Like many other kids, Bridge Stehli grew up on a diet of fables, classical literature and violent cartoons many of which predominantly featured animals as protagonists and it was these influences which first encouraged Bridge to start painting personified animals. Now an adult, Bridge Stehli’s paintings portray a drug addled world where animals and humans are interchangeable, where animals adopt uniquely human behaviour, using weapons to hunt each other and developing drug addictions to escape boredom. However it’s using this human language that Bridge underlines the commonalties between the human world and the natural world. In Bridge’s paintings we see aspects of ourselves and of our friends and consequently we are reminded of the parallels that exist between our own social lives, hierarchies and instincts and those of animals.
By referencing some of her early influences, specifically writers such as Lewis Carol and cartoons from Disney and Warner Bros, Bridge explores the importance of animal personification within classical and contemporary culture and how some of these fictitious anthropomorphised figures relate to, impact and comment on the physical world.
Bridge Stehli is an internationally celebrated artist, exhibiting across Australia, Europe and the USA. She was co-curator and founder of the acclaimed Paste modernism exhibition in Sydney and has been featured in numerous publications including Empty, C.O.P and Curvy. Bridge has recently combined her loves for painting and skateboarding into a range of skateboard decks and has produced murals across Australia and London. Originally from Sydney, Bridge Stehli currently is based in London.