Stanza Widen

I was born in South Africa and studied for a BFA at Rhodes University with Brian Bradshaw. I lived in Northwestern British Columbia, Canada for 4 years and during that time opened an art gallery (with gift shop), and a working studio where I created and taught people to paint.

Although being a landscape painter using pastel has been a lifelong love, I now explore other media in an effort to express my thoughts and emotions which I feel very strongly about. This has been a voyage of discovery where I have found new dimensions I was only able to dream of in the past.

Attended Rhodes University Art Faculty. Charles Gotthardt Ceramic Sculpture. In South Africa I was a member of the South African Society of Artists (SASA). I was commissioned by the Australian Artist's Palette Magazine to feature my artwork and do a tutorial for the readers which was published in Issue 74 in 2009. My collage, "Scream of the Butterfly" was one of the Saatchi Showdown semi-finalists and became a curated artwork. I regard this as a great honour. This was subsequently featured twice by Saatchi and sold in July 2015 to Frances Bean Cobain.

My pastel painting "Infused With Stars" was selected as a curated piece in 2013 by Saatchi.

In 2017 Friesen Press published a book I wrote and illustrated; it is available at this show, or can be seen at www.stanzawiden.com. This took me 8 years to paint and write.