Pittsburgh Artist Registry

Brenda Stumpf’s elaborate paintings and sculptures, characterized by a Baroque sensibility and evocative subject matter, invoke personal and archetypal associations by way of myth and metaphor. Composed of scraped century old wallpaper from the artist’s home, dresses and objects from the artist’s youth, plastic flowers, sound reels, steeped tea bag paper, doll parts, piano pieces, animal bones, hand-cut and engraved book covers and unraveled rope, among countless other materials, her works are opulently tactile, and occupy a space of both virility and delicateness. Stumpf’s vast-ranging references have included Pandora, the Black Madonna, Seshat, victims of Jack the Ripper, the Crusades, alchemy, the music of Arvo Pärt and the poetry of Pablo Neruda. “Creating art is a mystical and potent act,” she says. “it’s a shamanistic environ that transcends time and space.”