Laurinda Stockwell’s artistry is rooted in the pastoral landscapes of her upbringing. Born in the Columbus, Ohio area, she spent her formative years enveloped by the open fields and wooded expanses of her extended family’s farm—a setting rich with visual and sensory experience that still echoes in her work. Creativity is truly the Stockwell inheritance; generations of painters populate both sides of her family tree, and her father—a designer and educator at the Columbus College of Art and Design—nurtured her early fascination with the visual world.
Stockwell’s journey as an artist began in childhood, shaped by a household teeming with creative influence. Her formal pursuit of art took her first to Columbus College of Art and Design for a BFA, and later to Philadelphia’s Tyler School of Art, where she completed an MFA. Ever dedicated to her practice, she threaded her own studio work through years spent teaching art at both college and high school levels, as well as working in commercial art and serving as an artist-in-residence in public schools. This balance of pedagogy and personal evolution has lent her work a sense of both inquiry and assurance.
Since relocating to Santa Fe, New Mexico, Stockwell’s paintings have drawn deep inspiration from the dramatic terrain and luminous light of the Santa Fe National Forest, a sacred place she explores on regular hikes. Her subject matter—primarily trees—reflects themes of resilience, endurance, and the passage of time, honoring the way these ancient forms witness epochs far greater than any individual life. For Stockwell, trees represent not only the power of nature but also the profound interconnectedness of time and place.
The creative process is a ritual of observation and recollection: Stockwell sketches, photographs, and—perhaps most importantly—remembers the play of sensations, layered lighting, and rhythmic patterns encountered along mountain trails. The arid air of the high desert led her to transition from acrylics to oil paint, a medium she finds more responsive in Santa Fe’s unique climate, allowing for richer detail and slower, more meditative development. Color in her paintings is often untethered from the strictly natural, deploying palettes that evoke emotional resonance and invite viewers to experience the landscape anew.
Her exploration of materials and scale has also extended beyond the canvas. Stockwell’s large scale public art commissions for NJ Transit, Rutgers University, and AtlantiCare Hospital highlight her ability to experiment with media—integrating textiles, stone and glass to create tactile, surprising surfaces. These projects have been both challenging and deeply rewarding, reinforcing her commitment to innovation.
Stockwell’s work has garnered significant recognition: she is the recipient of two New Jersey State Council on the Arts Grants, the Fulbright Memorial Fund Grant to Japan, and was awarded residencies at Yaddo and the Wurlitzer Foundation, among others. Major institutions—including the Columbus Museum of Art, Rutgers University’s Zimmerli Museum, the State of New Mexico, and the Center for Creative Photography at the University of Arizona—count her works among their collections. Her art has been featured in exhibitions at ViVO Contemporary Gallery in Santa Fe and Conte Gallery in New York City, and has attracted critical attention, including coverage in The New York Times for one person exhibitions at the NJ State Museum and Ben Shahn Gallery at William Patterson University.
Influenced by artists such as Lois Dodd, Robert Rauschenberg, and sculptor Nick Cave, Stockwell belongs to New Mexico Women in the Arts and continues to cultivate both local and national artistic connections. Critics and collectors alike note the surprising vibrancy of her color choices and her innovative blending of media, qualities that invite deeper engagement with her artworks.
Beyond the studio, Stockwell is a dedicated hiker, an inveterate collector of peculiar objects, and an avid traveler—pursuits that feed her vision and sustain her creative practice. Ever the experimenter, she sees her career as an ongoing journey to refine her skills, remain open to bold ideas, and reimagine the possibilities of painting. For Stockwell, art serves as both personal inquiry and public dialogue, a means to celebrate resilience, memory, and the quiet grandeur of the natural world.
Laurinda Stockwell grew up on an Ohio pig farm roaming its 200 acres. Heavily influenced by this childhood environment as well as a family filled with artists, she makes artwork based upon the natural world.
Stockwell exhibits nationally including California, Montana, New Mexico, Florida, Colorado and extensively in New Jersey and New York; including one-person exhibits in museums and galleries. She also exhibits internationally including museums and galleries in China, Germany, Japan, Mexico and Russia. Her artwork has received numerous awards including two NJ State Artist Fellowships, a Yaddo residency, a Ford Foundation Scholarship, a Fulbright Memorial Foundation travel grant to Japan and a Pingry Enrichment Grant for travel to Alaska.
Her artwork has been reviewed in regional, national and international publications including The New York Times. She lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.