Stickney-Gibson's work is distinguished by several strong characteristics, chief among which is the remarkable vitality which her works possess. In studying her paintings, works on paper and objects, it is impossible not to be struck by the numerous dualities that exist within her sensibility - the anxious, sometimes even violent, gesture coexisting with painterly passages which speak of quietude and invite contemplation; the manner in which her iconography both analyzes the process and content of painting and poeticizes it; the intensely personal nature of the mark-making (which can make the viewer feel as though he has inadvertently begun reading a stranger's diary).

Perhaps it is the encyclopedic way in which she intertwines the duality of light and dark colors within her works which provides a convincing visual analogue for the juxtapositions of abruptly different emotional moods within an individual work, while at the same time constituting an architecture which holds together these often complex compositions.