Christa Stephens is an abstract artist based in Santa Fe.
Born and raised on the high plains of eastern New Mexico, she grew up surrounded by wide open skies and stark, desolate landscapes—an early visual vocabulary that continues to inform her sense of form and structure. She is neurodivergent, and her work is shaped by deep attention to perception, pattern, and nuance.
Stephens holds a bachelor’s degree in music and is a self-taught visual artist. Her musical background remains a prominent influence in how she builds her work—attentive to rhythm, tone, and tempo as compositional tools. These concerns guide decisions around color, interval, and the accumulation of layers across a surface.
With a studio practice that centers on process-forward painting and mixed media, Stephens often works in series—using repetition and variation to explore how images emerge through patience and revision. Her materials vary according to each piece and frequently include acrylic, collage, colored pencil, graphite, ink, and vinyl emulsion. Her work has been exhibited in museums, galleries, and contemporary art centers throughout the American Southwest, and is held in private collections across the United States and Europe.