Artist: Joan DaGradi

Joan Dagradi has spent the last 25 years of her life painting. Joan began her studies at the Cape School of Art in Provincetown, MA. Since that time she has gone on to work with and learn from other great master painters such as Scott Christensen, Aaron Shikler, and David Levine. In 1984 Joan Dagradi became a founding member of the Degas Pastel Society and was awarded a Gold Medal in Pastel at the Catharine L. Wolfe Art Club in NY. She has gone on to earn awards in oil, watercolor, pastel, and bas-relief sculpture. She has developed a unique style that is characterized by a joyful enthusiasm and a sophisticated sense of color and value.

The Artist of Her Work:

“The most important ingredient in my work is enthusiasm; subject matter and media are secondary. A true, honest experience or emotion, and a desire to convey the experience is a prerequisite for a decent painting to happen. Study to develop the necessary technical skills is one of the beginning steps, allowing a certain freedom from self consciousness in expression. Afterwards, one hopefully has something to say. Still life painting has become an enthusiastic focus. Each painting provides an opportunity to experiment with shapes, colors, and edges to learn something new, to try to sing more beautifully and to really look. The lovely atmosphere enveloping everyday, simple objects bathed in natural light never ceases to amaze, delight and inspire. Work becomes a prayer.”