A self-taught muralist and advocate of multiculturalism, she has developed a style with visual references to Chilean political muralism such as the simplification of the figure, the use of broad paint strokes and filling of shapes using plain colours. Through her work, STFI ! represents the Latin American worldview, mainly symbolised by the female figure and nature.
Of Chilean origin, her career has developed primarily outside her country, as she took the festival circuit in different Latin American countries as a learning path between 2013 and 2018, in addition to her successful stay in Europe in 2019 with a series of outstanding murals. As a result of these journeys, the artist creates a discourse without frontiers and expands her technical knowledge, based on the direct references she has been able to gain during her career.
Since her first solo exhibition "Interior garden"
( Jardín interior, 2018) and "Florecer" (Flourish, 2021) at an art Gallery in Santiago de Chile, her work has taken a personal turn where naked bodies and eroticism become relevant.
“Self-knowledge and acceptance of human nature becomes an act of struggle and resistance to the standards of beauty imposed by established conventions. This personal recognition naturally drifts towards the community, and she maintains this approach in her present work”
STFI ! (Estefanía Leigthon) was born in 1988 in Santiago de Chile. Always eager to create and aware of her passion for the work, she belongs to a breed of exploring and committed artists who have embellished spaces of communities all over the world, by incorporating monumental murals filled with a powerful spirit of love for the earth and the exuberance of nature.
The artist's personal language has been built through the layers of her own itinerant life. Her journey begins through disciplines such as theatre and costume design, where she experimented with forms, techniques and materialities. These would organically lead her to intervene in urban settings such as the walls of her city, and then expand her feminine, yet universal iconography, to cities around the world.
Her interest in the ancestral knowledge of Latin American communities has led her to participate in art festivals in remote cities of Bolivia, Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and Peru. In these experiences, she has connected with makers of almost extinct disciplines, creating lasting bonds with the communities where her murals are part of the daily life of thousands of people, for whom the impact of Stefi Leighton's work has become a bridge to a dimension of profound beauty and reverence for life itself.