I always want to have a concept behind everything and this is extremely frustrating since I don’t always have a good idea to work with.
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My topics most of the time are very personal and tell a part of my life, like the places where I have lived or my love stories from the past.
I also like to tell things that are extremely interesting for me like cults that believe in aliens in the 90s since I always wanted to be a believer myself.
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I guess my style is very influence by folk art like the Luboks from Russia or the Exvotos from México, renascent painters like Cranach (my old time favorite) and contemporary illustrators like ATAK who was actually my professor not a long time ago.
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I tried several times to have a sketchbook but it never worked out. What I do have though is a notebook where I keep all sort of lists that I eventually use to make my projects.
I normally make a rough drawing on paper with color pencils and then paint on it. I always have the idea of what I want to tell but the image is never entirely clear, is just on the way where things start showing up.
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At the moment, I work from home since me and my husband recently moved to Leipzig. We have this nice, cosy place where we work every day.
He’s also an illustrator and has been featured here, his name is Tim Romanowsky, he’s great!
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© Stefhany Y. Lozano, 2015