Sabrina Starke

Steph Fonteyn is a self-taught British painter. Her art captures the spirit of popular culture through cityscapes, icons, and portraits and features vibrant colors, free-flowing rhythms, and crisscrossing brushwork. Steph has an innate need to create. Painting helps her grow and discover the world on a deeper level. Steph’s art is a creative journey where she explores her inner emotional world and the exterior world while connecting with people. This connection can make people feel good, help them push boundaries, or provoke thought. But above all, Steph hopes her art inspires people to take their own leap of faith and follow their dreams. Steph started exhibiting her paintings in 2005 at Switzerland’s DuPont International. Following her success there, Metris Gallery and En Beauregard Gallery featured her “Jazz Colors” series of paintings during the 2010 and 2011 Montreux Jazz Festival. The evocative acrylics depict iconic singers and musicians, such as Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Miles Davis, using lively colors. The series’ success led to further exhibitions of Steph’s work throughout Switzerland, as well as appearances on Swiss radio and TV, and features in magazines and journals. Most notably, she was invited to share her love of art on World Radio Switzerland as a resident art journalist. Between 2012-13, Steph was inspired by Seth Godin’s “Purple Cow” to do something remarkable. She decided to explore her relationship with social media and art’s unifying abilities. “The 100 Faces Project” was born, and the result was 100 commissioned portraits. The Cité du Temps in Geneva displayed the series of 100 acrylic portraits as an interactive mosaic. Guests were invited to create a story by linking the portraits with colored strings. These strings indicated relationships such as family, friend, and colleague. Since completing the project, other galleries in Switzerland, as well as galleries in France, Miami, and New York, have featured Steph’s other paintings in solo and group exhibits. In addition to creating her own paintings, Steph taps into other people’s talents through Collaborative Art™. This a creative team-building service that features art workshops. The creative experiences take business professionals outside their comfort zones, and encourage them to think outside the box and embrace uncomfortable situations. In 2015, Steph’s work with Collaborative Art™ led her and her team to TEDxZurichWomen. Here they facilitated a collective doodling workshop where guests co-created a giant portrait of Amelia Earhart that Steph revealed after her TEDx talk, “An Artist’s Leap of Faith”. Steph has also been a keynote speaker at other events including a Healthspottr Annual Retreat at the Aspen Institute. In 2016, Steph moved to Miami and became inspired by the light and vibrant colors of Floridian tropics & urban landscapes. Steph’s favourite part of her creative process is letting go. She embraces a calm frenzy of crisscrossing of colourful strokes that caress the canvas. She lets her paintbrush dance to its own rhythm without thinking. The same applies to her colour usage...she doesn't overthink it. Instead, Steph respects light and dark while using colours that you wouldn't necessarily see in everyday life. In 2017, Steph’s series of New York City landscapes (painted on the back of used NYC MetroCards) sold out on the opening night of the Single Fare 4 Exhibition in New York City. Steph was selected to participate in "1 Day of Art Miami" event hosted by (t)here Media Group. Her “Fake News” Painting will be published in the 18th Edition of International Art Magazine and distributed at Art Basel Miami. In 2018, small format urban landscapes will be available through the Carre d’artistes galleries and her “This is not what it seems” Sketchbook will become part of a permanent collection at the Brooklyn Art Library.