"Adornment"

Exhibition by Danielle Festa

We are influenced by fashion every day--whether we acknowledge it or not, that is another thing. I use my paintings as a means to document society’s wide variety of styles and projected personas. “Adornment” is a fusion of mixed media oil paintings of real people and collages of layered magazine pages of models, coupled with instructional guides of current fashion trends.
 
The exhibit focuses on accenting specific notions of the glamour of fashion industry while juxtaposing the practicality of wearing clothes, cleaning them, hanging them to dry and starting again. A string of clothes hung up without their owner still tells a story about the person who wears them. This voyeuristic approach to painting captures merely a snapshot where the viewer gets only a glimpse into the subjects lives, filling in the gaps based on the information they see. 

About the Artist
Growing up outside of Boston, Danielle Festa was always drawn to creating art. Pursuing her education at the University of Amherst Massachusetts as a Fine Arts major, she first explored the dimensions of personality constructs developed by clothing.
 
Since graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2007, she has returned to the Boston area to continue painting and exhibiting. She currently works out of her studio at the Washington Street Studios in Somerville, MA. Union square has been a great location for her to gain ground as an emerging artist and has proven to be a great resource for her candid subjects.  Experimenting with the mixed media combination of fabrics and oil paints, she continues to develop her evolving theme: the perception of dress.

Artist contact information:
danielle@daniellefesta.com

About the Inside-Out Gallery
Initiated in 2009, The Inside-Out Gallery is located in the CVS Window in Davis Square, a unique space that allows the public to view an eclectic array of works from artists and local organizations each month. The mission of the Somerville Arts Council is to cultivate and celebrate the creative expressions of the Somerville community. Through innovative collaborations and quality programming we work to make the arts an integral part of life reflective of our diverse city.