Tears of an Elephant Collage

Artist and painter, Stacey Clarfield Newman has developed a unique method of recycling ephemera to create striking hand-painted papers.  She then uses them as painterly "brushstrokes of paper" to produce lyrical collages containing abstracted "mindscapes" and whimsical social commentary.  Influenced by music, her love affair with color, life's events and her deep reverence for nature, the artist states "the planet Earth is a small green island- an emerald gem to be cared for and appreciated.  We must protect and nurture all the living beings who inhabit it."  In keeping with that philosophy and her conviction that artists have a responsibility to open a dialog with the viewer about life issues, she was commissioned to create a collage mural for the Albert Einstein Medical Outpatient AIDS Wing in 1992 entitled The Powers of Healing. Most recently, Ms. Clarfield Newman spent two months living and working in Kolkata, India at the Udayan School, a welfare and rehabilitation school for children of leprosy patients.  There she taught her techniques of “painting with paper” collage to 300 children ages 4 - 18, living with the students in the girls dormitory, crossing cultural and language barriers through art.  In February of 2010, she curated and mounted an exhibit, “Art of the Heart” of the children’s work at the prestigious Chamber of Congress’ Palladian Lounge in Kolkata to rave reviews in the city’s renowned cultural media. The show was a resounding success and the proceeds of the art sales were donated for the continued welfare of Udayan School. Ms.Clarfield Newman has exhibited widely across the United States and internationally as well, most recently showing in Chicago and in Colorado.  Ms. Newman's work was also included in the juried National Association of Women Artists' annual competition "Illuminations" at the gallery 928 Broadway in Chelsea. Stacey Clarfield Newman's painting "Tree of Life" was selected as one of fewer than 75 artists for publication in ArtQuench Magazine's (AQM) Best International Creatives 2016. In recent reviews, critics have called her work, "ethereal and painterly... the large, intricate collages lyrically evoke a surreal dreamscape, drawing the viewer into the painting," and went on to say that Stacey Clarfield Newman's hand-painted, handmade paper collage paintings "richly suggest an organic landscape of the mind.