“If you voluntarily confront what makes you afraid and want to avoid, THAT is curative. You don’t get less afraid, You get more Brave.”
A person’s life is their own story, this story is a collaborative one. You are writing your story even when you don’t want to participate in it- not only this- but you are not the only author.
We are literally born into someone’s story, (the mothers and fathers that gave us the chance to grow in the womb, the family that kept and loved us, the friends and true loves’ we choose and that chose us along the way, making a family of our own), and we learn how to scribble, eventually becoming conscious of how we write. It is our first time living this lifetime after all, and anything well done requires practice and an “all-in” mindset. What we write into it does not always stay, is not always well executed, sometimes what is written cannot continue where we started. But no matter the circumstance, you are always written into and writing the story of your life.
The artworks in “Verses from the Heart”, by artists Deanna Ansaldo and Mareshet Johnson, are painted mental landscapes of revelations and moments experienced while traversing life’s trials of the heart. This exhibition speaks to anyone who has ever lost a loved one, navigated a difficult relationship, and ventured into the unknown that inevitably comes when we attempt to move along to where life is moving us too. These paintings offer a voice to not just the challenges, but to the spirit that endures them. We believe that spirit is within us all, and is the voice most yearning to be heard because it is the one that ultimately brings the very best of you forward.
About the Artists
Deanna Ansaldo
Deanna Ansaldo is a Pennsylvania based artist who specializes in the study of symbols to provide thought provoking imagery that concerns revelations a person may face throughout one’s lifetime. The deep self reflections of her own experiences often inspire a concept for her to paint about. Heavily inspired by paintings made during the renaissance period, which helped provide a symbolic roadmap for living a fulfilled life, she aims to modernize and restylize their metaphors for enduring life’s challenges and ultimately, overcoming them. Her paintings are a blend of art nouveau and Impressionism, with a surrealist’s arrangement of subjects.
Mareshet Johnson
Mareshet is a Surrealist painter originally from Philadelphia. Her works in Acrylic, also known as her passion pieces, consist of dream-like scenes that evoke narrative renderings of new perspectives found after heartache. So far, each series generates a concept that the soul will always live on, endlessly experiencing all beauty and mayhem within an infinite number of lifetimes. She draws inspiration from the belief in reincarnation and uses her aging body as a physical vessel to execute a message that both she, the body, and the artwork itself will rot and be reborn. Although her pieces are very personal to her, she is thankful to have the courage to share her series with the world. Currently, she uses the direct painting method as well as Grisaille technique to complete her works.