Stephanie Rew: A Heart of Gold

Stephanie Rew (b 1971) is a Scottish painter based in Edinburgh. Her highly detailed figurative paintings are collected worldwide.

The exhibition is one of two parts, as Stephanie’s inspirations shifted over the long process of creating paintings for this show. The first part of the show draws from Japanese design, using richly decorated kimonos, and combining this with icon style portraits seen in the Early Renaissance. The second part of the exhibition is inspired by another song, Tim Buckley’s ‘Song of the Siren.’ These paintings are influenced by the poetic folklore surrounding the mythological Sirens. Each artwork is named after lines in the song and are meant to express the longing and pain of the Sirens, made vulnerable in their search for love. 

Stephanie won the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Bursary soon after graduating from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in Dundee and since then has had numerous exhibitions in the UK. She curated the first Women Painting Women Exhibition in the UK as part of the WPW (R)evolution movement in 2013. She recently won the ‘Best Nude’ Award in 2018 and the FWSD Award in 2019 in Art Renewal Centre Salon, is a finalist in the ModPortrait17 and ModPortrait19 Award held in Spain. She was a finalist at the Scottish Portrait Award 2017 and has exhibited at MEAM Barcelona in both ‘Women Painting’ exhibitions held in 2019/2020 to celebrate International Women’s Day.

“Creating this show has been a long and lovely process. I was given a decent amount of time to do it which is a rare thing. Recently I have been incorporating gold leaf into my work, exploring the relationship between the decorative reflective gold leaf surface and a fully rendered oil painting. The design and pattern of the surface and textiles have become an important part of my painted compositions.

Making the gold panels is a slow and painstaking process and can take months to complete so to be able to make 10 panels at one time was an absolute luxury. Some of these panels I have been working on for over a year, leaving them to ‘marinade’ for a while I work on other paintings.

These paintings have cohesion to them, they have grown and developed very slowly together, which gives them a harmony. "Recent times have been very difficult for everyone and this show is my way of adding something bright and beautiful into the world, as right now I believe we need as much beauty as we can find”.