Philomena grew up in Brooklyn, studied Advertising /Illustration at the H.S. of Art & Design in Manhattan and earned her BFA at Pratt Institute. Her interests and creativity led her to work in areas as far reaching as a graphic artist for NBC NEWS, as a teaching artist for the acclaimed “ Studio in A School” program, as a sign maker and also to write & illustrate “Word Sandwiches”, a children’s fun and wacky word game for Scholastic Books.

Philomena is co-founder of the “Coney Island Hysterical Society”, an artist-members group that was dedicated to the resurrection of the area during its most blighted years. She also co-authored a book about the experience, “HYSTERICAL CONEY ISLAND- An Art Memoir of the Coney Island Hysterical Society”

New York exhibits include: ACA Galleries, Tabla Rasa Gallery, Deutsche Bank and others and in Florida,The Ringling College of Art, Art Center Sarasota, Arts Advocate, DeLand Museum, Sarasota City Hall, 502 Gallery and the Werk Gallery.

Philomena’s work is included in public and private collections including the Brooklyn Museum.

My primary medium is papier colle'. Using the broad chromatic spectrum of Color-aid paper, I treat this cut paper process as a synthesis of drawing, painting, and graphic design. The paper is my palette, the x-acto knife is my rendering instrument.

I learned this collage technique while working as an assistant to Robert Indiana in his New York studio on a prodigious cut paper project. Upon completion I returned to my own streets of Brooklyn, particularly Coney Island's amusement area where I found not only visual poetry to work from but also discovered existential messages surfacing in the most unexpected places.

The iconic architecture of the rides, signs and attractions as well as other forms of urban popular culture and the ornately detailed aquatic life in the sea are perfectly suited for my cut out practice.

I continue to create graphic distillations of the beauty I find in un-noticed spaces and out of the way places.

Thrills, wonder, memory, fascination and escapism resonate in my work.

www.philomenamarano.com

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