Joann Amitrano began her artistic career in 1986, creating wearable art from beads and found objects. As time went on, she ventured into working with metals and would specialize in sculptural wire work jewelry and unique home decor art pieces. She creates what she feels and works in many mediums. She is currently creating artwork that combines her photographs within her paintings. The combination of an abstract painting and a familiar place in a photo come together to create a semi-abstract landscape.
Driven by the desire to document the ever-changing environment around her, Joann began cataloguing as many of the changes as she could. Through her lens, she ensures these places, people, and times won’t be forgotten. While bearing witness to, and capturing the transformations of entire neighborhoods and the complexities of the landscape, she also finds the source of her next mixed media painting. Her belief is that photographs serve as a living journal, and that change is the one constant in life.
The street art of AURAxDR is the work of an established artist and musician who needed an anonymous space to share his deeper reflections of life and emotion. His works evoke a mood or a meditative state.
Throughout the duration of the exhibition, the artists hosted a raffle, offering a chance to win an original artwork by AURAxDR. With a minimum $5 donation, visitors had the chance to add their own creative touch to a collaborative canvas. (Art supplies were provided.) On the last day of the exhibit, AURAxDR added his signature “AURA” image to the completed piece. Lucky raffle entrant, KB, got to take home this unique work of art! All proceeds were donated to the Gowanus Dredgers and their amazing community programming. Thank you Joann and AURAxDR!
