Stefania Tejada (b. 1990, Tuluá, Colombia) is a Colombian artist based in Paris whose practice explores the complexities of womanhood in—and from—Latin America. Her work navigates the layered intersections of race, class, gender, and cultural memory, offering a critical reflection on identity, representation, and belonging. Through evocative compositions, Tejada challenges hegemonic narratives, weaving personal histories into broader cultural dialogues.

At the heart of her visual language lies a profound connection to nature. Her compositions, dense with the lush vegetation of her territorial lineage, evoke the wilderness as an extension of the self—a living embodiment of ancestral forces. Nature emerges as mother, sanctuary, and sovereign entity, echoing the Andean archetype of Pachamama, revered as a life-giving and life-sustaining force. Within this sacred framework, Tejada’s female figures reclaim a primordial state of being, subverting mechanisms of power, reconfiguring representations of femininity, and affirming their place within narratives of belonging. Her symbolic use of natural elements draws from Indigenous cosmologies, functioning as visions, echoes, and encoded messages that bridge personal memory with collective heritage.

Tejada’s work is further enriched by her transnational journey. Each cultural landscape—Colombia, Mexico, the United States, Barcelona, and now France—has offered distinct perspectives, deepening her exploration of identity, displacement, and hybridity. This constant navigation between geographies and worldviews infuses her practice with a layered sensibility, where personal narratives merge with broader social and geopolitical dynamics. Fashion plays a central role in her visual storytelling; garments become instruments of subversion and reclamation, disrupting societal codes of power, status, and identity, while restoring visibility to historically marginalized figures.

A self-taught artist, Tejada’s approach is marked by an intuitive yet deeply thoughtful engagement with visual culture. Her background in fashion design (LaSalle College, 2012) has profoundly shaped her sensitivity to form, texture, and symbolism, informing her unique visual language.

At its essence, Tejada’s work is a meditative exploration of memory and the eternal enigma of womanhood. Dissociating from her own image, she adopts symbolic masks and layered personas, revisiting her narrative through a process of scientific, spiritual, and emotional inquiry. Each painting becomes an intimate act of reflection, a reconstruction of belonging, and a profound dialogue with the forces that shaped her. Through this relentless examination, Tejada seeks to understand not only herself but also the woman who gave her life—the origin, the mystery, the mother.