Featured Artist: Fay Sciarra
Fay Sciarra's distinctive paintings are heartfelt and imaginative. Bold colors, intricate patterns, unexpected details, and a lack of perspective, characterize her intensely decorative style. She calls it "whimsy with an edge" or "sophisticated naïve". Sciarra, who lives and works in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, is a self-taught painter. She discovered her calling as an artist 12 years ago, after a successful career as a television producer out West.
Fay paints on canvas as well as found objects (ironing boards, washboards, architectural salvage pieces, windows), virtually anything that inspires her at neighboring flea markets and antique shops. She’s also published limited edition "giclees" of many of her most popular paintings, available on both watercolor paper and canvas.
To read more about Fay - Click Here
My life's journey is the raw material of my work, its subjects taken from the seemingly mundane details of
domestic life. The paintings are autobiographical narratives and interior
scenes of my literal and figurative place in the world, a place where the everyday may become extraordinary.
Deeply personal and just plain fun, Sciarra's work has been shown nationally in such
galleries as:
NBC's Today Show (May 2001) also featured Sciarra
in a profile as part of their Living Your Dream Series.
"Folky and funky, from subject to composition to materials used, this art is born of a
natural talent that resonates in every piece. Sciarra offers a dizzying array of
images with a colorful, dreamlike confluence that draws you in immediately to a
world that is familiar, yet strange. On the flip side, some paintings are
filled with a homey warmth that even the most jaded aesthete would surrender
to on sight. There is also a nod to Outsider Art in the sheer intricacy of
every scene Sciarra offers and the mythic, private atmosphere of even her
most domestic works. Yet there=s a wink, as her humor is filled with innocent
joy rather than any obsessive disconnect with reality, as is the case with
so much Outsider Art."
Robert Strauss, Philadelphia Style
A Statement from Fay
After my mother's death from ovarian cancer 14 years ago, I decided to follow her suggestion that I paint.
Although I had studied art history in college, and had a career as a television producer for almost a decade,
I’d never held a paint brush before. I discovered that painting was therapy for me, a way of mothering myself...a form of meditation.
I also realized,... it was my calling.
The focus of my work is my own life journey. Some of my paintings are autobiographical scenes of my home life
and studio. The style is often labeled, "naïve", but the layers of meaning are anything but. Perhaps
because I’m self taught, there’s an "outsider" quality to them. I consider Joan Brown, Frida Kahlo,
Chagall, Romare Bearden, Florine Stetheimer, Matisse, Bonnard, Milton Avery, Wayne Thiebaud, Betye
Saar and Niki de Saint Phalle my greatest influences.
I am often adventurous and unexpected with my materials. About half of my work is painted on
recycled objects such as sleds, ironing boards, architectural salvage items, old windows and doors,
washboards, bellows, antique frames which I fit with glass and paint on the reverse. In my
mixed media collages I sometimes use fabric, magazine clippings, vintage advertisements, buttons,
beads, vintage clothing, lace, valentines, rhinestones, and whatever else I find that inspires me.
My aim is to have the courage to reveal myself and what moves me, and to
make the personal universal. The playful whimsical style celebrates beauty and
romance, kindness and healing, as well as the feminine. I infuse my creations with
narratives and materials associated with the womanly: home, love, heart, beauty
and decoration. I want my work to "make people smile", feel less alone, think,
and believe in the inherent goodness in us all.
You can see more of Fay's Work by visiting her website at www.faysciarra.com
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