Stephanie Buer began pursing a career in art at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan where she fell in love with the city and urban exploration. She spent the next ten years living in Detroit and developing as an artist.

She is known for her poignant, representational landscapes in oil, and charcoal. Combining the representational clarity and control of realism with the subtly perceptual handling of her medium. Her impressionistic treatment of light is imperceptible, but produces dramatic contrasts, while the immersive level of detail is staggering. These dark monochromatic works are labor-intensive documentations that seamlessly combine observational realism with extremely subtle, affect-driven stylization which make entry into the scenes she proposes physically palpable and intimately close.

The invasive quality of quiet that shapes Buer’s contemplative works is unique; they are arresting in that they abruptly apprehend the passage of time. A gentleness persists in her poetic compositional choices, attention to detail, and emotive capture of time and place. The works are honest in revealing the hand through intimate mark making, using the abstract quality of marks and negative space to transform emptiness into fullness. It is a way of slowing down, becoming attentive and better knowing the world around her through drawing and painting, a language of both perception and sensation. The works are lovingly, and even painfully, precise in their lush detail and arrested stillness. They evoke a solitude and melancholy through the negative space, and sparse compositions, conveying the mindful calm of spending time in the natural world and also in the meditative practice of recreating these scenes in such an intimate and meticulous way. There is a gentleness and tranquility which invites the viewer into a slowing down, with a sense of solitude and wonder.

Her urban landscapes explore the many layers of history found in the marginal areas of cities. From the imprints of industry and production to its eventual decay. Each subject has a historical context, an original purpose that is now lost. She is fascinated by how these places change as they succumb to the manipulation of vandals, artists and the resilience of nature ever slowly growing alongside. Through her art Stephanie seeks to find beauty and peace in these forgotten and unloved areas of cities. She currently works in Portland, Oregon at her studio in the Falcon Art Community.

Current and Previous Works by Stephanie Buer