Just as some people have a secret love for rainstorms, earthquakes, or blackouts, I like that certain undefinable something. My vision centers around alluring portrayals of the idealized feminine in its many incarnations, ingenues and temptresses, archetypes of both light and dark alike. Informed as much by the perils of love as spiritual phenomena, a fascination with the macabre as Mythos and the realms of the unconscious, my work strives to evoke those elemental qualities within the spectrum of human experience.  In a broad sense, these are the themes which pervade my work, regardless of medium, whether it be digital or traditional painting and drawing, fashion and editorial style photography, modeling or self-portraiture.

 

 

Biography

 

Stephanie Edmark is a multidisciplinary artist, best known for her work as an alternative model as well as for her photography, drawings and paintings with psychological underpinnings.

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Edmark has been staunchly of the Low Brow movement since her inception as a visual creator, beginning with a coveted stint photographing pin-up models for the SucideGirls in the mid-2000s, an experience which indelibly etched its mark on her taste and style.

 

The eyes have it. Her fine art drawings and paintings have always been characterized by the penetrating gaze of her subject, revealing the hidden depths of a complex inner world. Alternative, dark and gothic themes pervade Edmark's work, described both as figurative and illustrative. Stylistically, her work combines an unmistakable appreciation for Realism with Pop Art influences while borrowing stylistic elements from graphic design. Edmark aligns her fine art work most closely with the Pop Surrealism and New Contemporary movements. 

 

Originally from Fremont, California, Edmark spent her high school and college years in the San Francisco Bay Area. She received awards in portrait painting after attending a summer oil painting course for pre-college seniors at the San Francisco Academy of Art, however, an art school education did not follow. After high school she attended the University of California, Santa Cruz where she intended to study oil painting, though lack of enrollment priority as an underclassmen would cause her to fall back on photography.

 

 In light of the trajectory she found herself on and armed with a photography degree, Edmark moved to San Francisco to launch a career in fashion, pin-up and portrait photography working as a staff photographer for the aforementioned SuicideGirls, San Francisco based SOMA Magazine, a host of event and nightlife companies, and as a test photographer for Ford Models, LOOK Models and San Francisco’s Passport Modeling Agency. Edmark simultaneously delved into modeling pursuits of her own, carving out a name for herself in the Alternative scene. Subsequently, her work on both sides of the lens has been published in a variety of books, magazines, and websites, most notably appearing in The New Erotic Photography, 2012, published by TASCHEN.

 

 

In the 2020's, after 2 decades on hiatus from her official first love in the realm of the fine arts, Edmark returns to the drawing board to bring her commitment to pencil and paint full circle in the world of 2-dimensions.

 

College

 

University of California, Santa Cruz

BA, Art, Emphasis in Photography