Steph Lasater is a multimedia artist based in Bellingham, Washington where she earned her BA in Studio Art and a Minor in Art History at Western Washington University. She was born and raised in Vail, Colorado, which has influenced much of her work. Experiencing and watching her loved ones battle with mental health and toxic social dynamics, she has dedicated her work to spotlighting mental disorders and trauma. Lasater grew up surrounded by art—from Beaver Creek and the Town of Vail’s various galleries and sculpture displays, and frequent visits to the Denver Art Museum, art was an early, integrated part of her personality. Lasater’s work is heavily influenced by the colors of Impressionists, and the realism and lighting exhibited in the Renaissance and Enlightenment eras, modernizing the subject into the now much more common mental health conversation. She uses her experiences with emotional, physical, and sexual trauma to criticize the romanticism of mental health issues and make those who relate to her traumas feel seen in her large-format portraits, driven by color and symbolism.
Lasater's work incorporates painting, drawing, and photography. She focuses her practice around mental health and the difficulties surrounding the human condition, including mood and personality disorders, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Lasater primarily uses her own portrait at the forefront of her work, acting as an insight into her mind, focusing on the realistic while melding painterly imagery in her backgrounds. Drawing from lived experience, Lasater uses her own struggles with suicidal ideation in her practice. This work seeks to call out lackluster resources and the stigmatization of those facing mental illness, trauma, and addiction. Her work shines a light on the uncomfortable and everyday lives of the chronically mentally ill, while using aesthetic imagery to comment on the romanticism of trauma, depression, and darkness.