Ramona Stelzer
Ramona Stelzer is a German-born abstract painter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, whose large-scale floral works explore transformation, resilience, and the quiet strength that emerges through change. Working primarily in acrylic on canvas, often beginning with a loose charcoal sketch before building up in layers of acrylics and spray paint, Stelzer treats her flowers not as literal subjects but as evolving, abstracted forms: living symbols of persistence and renewal. "People think I paint flowers," she has said, "but I'm not painting flowers. I paint humans." For Stelzer, the fragility and resilience found in a bloom mirror the same qualities in the people around her; "we are beautiful, resilient, and powerful beings," she says, "capable of blooming even in the face of adversity."
Stelzer's process is intuitive and physical, built through layering, revision, and what she describes as "moments of surrender." Working on a grand scale, she paints to music, letting rhythm and movement guide her body before the brush follows. "Painting on a large scale is my passion," she has said. "It's a dance where my entire body moves, expressing feelings and thoughts through layers and colors." She resists convention in her handling of material, embracing rather than correcting the accidents of her own process: "I've been told you cannot do this, that it smudges, but I don't care. I use the smudge. I even go in with my hand and smudge it more."
Stelzer grew up in Germany's Black Forest region, within what she describes as a complex family environment that taught her early to rely on herself and trust her own instincts. She first picked up a paintbrush in 2002, after leaving a career as a hairstylist to raise her two sons, and held her debut solo exhibition, Roses, at Gallery Pinocchio in Weil-Ötlingen, Germany, in 2004: drawing the attention of the local press. She went on to pursue formal art education at Art School Quichi in 2009, while continuing to run her own hairstyling business. In 2011, Stelzer and her family relocated to California's Silicon Valley, and her art practice was paused as she rebuilt her business in the Bay Area, until the COVID-19 pandemic closed it in 2020, bringing her back to painting for good. "I have to paint flowers again," she recalls realizing. "It's calling me." By 2023, a residency with the Cubberley Artist Studio Program in Palo Alto helped push her work toward the fuller abstraction that defines her practice today.
Since returning to painting, Stelzer held her first solo exhibition, Evoked by Emotions, at the International Art Museum of America, San Francisco, in 2022, the same year her work was shown at the Salon International d'Art Contemporain at the Carrousel du Louvre, Paris, and featured across three issues of Vanity Fair UK. She has since exhibited with Mash Gallery in Los Angeles, and held a solo booth at The Other Art Fair, Santa Monica, represented by Saatchi Art. She has been represented by galleries from Quebec, Canada, to Padua, Italy. Her work was included in the 2024 Netflix series, Selling Sunset, and featured in Punch Magazine, House & Garden Magazine UK, Chicago Weekly's "Top 10 Artists of 2024," Art New York Magazine, and the Arts to Hearts Project, and is included in the hardcover anthology Artists of the Year 2025.
Ramona Stelzer is a German-born abstract painter based in the San Francisco Bay Area, whose large-scale floral works explore transformation, resilience, and the quiet strength that emerges through change. Working primarily in acrylic on canvas, often beginning with a loose charcoal sketch before building up in layers of acrylics and spray paint, Stelzer treats her flowers not as literal subjects but as evolving, abstracted forms: living symbols of persistence and renewal. "People think I paint flowers," she has said, "but I'm not painting flowers. I paint humans." For Stelzer, the fragility and resilience found in a bloom mirror the same qualities in the people around her; "we are beautiful, resilient, and powerful beings," she says, "capable of blooming even in the face of adversity."
Stelzer's process is intuitive and physical, built through layering, revision, and what she describes as "moments of surrender." Working on a grand scale, she paints to music, letting rhythm and movement guide her body before the brush follows. "Painting on a large scale is my passion," she has said. "It's a dance where my entire body moves, expressing feelings and thoughts through layers and colors." She resists convention in her handling of material, embracing rather than correcting the accidents of her own process: "I've been told you cannot do this, that it smudges, but I don't care. I use the smudge. I even go in with my hand and smudge it more."
Stelzer grew up in Germany's Black Forest region, within what she describes as a complex family environment that taught her early to rely on herself and trust her own instincts. She first picked up a paintbrush in 2002, after leaving a career as a hairstylist to raise her two sons, and held her debut solo exhibition, Roses, at Gallery Pinocchio in Weil-Ötlingen, Germany, in 2004: drawing the attention of the local press. She went on to pursue formal art education at Art School Quichi in 2009, while continuing to run her own hairstyling business. In 2011, Stelzer and her family relocated to California's Silicon Valley, and her art practice was paused as she rebuilt her business in the Bay Area, until the COVID-19 pandemic closed it in 2020, bringing her back to painting for good. "I have to paint flowers again," she recalls realizing. "It's calling me." By 2023, a residency with the Cubberley Artist Studio Program in Palo Alto helped push her work toward the fuller abstraction that defines her practice today.
Since returning to painting, Stelzer held her first solo exhibition, Evoked by Emotions, at the International Art Museum of America, San Francisco, in 2022, the same year her work was shown at the Salon International d'Art Contemporain at the Carrousel du Louvre, Paris, and featured across three issues of Vanity Fair UK. She has since exhibited with Mash Gallery in Los Angeles, and held a solo booth at The Other Art Fair, Santa Monica, represented by Saatchi Art. She has been represented by galleries from Quebec, Canada, to Padua, Italy. Her work was included in the 2024 Netflix series, Selling Sunset, and featured in Punch Magazine, House & Garden Magazine UK, Chicago Weekly's "Top 10 Artists of 2024," Art New York Magazine, and the Arts to Hearts Project, and is included in the hardcover anthology Artists of the Year 2025.