Stefanie Sylvester

My artistic practice uses coloring book imagery as both material and metaphor. Because coloring books are such a common point of entry into creativity, their visual language feels instantly recognizable, connecting childhood creative experiences to contemporary artmaking. This shared familiarity creates an accessible starting point grounded in nostalgia and play.
Through a layered process of collage and painting, these images are broken apart, reassembled, and gradually obscured. The process is one of synthesis—making meaning from fragments and reforming lines and shapes into something new. As layers accumulate, the original imagery is partially forgotten or recontextualized, reflecting how memory shifts, distorts, and melds over time. What begins as lighthearted and joyful slowly becomes tense and unstable, creating a chaotic excitement where play and confusion coexist. The work lives in this in-between state, where familiarity starts to slip and meaning is continually rebuilt.