Portrait of the Artist in Blue © 2017 Stephanie Gwen Kossmann
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A personal noteUsing Art and Inquiry, I deliver soul satisfying experiences through abstract emotional portraiture and landscapes. I combine my love of painting and monotype printmaking; applying etching ink and oil paint using my hands, brayers, pallet knives, rags, squeegees, brushes, and found objects.
Art has universal impact and is integral in our daily living. It reflects our culture while inviting critique of it. Art provides an alternative way to tell our stories and to engage in the spirit of genuine curiosity. It tests our perceptions and skills, and invites new understandings and viewpoints. Art encourages the development of healthy self-expression. It can reduce [internal] conflicts and distress while also calling attention to the challenges we face as a greater community. For me, abstraction is a way to hold liberated space for my portraiture subjects and viewers. Using appreciative inquiry, I invite sitters to explore their qualities and connections as well as their visions of safety, love, and dreams of the future in short facilitated essays. I then use their responses to create the artworks. My sitters are often people that have experienced complex relational trauma, sexual violence, and other physical, psychological, and emotional damage that has lasting impacts in their lives. The process reveals opportunities to flourish. Together, we create a community to support each other’s transformation. My artwork balances a need for creative expression and critical thinking. I am focused on oil painting and monotype printmaking; combining the tools and methods of both to create many-layered, powerful, atmospheric images and to express complex emotional themes. |
Biography
Stephanie Kossmann was born in New Jersey and raised in a coastal town on the south shore of Massachusetts. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Geography and Studio Arts with high honors at Boston University and a graduate certificate in Positive Organization Development at Champlain College. After her undergraduate degree, she worked for a mapping company before taking a position with the United States Federal government based in Toronto, Ontario Canada. She transferred to Vermont in 2003 and, when she's not making art, works in administrative fraud detection.
Stephanie created SGK Fine Arts LLC in 2015 to share the restorative power of art. She began exhibiting art publicly in November 2016. Exhibit highlights include a solo show at the Southern Vermont Arts Center August 31, 2019 - October 6, 2019 at the Southern Vermont Arts center, delivering an alumna speech at the 2019 annual Mercy Connection's gala, a featured article in the Vermont Art Guide volume 7, and the cover artwork for the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival program.
She produces her artwork from her home studio. Sales are available during studio visits and through exhibits at galleries, museums, and fine art events. She seeks to extend her artwork in venues that are typically undeserved with inspirational original fine art: crisis counselling centers, domestic violence shelters, rehabilitation facilities, and support providers.
Stephanie created SGK Fine Arts LLC in 2015 to share the restorative power of art. She began exhibiting art publicly in November 2016. Exhibit highlights include a solo show at the Southern Vermont Arts Center August 31, 2019 - October 6, 2019 at the Southern Vermont Arts center, delivering an alumna speech at the 2019 annual Mercy Connection's gala, a featured article in the Vermont Art Guide volume 7, and the cover artwork for the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival program.
She produces her artwork from her home studio. Sales are available during studio visits and through exhibits at galleries, museums, and fine art events. She seeks to extend her artwork in venues that are typically undeserved with inspirational original fine art: crisis counselling centers, domestic violence shelters, rehabilitation facilities, and support providers.
Mission and Values
Holding safe and liberated space. Fostering radical self-acceptance and agency through art.
Stephanie's artwork explores a full range of emotions and invites self-reflection and awareness without constraint or judgment.
The artworks are testimony - honoring those that have experienced physical, psychological, and sexual trauma, their family members, advocates, and mental and physical health care providers. The artwork is free from representational and historic context so that the artwork meets the audience where needed emotionally.
Stephanie's artwork explores a full range of emotions and invites self-reflection and awareness without constraint or judgment.
The artworks are testimony - honoring those that have experienced physical, psychological, and sexual trauma, their family members, advocates, and mental and physical health care providers. The artwork is free from representational and historic context so that the artwork meets the audience where needed emotionally.
