Denise Stewart-Sanabria was born in Massachusetts and received her BFA in Painting from the University of Massachusetts/Amherst. She has lived in Knoxville, TN since 1986.

Stewart-Sanabria paints both hyper-realist epicurean dramas of everything from produce to subversive jelly donuts. The anthropomorphic narratives often are reflections on human behavior and history. She is also known for her life size charcoal portrait drawings on plywood, which are cut out, mounted on wood bases, and staged in conceptual installations. She is a recipient of the 2019 Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist Grant for her work on wood.

Her work is included in various museums, private, and corporate collections including: The Tennessee State Museum, The Evansville Museum of Art in Indiana, The Knoxville Museum of Art, The Huntsville Museum of Art, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, Notre Dame of Maryland University, Firstbank TN, Pinnacle Banks, Omni and Opryland Hotels, Knoxville Botanical Gardens, Jewelry Television, TriStar Energy, the Atlanta Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank/Nashville office, the Aslan Foundation, The Ayers Foundation, Meta, and the corporate offices of McGhee Tyson Airport.

Stewart-Sanabria’s life-sized charcoal drawings on plywood depict people in various conceptual situations. They are placed within an environment in both observational and interactive groupings. Many of them emerge or partially disappear into walls, as if the surrounding architecture is quantum theory multiverse portals. The human presence is intended to show an attempted civilization of the bestial, natural world of which humans are often reluctant to acknowledge they are a part of.

My paintings are anthropomorphized Epicurean dramas, staged across time and cultures. Traumatized baked goods and produce interact with random commercial tchochkes and props in staged interiors or edible landscapes. Backdrops are sourced from 400 years of wallpaper, fabric, painting, and graphic design. Fruits and pastry act out ancient fertility rites, while other produce and bakery goods suffer from multiple dramas while still looking fabulous.