Rebecca Stenn: Painting With the Body

Rebecca Stenn is a New York City-based artist, dancer, and educator whose career spans dance, choreography, and recently painting, embodying a rare confluence of movement and visual art. 

Originally from Canada, Stenn trained at The Royal Winnipeg Ballet and The Juilliard School in New York, recently earning an MFA from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. As a principal dancer, she performed on stages in over 50 cities in the U.S. and abroad, founding her own company in 1996. An experimental confluence of live music and athletic performance, the company brought together evocative movement with rock, jazz, and classical music. It was her desire to experiment and interest in interdisciplinarity that eventually led Stenn on the path of painting.  

Stenn’s shift from the stage to the studio came as a realization that the paintbrush could serve as an extension of her body, translating the fluidity of dance into the medium of paint. “I began to see the brush as another limb, another way to express the movement that has always been a part of my life,” she explains. This connection between her body and her art informs every aspect of her work, making her paintings a unique exploration of how movement shapes and interacts with space.

Rebecca Stenn in her studio.

Citing Helen Frankethaler, Joan Mitchell, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Paul Klee as her inspirations, Stenn’s work is primarily rooted in abstraction. “I started with abstract painting because it allowed me to focus on the act of painting, the movement required to create different textures,” Stenn says. “It was less about what the painting looked like and more about how it was made.” This emphasis on process rather than outcome is a hallmark of her work, reflecting a deep engagement with the physical act of creation.

Stenn’s recent work is a collection of paintings titled Tapestries. The series– featured in Affordable Art Fair’s fall 2024 ad campaign in New York–continues her exploration of geometry, a theme that has become increasingly prominent in her art. The paintings draw inspiration from the landscapes of the Pacific Northwest, a region she has long been connected to. Stenn’s use of geometric forms—lines, triangles, and abstract shapes—imbues these landscapes with a sense of structure and order, yet there is a deceptive simplicity to them. These forms, while seemingly straightforward, invite deeper engagement, asking the viewer to fill in the gaps and become an active participant in the work.

Tapestry #3, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 48″ x 48″

One of the central motifs in Tapestries is a viewpoint known as Crown Point, located along the Columbia Gorge. Stenn has returned to this same view repeatedly, capturing it in different lights, moods, and geometries. This repetition is not monotonous but rather a study in variation, a reflection of the changing rhythms of nature and the artist’s own evolving perspective. The viewer is drawn into this dialogue between the constant and the changing, the familiar and the abstract.

Columbia Gorge #6, acrylic on canvas, 48″ x 48″

Stenn’s work is a testament to the idea that art is not confined to a single discipline but can transcend boundaries, creating new forms of expression. “All of the ways in which I express myself as an artist, seem to coalesce for me, to work in tandem,” she says. “When I choreograph, I think about space, texture, line, design, proximity, and time. When I paint, I think about space, texture, line, design, proximity, and color. I am asking so many of the same questions.”

Blue Tapestry, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 30″ x 40″

For Stenn, the greatest gift art has given her is the ability to be fully present in the moment. “Being able to ask questions. Making something from nothing. The joy of sharing the work,” she reflects. These principles guide her creative practice and fuel her passion for exploring new artistic territories.