Currently on view throughout June 2026 at Robert Lange Studios in Charleston, South Carolina is artist Denise Stewart-Sanabria's solo exhibition, "Paradise Found."

Created during the quiet depths of winter, Paradise Found emerges from the artist’s desire to conjure the feeling of spring during her least favorite season. Beginning each new series in December, Stewart-Sanabria treats the work as an act of optimism, a return of light, even when the studio is cold and the outside world feels distant from renewal.

“Whenever I start a series of work in December, I want it to feel like spring,” says Stewart-Sanabria. “December is my least favorite time of year, and I always see the beginning of January as the return of the light. Even if there’s a polar vortex and my studio is forty-five degrees, it doesn’t matter.”

The paintings weave together a playful yet layered dialogue between European cultural history and American vernacular traditions. Stewart-Sanabria frequently draws inspiration from the opulence and contradictions of eighteenth-century France, particularly the era of Versailles and the Reign of Terror. While the monarchy that supported the arts during this period was deeply flawed, its patronage produced a flourishing of architecture, design, painting, and confectionary excess that continues to influence visual culture today.

Borrowing from this history, the artist incorporates visual references to figures such as Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun and Jean-Honoré Fragonard, often placing their classical imagery alongside distinctly American treats and symbols—from French macarons to Whoopie Pies and Moon Pies. Through these unexpected juxtapositions, Stewart-Sanabria asks how cultures from different centuries and continents interact and reinterpret one another.

Her process is equally inventive. Using an eclectic collection of objects—from vintage ceramic flamingos and Marie Antoinette doll bodies to dinosaur salt-and-pepper shakers and miniature figures inspired by Bosch and Dalí—the artist stages elaborate tabletop scenes that become the foundation for her paintings.

“I have bins of random ceramic figures,” Stewart-Sanabria explains. “They range from tourist flamingos and Marie Antoinette doll bodies to animals, dinosaurs, and characters from Bosch and Dalí paintings. I build landscapes for them to perform their dramas in—planting produce in snack cakes and making ponds with pastry glaze.”

Gallery owner and artist Robert Lange notes that the exhibition captures a sense of playful curiosity layered with deeper historical reflection. “Denise has a remarkable ability to blend humor, art history, and cultural commentary into a single image,” Lange says. “These paintings invite viewers into imaginative worlds that feel both whimsical and thoughtful at the same time.”

Saturated with vibrant color and bold compositional contrasts, the paintings in Paradise Found ultimately aim to offer viewers a sense of joy and possibility. Stewart-Sanabria hopes audiences will find their own narratives within the work. “I want viewers to connect and come up with their own creative interpretations of what might be happening in the paintings,” she says. “Almost everything is saturated with color theory that I hope injects some level of hope or joy.”