Renowned Autistic Artist Vito Bonanno's Artwork in the Corporate Collections of AMAZON and Google

 

'King Kong', part of Vito Bonanno's Obsessions & Meditations series - made with aerosol, acrylic, craypas, paint marker, archival glitter on canvas, 53.5 “ x 63.5” framed. This painting was acquired by Amazon, they purchased six of Bonanno's original pieces for one of their corporate buildings in Seattle.

Bonanno taps into the daily emotional and social challenges of living with autism, placing his innermost feelings onto canvas. He is an award-winning, world-famous artist with a career spanning back to his childhood.

Internationally collected artist Vito Bonanno taps into the daily emotional and social challenges of living with autism, placing his innermost feelings onto canvas. The New England-based artist's work is image and concept-driven and embedded in his personal philosophy. His art contains the essence of his life, feelings, thoughts, and dreams, coupled with objects or topics that "get stuck in his head", including traffic lights, grids, ceiling fans, graffiti, and pop culture. Corporate clients include AMAZON, Google, and The Hartford.

Vito is aligned with ArtLifting, which is a non-for-profit art organization that empowers artists living with disabilities through the celebration and sale of their artwork. ArtLifting is about creating opportunity, empowerment, and validation. This collaboration opened many new and exciting opportunities for the artist, which includes his work in Google's corporate collection, with art hanging in their Leesburg, VA offices, as well as Amazon, for one of their corporate buildings in Seattle, Washington.

Bonanno was diagnosed with PDD/Autism just before his 4th birthday. Because he was language delayed, his parents and teachers developed strategies that tapped into his high visual acuity, utilizing storyboard styles to relay academic and social information. He was also encouraged to draw in storyboard format to express his feelings. The storyboard grid remains prominent in his work and studio preparation today and is a poignant reminder of a boy who was trapped in his own mind. 

For more information about this artist, for inquiries, or to commission work contact vito@vitobonanno.com / visit www.vitobonanno.com

Experience The Official Art Deco Walking Tour by The Miami Design Preservation League

 

Enjoy The Official Art Deco Walking Tour by The Miami Design Preservation League on Wednesday, April 26th from 10:30am – 12:30pm experience the Official Art Deco District Walking Tour presented by the Miami Design Preservation League. This 1.5 to 2-hour walking tour provides an introduction to the Art Deco, Mediterranean Revival, and Miami Modern (MiMo) styles found within the Miami Beach Architectural Historic District. 

Explore hotels, restaurants, and other commercial structures with a visit to a number of interiors. Choose from select dates / PURCHASE TICKETS HERE.

Tour ticket includes free entry to the Art Deco Museum as well as 10% off at the Gift Shop.

NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale Hosts an Art Talk: Collectors Andy & Christine Hall with Bonnie Clearwater

 

Andy Hall

This coming weekend on Sunday, April 23rd from 3 – 4pm NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale presents Art Talk: Collectors Andy and Christine Hall with Bonnie Clearwater. Join collectors Andy and Christine Hall and Director and Chief Curator Bonnie Clearwater for a discussion about collecting contemporary art. NSU Art Museum has presented two exhibitions in association with the Hall Art Foundation: Anselm Kieffer (2016-17) and the current Malcolm Morley: Shipwreck. FREE FOR MEMBERS | $16 FOR NON-MEMBERS. RSVP HERE.

Andy and Christine Hall are among the world’s leading collectors of contemporary art. In 2007, they founded the Hall Art Foundation, which makes postwar and contemporary art works from its own collection and that of the Hall’s available for the education and enjoyment of the public. Together, the two collections comprise one of the world’s largest groups of works by Malcolm Morley, and contain some 5,000 works by hundreds of other important artists such as Anselm Kiefer, Richard Artschwager, Georg Baselitz, Joseph Beuys, Olafur Eliasson, Ed Ruscha, Julian Schnabel and Andy Warhol.

 

Image: Photo of Andy Hall
Courtesy Hall Art Foundation

#MothersDay | Shopping for Mom? Give Art-Inspired Gifts from PAMM Shop!

