Stephanie Farinhas's Projects

BFA Student

Major: Sculpture

Graduation Year: 2017

Artist Statement:

As a child of immigrants I feel as though I exist in two worlds. One side of my identity is influenced by being born in New Jersey while the other is shaped by my family’s Colombian culture and beliefs. I can never belong completely to either of these identities, but I have been able to find a balance between the two. Having intimate knowledge of my mother’s culture, its heavy influence is apparent in the objects and content behind my current work. For my thesis exhibition I have taken portraits of two identities that I find myself empowered by: my American self and my Hispanic upbringing.

Biography:

Stephanie Virginia Farinhas was born in 1995 in New Jersey to a hardworking family of immigrants. As a first generation American she always felt a disconnect between her family’s multicultural heritage and her growing up in a white America. This splitting of identity caused her to whitewash her self, leaving behind the color and beauty of her roots. After a decade of neglect she finally embraced her Latina heritage and gained a new identity, one that would be the basis of her object making from this point on…
She works mostly in the mediums of sculpture and installation. Usually utilizing various materials, Stephanie creates saturated moments of remembrance by means of personal reflection and research. The weight of her objects contrasts their vibrant, artificial colors paralleling the emotional tensions in the artist herself.