Joyanna Rose Gittings
Artist
There is almost nothing I’d rather be occupied with than putting color on something. Painting, dying, drawing, markering, embroidering, writing colorful images in poetry… even putting legos together and making something colorful that wasn’t before is a thrill. Paint is the best of all because it can transform almost anything. I love to see and feel a brush spreading a spark of life across a crisp piece of white paper or a grimy wall. I love to spray an old worn piece of furniture into glorious chromatic submission or sculpt paper or clay or trash and transform them into magical legendary creatures with paint. I have loved paint for as long as I can remember. For me, paint finds a way.
Artist Statement
It is interesting to me how telling the truth may not always convey what's real, and likewise realistic images do not tell the whole truth, so I find myself using abstraction to paint more accurately what I remember and long for. I am influenced by Franz Marc’s colors, Georgia O'Keefe’s flow and focus on making small details large, Kahlo and Carrington’s Mexican Surrealism, and Maxfield Parrish’s symbolism and storytelling. I like to incorporate contours of the human figure because what is more familiar to us than our own bodies?
Watercolor is my favorite painting medium for its raw simplicity and unpredictability, like human nature, and I do so adore humans.. It requires tending, not control, and reminds me to be tolerant and patient.
I am a bilingual community- based artist which means I actively seek out opportunities to teach or bring people of differing language backgrounds into spaces that had been unfamiliar or unwelcoming to them, or to create pieces for community events; all are ways I find to employ art as a life- enhancing force in real, everyday situations here where I live.
Artist’s Bio…
Joyanna Rose Gittings was born in 1975 in Zanesville, Ohio and is the eldest of 5 children in a tight-knit extended family, living for the majority of her childhood in Bloomville, Ohio. She began to study art in secondary school, focusing on clay and scenic painting. A love of Spanish language and culture drove her to pursue study abroad, and she was placed with a family on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands of Spain. The experience of living as a foreigner in another country made a deep impression, and has enabled her to feel solidarity with others experiencing the same. She eventually graduated with a BFA in Technical Theatre with a focus on Scenic and Costume design from the University of Cincinnati College- Conservatory of Music in 1998.
She took a leave from artistic practice to focus on raising her four children, moving from Ohio to Colorado in 2010, until 2015 when she began to focus again on art. Beginning in watercolor, she expanded into murals, public art, and multimedia installation. Presently, she is a community- based bilingual artist who makes contemplative work about personal narratives, combining watercolor in new ways with various other 2D and 3D media and language.
Her subject matter portrays the tenderness, empathy, and delight we hunger for in a capitalist society, encouraging us to slow down. She draws upon the works of Georgia O'Keefe, Leonora Carrington, Franz Kafka, Maxfield Parrish, and Tracey Emin as influences.
She founded Obra Arts Studio and Gallery in 2018 in the heart of the downtown creative district in Longmont, Colorado. Obra Arts is a flexible, bilingual space encompassing studio, gallery, classroom, and gathering place for the incubation of ideas and communion for local artists. She paints and aims to foster involvement in the Arts across the cultural and language barriers encountered by the diverse members of her community.
Currently she serves her community as board President for East Boulder County Artists, committee member for the Longmont Creative District, bilingual art instructor for the Firehouse Art Center, and business owner. She lives in Berthoud, Colorado with her family and Labrador Retriever.
Her work is held in private collections nationally, and she has completed numerous public and private commissioned mural projects.
Recent Exhibitions:
Inception, Firehouse Art Center Educator (FAC) Showcase, January 2025
Alebrijes Mágicos, FAC, Paper Sculptures, October 2024
Parallel Play, Poet/ Artist Collaboration Exhibit, FAC, April 2024
The Journey, Installation, FAC, October 2023
Displaced, Solo Exhibit, FAC, April 2023
Word Play, Poet/ Artist Collab. Exhibit, FAC, April 2023
El Bosque, Quarantine Installation, FAC, August 2020