Top 50 Philadelphia Artists and their Featured Art

Stephanie is a self-taught artist raised in California and currently living in Philadelphia. Artistic from a young age, she only started to seriously pursue art as an adult, balancing her love for creative pursuits with a full-time career. Though she began by painting in watercolor, focusing mainly on florals and still lifes, she has recently found a more natural home for herself in soft pastel. She loves its versatility and immediacy and is inspired to explore its many possibilities as a medium. While she is still passionate about still life and floral subjects, her move to Pennsylvania ignited a love for the landscape. She is enchanted every day by the lush woodlands and meadows in and around Philadelphia. In this time of environmental devastation, Stephanie believes that an emotional connection to the landscape may play a critical role in the imagining of a more sustainable future, and she hopes her work can play some small role in fostering that connection.

I am a multi-disciplinary artist originally from Colorado. I moved to Philadelphia in 2009 to attend Graduate school at Drexel where I completed an MS in Fashion Design. Since then I've explored many art mediums including leatherwork, jewelry making, illustration, stained glass, ceramics, and more! In 2020 my mother, who is a ceramic artist, began painting and encouraged me to join her-- so I set up an art space in my home and we began painting together over facetime (it was the early days of the pandemic, and she lives over 1,000 miles away in Florida). More recently I've moved my work into a dedicated art studio space in Philadelphia where I spend my days working and creating with my dog by my side. I'm a self-taught painter still working on finding my unique voice and style-- but some things that are certain are my love for bold color and shapes!

Matt Higgins is an artist and art professor based in Philadelphia, Pa. He earned his BFA from West Chester University and his MFA from The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Before switching to painting he studied graphic design for the majority of his undergraduate career. These foundation skills in graphic design still fuel a lot his creative work today but for him, are better translated to paint instead of on the computer screen. Along with his studio practice he teaches drawing and design courses at a number of institutions including Drexel University, Moore College of Art and Design and Delaware County Community College. Teaching continually reinforces the work he does in his studio and fulfills his desire to give back to the next generation of up and coming artists and designers.

Lucy Shaiken (b.1994) is an artist living and working in Philadelphia, PA. Her paintings take on the patina of her lived-in environment—the clutter, textures, warmth, and comfort of home. Lucy’s work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the US and Canada. In 2021, she was awarded an Illuminate the Arts Grant by the City of Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture & The Creative Economy.

My early studies in Philadelphia were at Drexel University in Fashion and Design.As an outgrowth of that ,wanting to design a true original I took workshops in batik on fabric. I then developed my own language of “ painterly silk batik”. Then, at the age of 50, I went to Italy and took a summer painting program at Florence Academy of Art. Upon my return to Philadelphia I continued those studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art . My most recent work employs various mixed media and acrylics on canvas. I usually begin a painting by building up layers of watercolor, fluid acrylics, and hand painted Japanese paper. Sometimes, as in my earlier work with batik on silk , I will paint with hot beeswax onto the papers. The gentle tension between line and texture in my expressive floral painting is something that I am always trying to be mindful about. That comes from my years of working with the Tjanting tool, laying fluid lines of wax as a resist on silk in an intuitive manor.

Gwen Wiess is a freelance illustrator currently living and working in Southern New Jersey. Upon graduating from Tyler School of Art at Temple University, Gwen spent some time living and working in her hometown of Philadelphia before moving to the Czech Republic for 3 years to teach English at a preschool in Prague. In 2020, Gwen moved back to the States and now resides just a stones throw from the shore. Her creative work celebrates the magic hidden in the everyday by experimenting with form, line, shape and color. Often she explores her own sense of self and internal universe through her imagery - resulting in emotional uses of color and form. She explores these ideas using both traditional and digital media ; primarily the app Procreate, gouache, and colored pencil. When she’s not managing her humble online shop full of small prints, stickers, and pet portraits, she can be found documenting her artistic journey on youtube, knitting, or taking her rescue dog, Rocco, to the beach.