FOUNDER & PRINCIPAL

Stephanie Eche is a Mexican-American artist based in Brooklyn, NYC with roots in Arizona. She creates sculptures and paintings to investigate her mestizo heritage, explore motherhood, and preserve memories. She is the founder and principal of Distill Creative, host of the First Coat podcast, and behind-the-scenes at Communer. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband, daughter, and two cats. She has a BA from the University of Southern California.

Eche has had a solo exhibition at eeeee in Mexico City, MX and has participated in group exhibitions at galleries throughout the USA, including Transmitter Gallery in Brooklyn, NY, Untitled Space in Manhattan, NY, Maake Projects in State College, PA, and Form and Concept in Santa Fe, NM. Eche’s work has been written about in Vantage Art Projects, Artsy, Art Spiel, and Hola Cultura. Eche has been a teaching artist for the Center for Urban Pedagogy, the SU-CASA program in Lower Manhattan, Root Division, and the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts in San Francisco, CA. She was a Creative Community Fellow with National Arts Strategies and a Healthy Places Network Leader for Urban Land Institute.

Eche combines her experience in tech, marketing, and design with her community-building and art consulting skills for a unique approach to placekeeping and placemaking. Prior to founding Distill Creative, she was the placemaking manager at Vornado & JBG Smith focused on the Crystal City area of Northern Virginia.

Eche has helped grow start-up tech and e-commerce companies including Betabrand, 2U, and Nesting Days. After working in the digital world, Stephanie became interested in physical space and transitioned into real estate. She was part of the team at Vornado/JBG Smith that worked on transforming Crystal City, VA into a viable area for tech companies and worked on community-oriented activations and development. She's been through two IPOs (2U, JBG Smith) and has lived and worked in San Francisco, Los Angeles, DC, Phoenix, and Bilbao, Spain.