Artist
Stephanie Godoy (b. 1992, El Monte, CA) is a first generation Mexican American artist based in Southern California. In 2018 she earned her Bachelor’s degree in Studio Arts from California State University Los Angeles. Her painting practice involves documenting and interpreting events which are culturally significant. Within her work she combines her interests in global/local history, astronomy & astrology, and a saturated color use of paint in order to create vibrant paintings. Stephanie’s paintings have been exhibited at the Cheech Museum, Riverside Art Museum, Ontario Museum, Plaza De La Raza, and Self-Help Graphics, among others. Godoy works closely with the Getty and the Cheech museum creating art workshops and has also auctioned off paintings at the Getty Museum.
Statement
As a first generation Mexican American whose oral family history was brutally erased within one generation, Stephanie values creating a visual guide that helps document subjects and events she finds worthy of immortalizing. Stephanie aims to record contemporary events that will one day become history so that people across generations can share, access and enjoy the information. Her work is inspired by global & local history, astronomy & astrology and the psychological effects color has on people. She questions what defines realism, as she entertains the fact that the colors we see are determined by our body’s mechanics and how that varies from human to human and species to species. The world that is created within her paintings are neither fantasy or reality, the vibrant landscapes sit within “what if” scenarios.
Photos by Deb Leal