“I paint the world I feel with the unseen colors of my emotions onto the canvas of reality, creating a vivid tapestry that speaks my inner truth.” - .J.S.

Johanna is a contemporary artist whose work explores emotion, perception, and the space between abstraction and the recognizable form. Born and raised in Ottawa, Canada, she earned her BFA with honors from SUNY Plattsburgh in New York, with focus in painting and drawing. Her Life an artistic practice have since spanned different countries and cultural environments, informing and evolving visual language that is deeply personal yet open to interpretation.

Working through primarily painting, Stavrakaki approaches each canvas intuitively. Rather than adhering to a predetermined outcome. she allows color, line, form and gesture to develop through the process itself. Elements are layered, altered and sometimes disrupted, creating a tension between control and spontaneity, structure and abstraction. The recognizable is often retained only when its feels essential.

Color is central to her practice. Used with freedom and intensity, it becomes a language through which internal states can take physical form. Light and darkness, reality and dream, vulnerability and strength coexist throughout her work, creating compositions that carry both visual weight and emotional charge.

At the heart of Stavrakaki’s practice is an interest in translating experiences that are difficult to articulate into something visible. Her paintings do not seek to prescribe a single narrative"; instead, they create a space for viewers to encounter the work through their own emotions, memories, and perceptions.

johanna@sthenos.com