CV
Education
Champlain College, Graduate Certificate, Positive Organizational Development
Mercy Connections Women’s Small Business Program
Boston University, Bachelor’s Degree, Geography, magna cum laude
Hartwick College, Studio Art, Dean’s List
Grants and Awards
2018 Bryan Memorial Gallery scholarship: Eric Tobin Pleine Air Workshop
2015 Vermont Arts Council
Residency
August 3-23, 2020, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT
Media
May 2018 Artist to Watch Vermont Art Guide, #7
April – August 2018 Program Cover Art Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival
April 2018 Sexual Violence Survivors Exhibit
Artwork of Healing Seven Days
Fall 2017 Frailty The Remembered Arts Journal
January 2017 Taking Steps to End
Domestic Violence with Art WCAX TV
Affiliations
Monotype Guild of New England (MGNE)
Burlington City Arts - Art Sales and Leasing
Southern Vermont Arts Center
Solo Exhibits
August 18 -October 2020, The 3:30 Project, Amy E. Tarrant Gallery at the Flynn Center for the Performing Arts, Burlington, VT, Cancelled due to the COVID-19 (SARS COVID-2) Pandemic
Aug 31 - Oct 6, 2019 The 3:30 Project, Southern Vermont Arts Center, Manchester VT
Group Exhibits
Nov 12- Dec 20, 2020, Giants, Bryan Memorial Gallery, Jeffersonville VT
Nov 5 - Dec 18, 2019, Press & Release, MGNE, Chester Gallery of Art at New England College, Henniker NH
Jan - Mar 1, 2019 Annual Winter Juried Show, T. W. Wood Gallery, Montpelier VT
Nov 1-30, 2018, The Print Effect: Small Works/Big Impact, Manhattan Graphics Center, New York NY
Nov-Dec 2018 Holiday Show, T. W. Wood Gallery, Montpelier VT
Nov-Dec 2018 Gems, Bryan Memorial Gallery, Jeffersonville VT
Oct 13-Nov 18, 2018 Inside Out, Southern Vermont Art Center, Manchester VT
Sep–Nov 2018 Land and Light and Water and Air Bryan Memorial Gallery, Jeffersonville VT
Jun 28-Sep 3, 2018 The Sky’s the Limit Bryan Memorial Gallery, Jeffersonville VT
May 6-Sep 2, 2018 MGNE Fifth National Monotype/Monoprint Juried Show The Art Complex Museum, Duxbury, MA
Apr 16-18, 2018 Sexual Violence Awareness Month The Hive, Burlington, VT
Apr-Aug 2018 Maltex Building Burlington City Arts, Burlington VT
Mar 6-Apr 27, 2018 Vermont Art Guide, Artist to Watch Spotlight Gallery, Montpelier, VT
Feb–Aug 2018 Courthouse Gallery Invitational Bryan Memorial Gallery, Jeffersonville VT
Nov-Dec 2017 Fantastical Landscapes Bryan Memorial Gallery, Jeffersonville VT
Nov-Dec 2017 Gems Bryan Memorial Gallery, Jeffersonville VT
Nov 2017 Craft Vermont Vermont Hand Crafters, Burlington VT
Oct–Nov 2017 Off the Wall Frog Hollow, Burlington VT
Sep–Nov 2017 Land and Light and Water and Air Bryan Memorial Gallery, Jeffersonville VT
Sep 2017 Vermont Hand Crafters Eastern States Exposition, Springfield MA
Aug 2017 Visual arts at the festival Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival
Jun-Jul 2017 Defining Ourselves through Nature 4th Corner Foundation, Windham VT
Jun 2017 The Color of Light Edgewater Gallery, Middlebury VT
Jun 2017 Festival of Fine Arts SEABA, Burlington VT
May-Jun 2017 Cyto Expressions Biotek, Winooski VT
May 2017 Art Wall Northwestern Medical Center, St. Albans, VT
May 2017 Salon de Refusés Kimball Jenkins Estate, Concord NH
Jan 2017 A World Free of Violence Art’s Alive, Burlington VT
Sep 2016-Feb 2017 Local Inspiration US Attorney’s Office, Burlington VT
Nov 2016 Craft Vermont Vermont Hand Crafters, Burlington VT