Artist Statement

I paint vivid scenes and allegories in saturated watercolor. My studio is open to the public in a community space; anyone can wander in and linger, and the comfort of the physical space is part of the work. My paintings are contemplative and still; abstractions, landscapes and representations of figures pausing, connecting, and feeling. Visitors often share stories about their lives and those stories find their way into paintings.  I see landscapes and think of how many are seeing the same things, sharing them with loved ones or longing for those who are gone as they have for millennia and that is a story I paint.  Language and words in Spanish and English mingle in my head and inspire visuals of ideas that won’t translate directly.  My compositions are formed in my mind first from these sources of understanding. 

I use water and watercolor paint on paper, clay, or canvas and panel, and am studying the use of oil based lettering enamels on hard surfaces with the intention of integrating them.  I use these materials because they take time and they feel soft and supple like people.  I am influenced by Georgia O’Keefe’s use of simplified lines and form, and the German Expressionists like Franz Marc for their emphasis on emotion over reality and use of unconventional color.

Artist’s Bio…

Joyanna Rose Gittings was born in 1975 in Zanesville, Ohio and would be the eldest of 5 siblings in a tight-knit extended family. Most of her youth she lived and daydreamed and ran wild with brothers and friends in rural Bloomville, Ohio. Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and cousins were dear and very present throughout her early years, and the loss of precious family members was deeply felt. The deaths of her grandmother after battling breast cancer, young cousin and aunt to an accident, and grandfather to lung cancer were events that shook her family, and her idyllic and carefree childhood was peppered with tragedy.

She began to be interested in 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. This experience 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 degree in Technical Theatre with a focus on Scenic and Costume design from the University of Cincinnati College- Conservatory of music in 1998.

Family once again returned to the center of her daily life as she became a mother to four children, in time moving her family, far from their extended family, to Colorado. During these years she all but forgot about painting, but was instead occupied with a constant stream of creative projects; beading, costuming, quilting, knitting, interior design, photography, and furniture building were all undertaken. The compulsive need to create, along with the loneliness of living in a remote house in the devestatingly beautiful Rocky Mountains drew her once again back to painting. What began as an escape developed into a full time vocation. She has expanded from watercolor into murals and public art and installation.

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, and gathering place for the incubation of ideas and communion for local artists. She paints and aims to foster involvement in the Arts across cultures and language barriers encountered every day by the diverse members of her community.

Her watercolor work is held in private collections nationally, and she has completed many Public Art commissioned mural projects.