 

No Idea What to Get Mom? Check Out PAMM's Mother’s Day Gift Guide

Celebrate mom, grandma, aunts, and more with curated pieces from the PAMM Shop! Explore the museum's Mother’s Day guide and show your appreciation with gifts that reflect her style, from jewelry and trendy bags to books and prints. Museum members save 10% off. Join Now!

Shop Now

Feel Good Gifts Shop local and curated scents. Introduce your senses to Buena Vista Candles.   Shop Now One-of-a-Kind Gifts Shop gifts that give off light, attract attention and spread cheer.   Shop Now

New Public Art in West Palm Beach "The Bear’s Picnic" by Artist Diane Arrieta

The Bear’s Picnic by Diane Arrieta has been installed at City Hall Plaza in West Palm Beach, Florida - located at 401 Clematis Street. This commission was funded by Artlife West Palm Beach and the City of West Palm Beach.

The Bear's Picnic by Artist Diane Arrieta

Project description:

The Bear’s Picnic project is founded on the belief that all living beings on this planet - humans, animals, and the environment - are interconnected. With a focus on six of the eight bear species threatened with extinction due to human activities, the project aims to bring bears into our human environment and share a meal, fostering a sense of community and shared responsibility.

Food is a vital aspect of our daily lives, and meals have always been a cornerstone of family life. The picnic provides an opportunity for reflection, storytelling, and learning, with people interacting with the bears in a safe and respectful environment.

In creating the project, a combination of handcrafted items and altered, commercially produced bears and picnic tables are used. This symbolism highlights the way in which wildlife and nature are commodified and exploited for human needs, often with little understanding of the intricate and interdependent relationships between all living beings.

Bears have often been used as decorations for lawns or as selfie props for businesses, perpetuating the idea of wildlife as mere ornaments or products. Through the recontextualization of bears in this project, their importance and value in the natural world are emphasized, highlighting the lost connection between humans and the environment.

Artist Vito Bonanno Is Spreading The Word Through His Art That Autism Is A Creative & Magical Gift

Bonanno was diagnosed with PDD/Autism just before his 4th birthday. Because he was language delayed, his parents and teachers developed strategies that tapped into his high visual acuity, utilizing storyboard styles to relay information.

Artist Vito Bonanno

Internationally collected artist Vito Bonanno taps into the daily emotional and social challenges of living with autism, placing his innermost feelings onto canvas. The New England-based artist's work is image and concept-driven and embedded in his personal philosophy. His art contains the essence of his life, feelings, thoughts, and dreams, coupled with objects or topics that "get stuck in his head", including traffic lights, grids, ceiling fans, graffiti, and pop culture. Corporate clients include AMAZON, Google, and The Hartford.

The artist recently completed a solo exhibition at Six Summit Gallery NYC Port Authority Location Public Exhibition Space, Beauty & Chaos II, at 625 8th Avenue, South Building Floors 1 & 2, New York, New York. The show opened August 1st, and was on view through November, 2022.

Artist Vito Bonanno pictured here beside his work at Six Summit Gallery NYC

Bonanno taps into the daily emotional and social challenges of living with autism, placing his innermost feelings onto canvas. He is an award-winning, world-famous artist with a career spanning back to his childhood. The artist has participated in numerous art fairs, as well as national and international exhibitions, in addition to many art shows and high profile events during Art Basel Miami Beach - such as a past NIKE pop-up in Wynwood during Miami Art Week, as well as traveling in an art van Truck'N With Vito! at Umbrella Arts Gallery in NYC's lower east side, selling his art and spreading awareness about being an artist with autism.

He unveiled his first Solo Exhibition, 'Unfiltered V: Vito Bonanno Riding with the Train Girls', in January 2012 at Akus Gallery at Eastern CT State University which included works on paper, canvas, video pieces, a student-artist interactive mural project, and installations. Akus Gallery Director, Elizabeth Peterson stated, "The characters, objects, and ideas that inhabit Vito Bonanno's work act and interact in striking ways. Caught within the grids and map-like structures he imagines, they are often in a struggle between multiple worlds. He has found a way to tap in the intensity of focus and insight afforded him through autism to unleash a formidable creative power and vision."

