About

Stephanie Morillo (b. 1986) is a self-taught painter and mixed media artist based in Rochester, New York. Her work explores the vastness inherent in all limitations. 

 

Stephanie understands constraints well. Her artistic process involves painting alongside her three year old daughter, with whom she shares brushes, palettes, and paints. It’s not uncommon to swap brushes with her daughter mid-painting or to have a carefully mixed pigment surreptitiously dipped into with an analogous color. Painting with her child means painting on the same, small sized canvases that fit on the children’s activity table, and working for no more than twenty minutes at a time — equivalent to the maximum amount of time her little painting partner is willing to spend on her own art. She calls her work "arte materna", or "maternal art", which is art that emerges from trying circumstances.

 

“Painting is both a meditative activity for me and a way to bond with my kids,” she says. “Given where I am in life, I don’t have the luxury of taking art lessons or working for hours at a time in a large studio. I make my art in my kids’ playroom. I have to embrace the interruptions and the limitations before me. Working with extreme constraints allows me to imbue pure emotion into my work. The outcome is always the result of experimentation, of how I’m feeling and what I’m into at the moment, versus being a carefully crafted or planned piece. This is what sets my work apart from other artists.”

 

Stephanie enjoys working with acrylics, modeling paste, gel medium, paper, and paint sticks. She draws inspiration from her family, music, Dominican culture, and natural landscapes to derive abstract and representative works. In addition to exhibiting original art in the Rochester metropolitan area, she is currently planning an exhibition of Dominican faceless dolls — a cornerstone of Dominican artisanship — for the Henrietta Public Library in October 2025.

 

Stephanie holds a Bachelor of Arts from Lafayette College and a Master’s in User Experience Design from Kent State University.

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Select Exhibitions

2025, Side by Side Juried Art Show at Impact Earth, Brighton, NY

2025, Brickyard Trail Exhibition at Buckland Farmhouse, Brighton, NY

2025, THAWWW at The Yards Collective, Rochester, NY