Madrigal (“Maddie”) Stansell is a contemporary artist and the creator of Art unBlocks, a game designed to help artists break out of art block.

Maddie’s work is evolving, but one thing that remains consistent is her passion for storytelling and her pursuit to capture the magic of the human experience—the good and the bad. She does this in a few ways, but usually by juxtaposing two things: tackling a dark theme with childlike wonder; honoring every-day, 21^st century objects that are otherwise boring, but become full of life and reverence on the canvas; and being strategic about how she composes her work to give the viewer a feeling of relief that light is finally breaking through darkness.

As a teenager, Maddie went through a few years with back-to-back-to-back traumatic events and had completely shut down. It wasn’t until she started college and found a therapist to work through everything that she started to heal. This therapist had a background in mythological studies and helped her work through her past through the lens of Greek Mythology. Maddie felt like she wasn’t just some kid, she was Persephone herself. And the pain and the sadness she felt wasn’t new, she was and is—at a soul level—connected to her fellow human through the ages. This revelation colors her work and pushes her to paint beautiful, deep stories that make the viewer feel seen, or lighter in some way– even if they don’t realize how or why. Maddie’s art captures the magic of the human experience through painted allegory.