NOW ON DISPLAY

farm to field: ECHOES OF HOME

An Exhibition by Belena Stuart Marquez

Curated by Valerie Y. Acosta-González

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Abstract painting divided by white geometric lines into triangular and rectangular sections. The upper area blends blues, turquoise, and yellow with textured brushstrokes; the lower area features layered greens suggesting land or foliage. A small tan circular shape appears in the upper right. Acrylic, gold leaf, and chrome ink on canvas.
Mountain Meadows (2026) — Acrylic, Gold Leaf, Chrome Ink, 20″×20″

In this collection, Veteran artist Belena Stuart-Marquez draws on the landscape as a form of emotional cartography—mapping the terrain of memory, displacement, and return. Raised in the farmlands of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, she learned to orient herself by the ridge lines: constant, unhurried, indifferent to the passage of time. When she deployed to Afghanistan, she brought that instinct with her.

 

In the military, to be deployed “in the field” means to be in an austere environment, to combat in a place with no front lines, and to face the reality of a war zone in a foreign land. In Afghanistan, Stuart-Marquez found mountains full of yellows and golds in contrast to Virginia’s blues and greens, but the shapes were familiar. On foot patrols through desert farmlands and bazaars, convoys to small villages, and over chai with local leaders, Marquez encountered echoes of the world she had left behind: gigantic sunflowers instead of prickly roses, pomegranates instead of apples, chukar partridges instead of chickens. Unfamiliar colors holding familiar forms.

 

Farm to Field pairs the agricultural landscape of the Blue Ridge against memories of her deployment to rural Afghanistan, and in the process, it honors the parallels that sustained her. What emerges is not a record of conflict but a meditation of what endures —the stolid presence of mountains, the persistence of growing things, the quiet comfort of terrain that does not shift easily.

 

More than a decade of distance has given Stuart-Marquez permission to revisit the desert not through the urgency of a patrol but with quiet observance of the gentler side of that experience. Working in watercolor, acrylic, pastels, paper, and sand, she moves us through a spectrum of sensations so that we may see the comforting nature of a landscape that can outlast any season of conflict.

 

Just as dust storms slowly and gradually redraw the topography of Afghanistan’s mountains, her work redraws the narrative of her own experience. Farm to Field: Echoes of Home is an act of reclamation of the delicate details that war obscures, and of the enduring feelings that connect us to home in the midst of war.

 

Valerie Y. Acosta González
Curator

Close‑up portrait of artist Belena Stuart Marquez with curly dark hair and brown eyes, softly lit against a dark background. Her face is centered and in sharp focus.

Maj. (Ret) Belena Stuart Marquez commissioned into the United States Air Force in 2008 from the Virginia Women’s Institute for Leadership at Mary Baldwin College. She served as a Public Affairs officer until her retirement in 2021.

Her notable assignments include deployment to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, serving as the Media Operations Officer for Air Force Special Operations Command, and work for the Secretary of the Air Force’s Public Affairs Plans and Strategies Division.

Notable decorations include the Bronze Star Medal, the Meritorious Service Medal. She is currently petitioning for the award of the Purple Heart Medal due to injuries she received in combat.

Contact the artist:  eMail  |  Instagram

Past Exhibits

2025

Warriors: From Survival to Creation

Exhibit Home

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