Studio 308
Tina Cantelmi
Tina Cantelmi
Medium: Painter; watercolor, oil, acrylic, mixed media, pour and texture techniques
Artist Statement:
Born in Bethlehem, PA to a tight knit Italian family, the artist was surrounded by the daily tasks of her parents and grandparents running a small yet bustling hardware store on the city’s southside. Fixing things was an ever present positive theme, and helping others was the key principal of daily life. Her first recollection of being noticed as an artist, was at the wee age of about 5 when her grandparents travelled back to Italy on the Amerigo Vespuci, a very large ship when Tina, her siblings and cousins all became lost as the vessel was about to embark. At kindergarten the following day, Tina painted a large fierce tumultuous steam ship. in the New York harbor. “I was shy that grown ups noticed the painting that hung by the classroom door,” recalls the artist who earned a BFA from Alfred University, New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred, NY and continued her education studying fashion design, textiles and journalism. She worked for WWD in NYC as a fashion and textiles editor before returning to Bethlehem to raise a family. Today, her paintings center on bringing levity and optimism to mostly large abstract landscapes, to highly textural organic works that evoke either representational and non-representational imagery.
