February Artist Spotlight – Meet Joan Onofrey

Collage is my favorite art medium.  An artist once described “the essence of collage as an exuberant response to the use of paper.”  In the past, art images of pasted papers were called “papiers colles” eventually evolving into the term collage.  To me, collage is this exciting, spontaneous process where images come to life. There is a freedom and energy involved with the tearing and cutting of paper into shapes. With a whimsical point of view, I imagine and create motifs and themes of landscapes, animals (especially chickens), plants and flowers with bits of paper, and at times, adding fabric, threads, wire or anything that I can glue onto a surface.

 

Joan Onofrey received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, along with the RISD Gold Medal for Design Excellence.  She also received a M.ED/Art Specialist from the University of Pittsburgh.  Joan feels that the world of art has brought her an eclectic journey with diverse career choices.  She has worked in the fashion industry as an apparel designer and fashion illustrator and as a free-lance designer, she has had the opportunity to work in graphic design for clothing catalogues, children’s book illustrations, stencil design for floor cloths and furniture, and has designed embroidery and silk screens for T shirts. Later in her career, art education became her main focus. She and other art teachers have said that to teach art can be described by the old cliche, “jack of all trades, master of none” for one has to know a little bit about all mediums of art.  For Joan there is nothing more exciting than to see the joy of a child doing art and maybe getting a little messy in the process.

In recent years, I have been excited to see that collage has begun to be more recognized as a serious form of art. There are now artists who incorporate beads, mosaic tiles, weavings, knitting, embroidery and fabric applique into their paintings and sculptures along with a do-it-yourself attitude where one might find materials in their own kitchen drawer. This is an experimental avenue in the art world to explore. It’s the boundary that separates craft and art that is being dissolved.

 

Joan is a member of the Wellesley Society of Artists, the Needham Art Association and the Dedham Art Association.  Her collages have won numerous awards and have been exhibited throughout the New England area.