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.

Sanabria paints both hyper-realist “portraits” of everything from produce to subversive jelly donuts. The anthropomorphic narratives often are reflections on human behavior. She is also known for her life size charcoal portrait drawings on plywood, which are cut out, mounted on wood bases, and staged in installations. She does custom commissioned work for banks, hotels, corporate offices and homes. She also writes exhibit reviews for Number, an independent arts journal from Memphis, Art Papers, and Nashville Arts Magazine.

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.