The New England-based artist's work is image and concept-driven and embedded in his personal philosophy. His art contains the essence of his life, feelings, thoughts, and dreams, coupled with objects or topics that "get stuck in his head", including traffic lights, grids, ceiling fans, graffiti, and pop culture. For more information about this artist, for inquiries, or to commission work contact vito@vitobonanno.com / visit https://www.vitobonanno.com/

Must See Art Exhibition: Historic Villa Paula Showcases Artists Joe Chirichigno, Mark Cherry, Thomas Kachian & Martyn Quinn

Miami's historic Villa Paula presents an art exhibition featuring an outstanding showcase of four renowned Miami artists with a special tribute to Purvis Young by the Purvis Young Foundation.

South Florida collectors and art aficionados are experiencing an unforgettable art exhibition at Miami’s historic Villa Paula featuring four contemporary visual artists Joe Chirichigno, Mark Cherry, Thomas Kachian, and Martyn Quinn. The exhibition opened on Saturday, April 1st at the historic Villa Paula ‘the Jewel of Miami‘ featuring four incredible Miami artists Joe Chirichigno, Mark Cherry, Thomas Kachian and Martyn Quinn with a special tribute to Purvis Young by the Purvis Young Foundation. 

*Parking is available at Villa Paula. The Villa Paula Mansion is located at 5811 N. Miami Avenue in Miami, Florida 33127. You're cordially invited to experience an outstanding art exhibition in the enchanting Villa Paula, Miami's original Cuban Embassy constructed in 1926.

Bakehouse Art Complex Artist Highlight: Ian Fichman

 

Artist Ian Fichman. Photo by Pedro Wazzan. 

Ian Fichman is a Bakehouse artist whose practice is mainly comprised of metalwork and illustration. In seeking to defy the familiar, each sculpture he creates is uniquely assembled in an effort to bring new characters to life. Ultimately, Fichman's stylized skeletal figures aim to chronicle his own experiences, in a way that anyone may identify with.

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Can you tell us about your artistic practice?

My artistic practice is quite grueling. Each piece begins with a simple pose for which I am the model. My choices are based mainly on movement and aesthetics and creating a straightforward narrative. Each work requires a lot of physical labor, fire, and electricity to create—not to mention blood, sweat and tears. Steel is limited in its range of motion, so it takes a particular amount of skill and patience to make it do what I want.

I put my works together much like a Lego set. I typically start with the torso shape and then build outward. The hands tend to be the pivotal point in the work. I end up taking an exorbitant amount of time creating them. I put as much personality and motion into them as possible, as it is evident that once added, they really bring the entire sculpture to life. The hands, in my view, become the face of the figure. The figures remain faceless because they are about all of us, not just one particular character.

Then, I work back through and add all the other elements to bulk up the mass, correct proportions, and add counterweights onto areas like the legs and ankles. On average they take about 3 to 6 months to complete.

Each sculpture is given a fitting cliché as a title, but also a “codename” of sorts. The title is what the piece is called, but not what people tend to call it. They tend to call it a one-word phrase, which ends up being the “codename,” or what the piece is commonly referred to as.

Tell us about a personal artistic project or body of work that you are currently excited about.

I’m very excited about my new series entitled HOLLOWS. They are very simplistic compared to my other work, with a retro-futuristic boxy aesthetic. There are quadrupeds that simply consist of a piece of medium sized square tube for a body and then I fabricate their robotic legs.

I feel like they’re a fun departure from my normal stuff. They’re more easily engaged with by the general public. Generally, I just think they’re really cute.

Tell us about how you have developed as an artist since you began working at Bakehouse

I consider myself extremely lucky to be a resident at the Bakehouse Art Complex. It’s hard to name all the ways in which this facility has helped me grow as an artist. From being able to create friendships with my peers, being part of an amazing group of people with the common goal to continue creating art every day, to our community’s easy access to various and numerous opportunities to display artwork and study all sorts of different mediums. This is not to mention all the art shows, sales, and inquiries.

In my humble opinion, Bakehouse Art Complex is one of the most valuable institutions that we have in Miami-Dade County.

Visit Ian Fichman in Studio #1 at Bakehouse Art Complex, located at 561 NW 32nd Street in Miami, Florida 33127.