Katie Steward’s paintings explore the pursuit of happiness in a world that often feels relentlessly heavy. Transforming the architecture and flora of California into idealized environments, she draws on the visual language of California modernist design—midcentury buildings, bold geometries, striking facades, and colorful details—reframed through saturated color, smooth gradients, and tactile surfaces.

Each work exists at the intersection of polish and presence. Gradient skies evoke the seamless clarity of design, while thick, textured brushwork exposes the imperfection of paint and the humanity of the hand. This interplay defines her process, while her palette and subjects connect the paintings to the city pop aesthetic of the 1980s: bright, playful, and slightly surreal.

Steward approaches these subjects not because they are free of complexity, but because they contain it. Happiness never arrives untouched by other emotions; even in moments of lightness, sadness and ambiguity remain nearby. Her paintings hold that contradiction without resolving it—treating happiness as something imperfect, colorful, and worth pursuing, even when it feels just out of reach.