Stephanie Patton | Artists’ Chronicles: 2020

Stephanie Patton is a multimedia artist whose work comprises sculpture, painting, photography, video, and performance. Humor plays an important role in her work and is often used as a device to bring attention to more critical issues and transform her personal experiences into something universal.

Stephanie Patton employs humor as a device to solicit attention to critical issues; her works explore various emotional states and address the desire to develop an understanding of oneself and one’s relationship to others. Patton extends her decade-plus exploration of materials, including mattress quilting and vinyl – textiles with inherent references to mental and physical health and protection, and that suggest concepts related to birth, death, intimacy, relationships, illness and rest. When coupled with words or phrases with dual meanings such as “please” and “keep.”

Stephanie Patton was born in New Orleans, LA in 1969. She received a B.F.A. in Painting from the University of Louisiana in Lafayette and an M.F.A. in Photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including shows at the Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY; the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, and the New Orleans Museum of Art in New Orleans, LA; and Galerie Patricia Dorfmann in Paris, France. She has received numerous grants, including from the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2017); Acadiana Center for the Arts (2017); the Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Foundation (2017); and the Louisiana Division of the Arts (2012, 2009); Finalist for the 1858 Prize for Contemporary Southern Art, The Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC (2019); and South Arts Louisiana Fellowship Recipient (2019). Her work is included in numerous permanent collections including the Paul and Lulu Hilliard University Art Museum, Lafayette, LA; the New Orleans Museum of Art, LA; and the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation in Los Angeles, CA. Patton lives and works in Lafayette, LA.