Today we’d like to introduce you to Stella Strzyzowska Guillen.
Every artist has a unique story. Can you briefly walk us through yours?
I go by Stella SG, which stands for Strzyzowska Guillen. I was born Stella Strzyzowska and acquired the last name Guillen from that the father who raised me from a very young age with my Mom. As a young kid, I went through a series of traumas and would often escape, fantasizing and imagining stories in my head all day. Art and creating were a great way to deal with the heavy sadness that I felt. By the fourth grade, I had a great realization that I needed an acrylic paint set and that I was a painter. This was the same year I was prescribed ADD medication because I was elsewhere during all classes but art.
I grew up taking ADD medication, and there was a long term tax on my body and will power. I became dependent on my medication to get work done, including artwork. Simultaneously I went through a heavy depression in high school as I saw my biological father for the first time in 10 years who died from sclerosis a couple of weeks after. These times were the lowest, and I would furiously make art to express the pain and attempt to make sense of my life.
Something happened around 19; I had a series of transcendental experiences which completely shifted my perspective on life. I had the great realization that everything we’re experiencing is a result of what we’ve thought and that we can change our reality by changing our thoughts. I began meditating and lucid dreaming often. My art began to have color in it, as opposed to my old work which was mostly blacks and reds. I kept on this new found spiritual journey and continuously had major spiritual awakenings and encounters with God.
Still struggling with a grown addiction to a medication I was given since childhood, I had a great awakening in 2014 and became dedicated to never take ADD medication again. I decided that in place of ADD medication I would do yoga every day as my “pill” and would work in time to build my natural will power and focus. This dedication also unintentionally began the journey to healing deep trauma, which has been beneficial to the core of my being.
It has now been five years since I started that journey and I do yoga 6-7 days a week. The yoga practice positively influenced my diet, habits, and most importantly- my art. Yoga has become the primer to all my studio sessions and has evolved my art making to a process of bringing higher consciousness through onto the surface. You can see in my latest painting, “Medicine” the multitude of medicines, including yoga, that have come together and have aided in the process of healing from the sadness I carry from childhood and from ancestral baggage.
As I venture forward with each painting, I hope to inspire people to look deeper within and cultivate healing for whatever suffering that may be holding them stuck. I am definitely not “fully healed” as I don’t know if that is something that is attainable in one lifetime. I am more aware of what weighs on my heart and other areas of my body which correlate with certain traumas. It’s a healing journey for a lifetime and art is a reflection process which brings deeper things to the surface to explore and release back into the universe.
Please tell us about your art.
Before I begin to create, I prime my work with a yoga session, which ends with a seated meditation followed by stating intentions/mantra. I do this every day quite militantly. It serves my session for the day, but most importantly in time it accumulates and seems to be designing and manifesting my paintings.
I paint in what’s called the Mische Technique. I went to Florida State University where I met artist, Carrie Ann Baade who introduced me to this technique. She later introduced me to artist, Amanda Sage, whose mentor was, Ernst Fuchs, one of the revivers of this technique in the 20th century. I studied with Amanda Sage and further developed this technique which I have found my own unique style in.
Mische technique is a technique of building form on a colored ground with white paint and then layering thin glazes of color with more white in between. It’s pretty much like painting with light. This technique allows me to reveal the transcendental spiritual realms I encounter, as it is built of these layers of light.
When it comes to the subjects in my paintings, I try not to think too much about what I want to make and pray on whatever needs to be painted to come through. Sometimes I get lucky, and I get a massive crazy amazing detailed vision in my mind and then other times I may just see lines in my head and start with that and see where it goes. I hope that people get inspired to dive deeper into their being and imagine/believe in something greater after looking at my work.
As an artist, how do you define success and what quality or characteristic do you feel is essential to success as an artist?
My idea of success as an artist has evolved in time. I believe the quality of balance between working hard and surrendering to the process is essential to success as an artist. Trusting in something greater and believing in the process is the heart of the engine of art making.
How or where can people see your work? How can people support your work?
My Instagram @stellasgart is my most constantly updated platform for sharing in-progress and finished work. I am interactive with followers and have a beautiful community there.
My website www.stellasg.com is another place to view my work and see deeper into my story. Through my website, there is a link to my store which is www.shopstellasg.com where art prints can be purchased. This is the greatest way to help support my work as I am currently working on expanding available inventory, so that this art journey may keep sailing forward.
I am also accessible via facebook at www.facebook.com/Stellasgart.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.stellasg.com
- Email: stellasg.art@gmail.com
- Instagram: @stellasgart
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Stellasgart
- Other: www.shopstellasg.com
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