Cordelia Stephens

 Bio

Cordelia Stephens (b.1973) is a British-American artist who grew up in Oxford, England, completed a first year diploma at the École Des Beaux Arts in Lyon, France and earned an MA in Fine Art through a five-year academic and studio-based course taught at both Edinburgh University and Edinburgh College of Art in Scotland. Cordelia is now based Brooklyn, NY. 

Artist Statement

“I think of my figurative paintings as very short films which capture a moment in time; a moment which ripples out to the past and future, telling a fuller story of the characters depicted. My recent work groups multiple figures together forming patterns through group dynamics- at bars, nightclubs, on stoops or around the dining table. The gestures of some of my subjects contrast with the distant, contemplative gazes of others.  I paint characters watching others, some lost in their own moment, influencing each other in subtle ways sometimes only visible to the viewer of the painting.  

Inspired by great figurative painters of the last hundred years such as David Hockney, Lucian Freud, Joan Eardley, Carel Weight, Paula Rego, Alice Neel and Jenny Saville, I am pushing to find my own voice, and a style that is unique.  I lean heavily on my formal and traditional training in France and Scotland which had a huge emphasis on life drawing and color theory. My outlook, however, is the modern world with its inequities, distractions and tensions. Working mainly in oils and pastel for painting, I work freely and expressively aware that all paintings involve elements of abstraction. I have a daily drawing practice often drawing plants from life if no people are available. My botanical studies allow me to develop observation and mark-making, and it is a wonderful freedom that the plants and flowers don’t talk back or feel opinionated about how I have depicted them.” 

~ Cordelia Stephens 
 

SOLO EXHIBITION : 

Atlantic Ave ArtWalk:  @ Absolute Coffee, 327 Atlantic Avenue (Smith+Hoyt), May 9th-17th, 2026 

PUBLICATIONS
Featured in Art Seen Magazine, February, 2026

 Featured in  Suboart Magazine publication Nr. 50 in November, 2025