About

Short Bio

Artist Stephanie Hoff Clayton believes that creative alchemy happens when we allow intuition to be our guide. This alchemy is the poetry of life - a record of our dedication, obsession, meditation and reason. This belief is a fundamental aspect and the driving force of her studio practice. Stephanie’s art helps bring a sense of peace, contemplation, and joy to people’s homes, offices, and public space. Stephanie says, “It is my experience that art can open hearts and minds. It can connect us to our true essence - our own divinity. I create art to express that which cannot be said in words and it is an honor to be able to do so.” Stephanie’s art is part of several public and private collections in Europe and North America including the British Virgin Islands. Stephanie also teaches painting and intuitive art. She founded Clayton Art School in Slidell, Louisiana, before teaching art for many years at Cedar International School on Tortola, British Virgin Islands, Dougherty Arts Center in Austin, Texas, and Cumberland Academy High School in Tyler, Texas. She teaches painting and intuitive art classes in the Tyler area and, soon, online. Stephanie received a B.A. from Tulane University in 1994. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, she now resides in Tyler, Texas.

Statement

Creating art is a way to access my intuition while connecting with the Divine. When fully immersed in the art-making process, I am deep within, present, and united in mind, body, and spirit; I am one with all. At the heart of my work is presence, purity, and truth.

A heightened sensitivity to the natural world and an interest in cosmology have proven fundamental to my artistic development, as ideas take root. I have recently been led to explore subjects of transformation, liminality, and the interconnectedness of all life.

During the painting process, I arrange and manipulate the composition, weaving and intertwining biomorphic shapes with colors that often contrast, illuminating the surface. I work methodically, guided by intuition and experiential knowledge. New environments - before, known only in the mind - are called into existence, now visualized in a two-dimensional format. A work is complete when a concise and deceptively complex synergy is formed amid the material and the intangible, the physical and the ethereal.

I think of my paintings as meditations – both for me during the act of creating, and for the viewer. I invite the eye to linger long enough so that the mind may become quiet, open, and receptive. To understand my art, all that is needed is that which the viewer is willing to bring to the experience.

- Stephanie Hoff Clayton, 2022