Magic Hour

Steph Costello is a Brooklyn artist who uses painting and drawing to explore how we navigate space, find home, and reimagine the urban environment.

Her work “Barceloneta” is featured in our inaugural exhibition opening September 17. This is one of four of her works in the show.

Barceloneta
Steph Costello
Gouache & pen on paper on aluminum panel
16” x 12”
2026

Steph Costello’s work explores memory, place, and the emotional connections we form with familiar surroundings. In “Barceloneta”, Costello draws from her experiences in Barcelona, a city she frequently returns to in her dreams. Through reconstructing and reimagining images of the city, she creates a space where past, present, and imagined experiences can coexist.

The work reflects Costello’s interest in how places live within our memories and how they can be revisited through imagination. *Barceloneta* becomes both a reconstruction of a familiar place and a way of returning to somewhere she has known, or may know again in the future.

Steph’s work will be on view at Magic Hour Gallery, 661 W. Lake St, opening September 17 during Chicago Exhibition Week, September 14 to 20.

Free and open to the public. On view through December.

@stephcostellostudio @chicagoexhibitionweek @gertie.chicago