Steph Lasater

Steph Lasater is a mixed-media artist whose work uses self-portraiture and realism to address trauma, mental health, and the emotional consequences of relationships. Her paintings are autobiographical, but they are made with an audience in mind: viewers who may recognize aspects of their own experiences in the work.

Lasater grew up in a small town that actively supported public art through statues, murals, and other community projects. Within her family, creativity was encouraged from an early age. Her father supported her work, her mother displayed her paintings at home, and her sister commissioned pieces while Lasater was still developing as an artist, later connecting her with graphic-design opportunities through friends.

She began by drawing and painting people, eventually using herself as a subject. That move toward self-portraiture gave her a way to work through difficult personal experiences. Over time, the combination of portraiture and emotional disclosure became the core of her practice.

Lasater studied studio art in college with a concentration in mixed media and a minor in art history. Earlier, she had taken art courses continuously from elementary school through Advanced Placement Studio Art in high school. In college, a photography professor introduced her to both traditional and alternative photographic processes.

Her education helped her become less constrained by overthinking while improving her speed, color choices, and willingness to experiment. Open-ended assignments made room for personal material, and feedback from professors helped her clarify the messages she wanted her work to carry. She describes the influence of Lucian Freud and Liu Xiaodong on her technique, alongside historical figures including Botticelli, Degas, Rembrandt, Raphael, Van Gogh, and Michelangelo. Their work has encouraged her to use heavier paint, stronger lighting, and a blend of realistic and dreamlike elements.

Painting remains her central medium, but Lasater has also sewn into canvases, incorporated cyanotype into drawings, carved into paper, and used a soundboard to give paintings an audible dimension. She is especially interested in developing further work with sound and photography. Both were important coping mechanisms when she was younger, and she sees their integration with painting as a way to expand the emotional and sensory range of the work.

Her studio routine is consistent. Lasater paints facing her windows, puts on emotionally intense music, and places her phone out of reach. Once she has mixed the colors she needs, the process becomes increasingly immersive. Music helps sustain her focus through exhaustion and provides a structure for long sessions.

The work also grows out of the people around her. Friends, strangers, and women in her life have all served as subjects and sources of inspiration. One painting centers on the women she knows, addressing both empowerment and the difficulties women have faced. Lasater describes strong feminine presence in her life as the starting point for that work.

When creative momentum slows, she returns to drawing people she knows. She may look through social-media profiles, ask someone for a photograph, or make quick sketchbook drawings of friends and loved ones. Walking, people-watching, and speed-drawing moving figures are also part of how she recharges outside the studio.

Her recent painting Hail Mary (Amen) was among the most difficult works to complete. Addressing disturbing experiences with men, the piece required sustained attention to both composition and emotional processing. Lasater spent months on it, sometimes stopping in the middle of the work because of the intensity of the subject. Completing it confirmed the role art plays in helping her process experience.

The central theme of her practice remains mental health, particularly her own experience of trauma. Lasater does not treat vulnerability as a simple aesthetic. She is deliberate about making smaller, more accessible works while continuing to discuss more difficult pieces with galleries and venues. The goal is to make room for subjects that are often avoided, even when public presentation requires risk.

She measures success through the response of the audience she hopes to reach. The most meaningful moments, she says, come when people at exhibitions describe feeling emotionally affected, heard, or understood by the work. Her aim is not to make viewers feel better in an abstract sense, but to make clear that they are not alone in what they have experienced.

Lasater is currently developing a series on sexual and relationship trauma. Drawing from personal experience, the project addresses the emotional weight of normalized mistreatment and the need for more direct discussion, understanding, and community support. She is also pursuing collaborations with artists who share related concerns, with the intention of building a broader conversation around trauma in art.

For Lasater, continuing to make work is essential. “Don’t stop creating,” she advises emerging artists. Progress may be slow, but the process of returning to the work, developing a practice, and seeing growth over time remains the basis of her own.