ABOUT THE ARTIST
Oceana Rain Stuart is a master of figurative bronze sculpture, a poet and an author from the San Francisco Bay Area. She studied at California College of the Arts on a full scholarship, majoring in fashion design and fine art with a minor in writing, literature and ecological practices. Her work explores realism, symbolism and emotional presence through the human form.
LUNAR LEGACY
Twenty-two works by Stuart, along with a portrait of the artist beside her sculpture Woman from the Moon, have been digitally archived on the lunar surface through the Lunar Codex and LifeShip initiatives. These works were included by invitation, selected for artistic and cultural relevance.
Her sculpture Reminiscence was part of the Codex Nova mission, carried aboard Intuitive Machines’ Nova-C lander Odysseus (IM-1), which landed on the Moon’s South Pole on February 22, 2024. This mission marked the first American commercial soft landing on the Moon since Apollo 17 in 1972.
Additional works were included in the Codex Serenity mission, transported by Firefly Aerospace’s Blue Ghost lander in collaboration with LifeShip’s Pyramid capsule. These projects use nanofiche technology to archive contemporary creative work for long-term preservation.
Stuart’s book Enigma, along with twenty-three of her sculptures, is also included in upcoming lunar and deep space missions, including an asteroid flyby. These landing sites are recognized as Heritage Sites under the Artemis Accords.
PUBLISHED BOOK
Stuart is the author of Enigma, a memoir and art monograph published by Snap Collective in 2025. The book includes her poetry, autobiographical reflections, and a selection of her sculptural work.
EXHIBITIONS AND RECOGNITION
Stuart’s traveling solo exhibition Enigma premiered at the Haggin Museum in Stockton, California in 2025 and continues to tour. The exhibition features over a decade of sculptural work, poetry, and her contributions to lunar and deep space missions, presented in dialogue with her published book.
Her work has been shown in over 100 international exhibitions, including the Louvre in Paris, France; the Leonardo da Vinci Society in San Francisco, California; the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, California; the Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, Ohio; the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art in Wausau, Wisconsin; and the Salmagundi Art Club in New York, New York.
She has served on the boards of the American Artists Professional League and American Women Artists and is an elected member of the National Sculpture Society, Allied Artists of America, and the American Artists Professional League. She has served as the juror for national and international exhibitions, including the 2022 AAPL National Exhibition and the Boynes Artist Award International Residency.
Sculptor Oceana Rain Stuart
with her Woman from the Moon bronze sculpture
TEACHING
Stuart teaches annually in her private Sausalito studio, offering an intensive sculpture workshop focused on figurative and portrait work from life. Her approach draws from classical methods and emphasizes observation, measurement, and emotional presence in form. In addition to teaching, she offers consultation and mentorship for professional artists seeking guidance in sculpture, exhibition development, and career strategy.
PUBLICATIONS
Her work has appeared in Fine Art Connoisseur, Beautiful Bizarre, Southwest Art, The Guide Artists, On Art and Aesthetics, Italo Americano, Light Space and Time, and Anuario Arte y Libertad XVI. She is also featured in Leonardo: A Book of International Art Masters, Masters of Contemporary Fine Art Volume 3, The New York Optimist, Channel 2 News, and Fox News.
AWARDS
Stuart has been named a finalist by Beautiful Bizarre in 2019 and 2024, the Art Renewal Center from 2019 to 2024, and the Portrait Society of America in 2021 and 2022. She received the 2022 ICON Award from the Los Angeles Beverly Arts and was pre-selected for the Figurativas competition at the Museum of Modern Art Barcelona (MEAM) in 2017, 2021, and 2022.Additional awards include the Ranieri Sculpture Award from the Allied Artists of America, the Board of Directors Award from the American Artists Professional League, Art Lovers Choice from the California Art Club, Blink Art’s Figurative Artist of the Year, and the Alizarin Award at the Representational Figurative Art Conference.
COLLECTIONS
Stuart’s work is held in public and private collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art in Catania, Sicily; the Lunar Codex; LifeShip; the Haegeumgang Theme Museum in South Korea; as well as private international collections including Hollywood notables.
