Zienna Brunsted Stewart

Bio/Statement 2023

Zienna Brunsted Stewart (b. 1995) is a Danish-American representational oil painter living and working in New Mexico. With a focus on depictions of womxn, Zienna paints realistically rendered figures in emotional narratives.

Zienna grew up in a rural mountain town of Southern Colorado, wandering the forests and learning to make whatever she could by hand. At 12 years old she discovered oil paints, which became an immediate obsession. Upon introduction to her first teacher and long time mentor, Zienna began receiving instruction in traditional painting and drawing methods. With the enormous support of her small-town community and a substantial scholarship, Zienna was admitted to Idyllwild Arts Academy, a boarding arts high school in Southern California, graduating in 2013.
Though she has enjoyed a largely self-led education, Zienna has studied privately under several prominent painters in the US and in Europe.

As an emerging artist, Zienna has been written about in American Art Collector magazine, interviewed by the Santa Fe Reporter and was featured in Create Magazine. She was most recently named finalist in the Portrait Society of America’s 2021 “Future Generations” and “Members Only- Outside the Box” competitions. Her work is held in a number of private collections.

” Living beings are known to respond to so much more than formed language. What our bodies are, when stripped of cultural context, is simply nature. Nature, like visual art, communicates without using words. A body, gushing subtle texts, has so much to say. The inaudible communication between people is powerful, and also often quite confounding. What is conveyed cannot be described, only felt.
The themes in my work are quiet, exploring the ambivalence of desire, the intimacy of close friendships, indecision and introspection. In view of body as nature, I intend to create subtle, dynamic impressions of a variety of women and the stories their bodies wish to express. “