Stephanie M. Santana (b. Los Angeles, CA) is a textile artist, printmaker and designer whose work investigates Afrodiasporic wayfinding and resistance strategies. Through the lens of cyclical time, Santana examines recurring events and ideological flashpoints in American history, tracing Black matriarchal legacies of knowledge stewardship. Her practice is guided by an instinctive, research-based approach—working associatively with archival material and layered craft techniques to construct map-like compositions that explore fugitivity, countersurveillance, and the psychic and spatial artifacts of intergenerational memory.
Recent solo exhibitions include Call & Response at A.I.R. Gallery, Brooklyn, NY (2025), Ways of Knowing at The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA (2024) and The Armory Show, New York, NY (2024). Santana’s work has been included in group exhibitions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Penland School of Craft, Penland; among others. Her work is held in permanent collections that include Whitney Museum of American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Library of Congress and Getty Research Institute.
Santana is the recipient of several fellowships, residencies and awards, including the NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship (2023), Kahn/Mason SIP Fellowship with EFA Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop (2023), A.I.R. Gallery Fellowship (2024-25), BRIClab Contemporary Art Residency (2024-25), and the Dieu Donné Workspace Residency (2025). Her work has been featured in publications such as The New York Times, The American Scholar and Hyperallergic.
Santana is a founding member of printmaking collective Black Women of Print. She lives and works in New York.