FAY SCIARRA ARTIST'S STATEMENT

After my mother's death from ovarian cancer in the early 1990's, I decided to follow her suggestion to paint. I'd never taken an art class, but I minored in Art History, and as a television producer, I knew how to frame an interesting shot and tell a visual story.

To my astonishment, paintings flowed easily from my hand. I’d found my calling and people started to ask to buy my work.

At first, my subject matter was a pictorial diary of domestic life, imaginary interiors, and whimsical scenarios I would dream up. My style was naive, bold, meticulously detailed with a flattened perspective. I found my teachers in Frida Kahlo, Joan Brown, Chagall and Matisse. I still paint these things, but in a sparer more contemporary graphic style.

Over the years, my love of flea markets and antique stores influenced my art. I started painting on washboards, ironing boards, vintage windows, and sleds. I collected lace, wallpaper, sheet music, clock faces, buttons, and more. I discovered glue and epoxy. About half my work now is collage and assemblage and it evolves spontaneously like jazz.

Objects give me ideas of themes I want to explore: Aging and cosmetic surgery (“Vanity”, Dressform series); the tension of opposites- life/death, soft/hard, the moment/infinity (Longhorn skull series); disparate things like fur & violins (Fuzzy Violin Series) I look to Robert Rahway Zakanitch, Niki de Saint Phalle and Betye Saar on this path.