Zienna Brunsted Stewart
About the Create! Magazine 10th Anniversary Book: Create! Magazine is honored to celebrate a decade of contemporary art by publishing a look back at previously selected artists: their achievements, career growth, and more since being published. Stay tuned for the book launch in fall 2026, and join our newsletter to stay up to date.
Zienna Brunsted Stewart, featured in both Create! Magazine and the Create! Magazine 10th Anniversary Book, is a Danish-American oil painter based between the Southwest United States and Copenhagen. She attended Idyllwild Arts Academy, graduating in 2013. Though her education has largely been self-led, she has been mentored by prominent painters Marika Popovits, Michael Bergt, Daniel Sprick, and Odd Nerdrum.
Enamored by the figure, Brunsted Stewart's paintings of the female form toggle between highly rendered realism and playful abstraction. In love with the expressive, narrative-rich works of Julia Margaret Cameron, Madame d'Ora, Bunny Yeager, and Sally Mann, Brunsted Stewart is as influenced by photography as she is by bold, painterly artists from contemporary and art history.
Brunsted Stewart has been written about in American Art Collector on multiple occasions (including the 6-page article "(un)clothed" by Michael Clawson), been featured in Create! Magazine and Peach Fuzz Magazine, interviewed by the Santa Fe Reporter, and recorded for the American Art Collective podcast.
She was a finalist in the Portrait Society of America's "Member's Only Competition - Outside the Box" and "The Future Generation" competitions in 2021 and the John Dalton Art Award in 2022. She has attended residencies at the Pouch Cove Artist Residency in Newfoundland and the Pulga Town Artist Residency in California. Brunsted Stewart has exhibited regularly with many North American galleries, including Gallery Nucleus, Stone Sparrow NYC, Keep Contemporary, James Baird Gallery, among others. Her work is held in a number of private collections worldwide.
https://ziennabstewart.com/
