Ana Stapleton Painting Exhibit Opening at Red & White Gallery March 7

A ustin’s Ana Stapleton will exhibit “Persona,” her colorful and insightful paintings, at the Red & White Gallery opening Saturday, March 7, from 3-6 p.m. Ana will be in attendance.

“My paintings are stories told in color — bold, unafraid, and steeped in memory,” states Ana. “Growing up along the Texas–Mexico border, I lived at a cultural crossroads where language, rhythm, and imagery danced together. That in between space shaped me: the cadence of Spanish and English, the richness of Mexican tradition, and the wide skies of Texas became inseparable parts of my vision.”

Ana’s career has spanned the realms of art, film, hospitality, and design. She graduated from Duke University with a minor in art, which would eventually become the backbone of her careers. After obtaining a law degree from the University of Texas, she changed course and joined a ceramicist in East Austin and then worked non-stop on feature films (Miss Congeniality and All the Pretty Horses to name a couple) for more than a decade. She moved to Playa del Carmen, Mexico at one point to work on design driven hotel projects. She became the design liaison for the hotel group and interior designer, working on an array of projects that included luxury model villas and spas. When Ana returned to Austin, she moved from film work to sourcing and curating art, accessories, and furniture for hospitality projects such as Hotel Ella and the South Congress Hotel in Austin.

After Ana’s children left for college, she returned to her original passions, painting and writing. She opened a small studio and began to express herself through vibrant, story forward paintings that echo the cultural mash up of her childhood on the Texas-Mexico border. Song lyrics, idioms, and dreams are woven into the stories she tells on canvas. Agaves, alter egos, cowgirls, luck, and the lived female experience play recurring roles.

“When I paint, I draw not only on memory but on words — the poetry of songs, fragments of dreams, and idioms from both sides of the Rio Grande,” Ana writes. “I return often to the image of women, not as static icons but as figures in motion — balancing, daring, evolving and claiming space. In this way, painting becomes a practice of storytelling and freedom, one where fragments of heritage, myth, and lived experience coalesce into something new.”

Many of Ana’s paintings come with additional insight in the form of a written caption. For her painting “Ofrenda del Desierto” she writes, “This piece honors an imagined self that shows up fully rooted, powerful and alive to the landscape that formed her.” For the painting “Pistolera,” she writes, “Pistolera means gunslinger. The Spanish term is also used to describe getting oneself out of a tight spot, with or without a gun. This piece is a nod to the bravery and resourcefulness we all have within.”

For more insight into Ana’s paintings, come and meet her at the “Persona” opening at the Red & White Gallery on Saturday, March 7 from 3-6 p.m.

For more information, call (713) 824-9433 or visit www. redandwhitegalleryonline. com.