About Donna Rega
Donna Rega is a mixed media contemporary artist. She holds an associate degree in applied science from Hudson County Community College and a BFA from New Jersey City University in painting and drawing. Painting for her is the process of transmitting the emotional spirit to an observable platform by using the color, texture, line, movement and those elements are for Donna like seeing the right places to completing a puzzle. She is filling the white canvas with the aggression of paint strokes, splashes, drips and mark-making. This is when the essence of the work comes to the surface. This is a moment when artist get involved into an aesthetic daze of advance and retreat, flow and slowness, command and entrance, jangle and alliance. Donna is searching for moment of synchronicity between what was revealed on canvas and how does she feel. There is a visible interconnection and exchange on the emotional level where paintings are becoming a mirror of her own inner world. As she says herself her hope is that if she’d created a painting that feels inspirational for herself that someone else may recognized a touch of their own emotional essence in the work and that it may touch them in the same way that a particular melody can reach deep or a moment in nature can feel harmonious.
New Brunswick Art Salon 2021 – Oil and Mixed Media: “Bonds Beyond Time”
Artist Personal Website: donnarega.com
Email: msrega@comcast.net
Artist Statement
Abstract painting is a personal journey of perseverance for me. Through painting and its process, I allow myself the freedom to express my emotional realm through a perceptible language of art. My expressive work is a visible manifestation brought out from within through the emotional fashioning response to the observations, experiences and backdrop of my being. I transmit that emotional spirit to an observable platform through the passage of a painter’s portfolio of color, texture, line, movement and artfulness. Those elements are much like seeking the right piece to complete a puzzle. As I fill a blank canvas with an aggression of willful paint strokes, splashes, drips and mark-making, that essence comes to the front as the image begins to, in a sense, communicate–at turns seducing and confronting me. A barter of sorts releases, as I get engaged in an aesthetic daze of advance and retreat, flow and slowness, command and entrance, jangle and alliance. I search for that moment of sensing synchronicity between how I feel and what has been revealed on canvas. A visible interconnection of the emotive exchange materializes and I realize the canvas was an analyst, a mentor, a gleeful, a partisan –and ultimately a reflection to my emotional essence. My hope is that if I’ve created a painting that feels inspirational for myself, that someone else may recognized a touch of their own emotional essence in the work and that it may touch them in the same way that a particular melody can reach deep or a moment in nature can feel harmonious.
Exhibitions
Earth Day, Gallery Sitka East, Shirley, Ma, 2021
Glimmer: Little Pieces of Light, Gallery Sitka East, Shirley, Ma, 2020
Makers Made Collective, Virtual, 2020
Art All Night, Digital Art Gallery, Trenton, 2020
Mana Contemporary/ CADAF Online Art Fair, 2020
Art To Make You Smile, Kentuck Art Center, 2020
The Post Card Show, Wishing You Were There, VAB Gallery, Jersey City, NJ, 2020
Tiny Abstractions, Gallery Sitka, Shirley, Ma, 2019
Catch 21, New Jersey City University BFA Show, Jersey City, NJ, 2019
Jersey City Artists Studio Tour, Canco Lofts, Jersey City, NJ, 2008
Awards
Peter’s Valley School of Art Scholarship, 2019
Charolette W. Newcombe Scholarship, New Jersey City University, 2018
Green and Gold Scholarship, New Jersey City University, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019