Ilene
Gienger-Stanfield

Ilene Gienger-Stanfield was born and raised in Klamath County, Oregon, on her parents’ ranch in the open range and farmland near the Klamath/Modoc Indian reservation. She was drawing from an early age — a sixth-grade moment copying a Santa picture in Chiloquin is her first memory of being excited by what a mark could do. She went on to Southern Oregon University in Ashland, where she earned her fine arts degree, then continued her education studying pastel with Harley Brown — the most significant influence on her work — and oil with Catherine Kehoe. She works from a studio in the hills of Southern Oregon near Phoenix, where she holds weekly figurative sessions and teaches private lessons and national workshops.

Her subject is the human figure, and her method is to paint shapes rather than objects. She often does not know what she is painting until those shapes cohere into a recognizable subject — a woman at a ball, two figures leaning toward each other, a person caught in a private moment. “Start with truth, then manipulate it,” she has said.

She held a solo exhibition “On Being Human” at Roby King Gallery on Bainbridge Island in September 2021. She has had twelve solo exhibitions and years of group shows and invitationals. Her work has been featured in Southwest Art magazine (February 2013 Emerging Artist), International Artist Magazine (August 2010), The Pastel Journal (2004 and 2025), and Pratique des Arts Magazine (June 2025). Her major recent awards include First Place at the 2024 International Association of Pastel Societies 44th Exhibition, Best of Show at the 2023 Northwest Pastel Society 37th International, and First Place in the 2025 Women Artists of the West 55th Master’s Division.

I am not an elaborate painter. I am more of a journalist who gets right to the point. Start with truth, then manipulate it. Often I do not know what I am painting — only the shapes I am painting. When all those shapes come together, it is a recognizable subject.