My love of art became apparent when, at age five, I drew my first “masterpiece” with crayons under a window on the outside of my parents’ house. After attending Daemen College in Amherst, NY for Painting and Sculpture, I pursued graduate studies in painting at The State University of New York at Albany and then, years later, Interior Design at The Art Institute of Las Vegas. I have worked at art galleries, as an art teacher at a private elementary school and I also had privilege to work as an Interior Designer on Steve Wynn’s design team, opening up the hotel Wynn Las Vegas. After switching to the sales side of the hotel design world, I rounded out my sales career by becoming the National Hospitality Sales Manager for a renowned British luxury fabric company that sells fabric and wallpaper to Hotel Designers. But feeling my heart strings once again tugged by my love of making art, I find myself drawn back to being true to my first passion. My main focus is now back on painting, and mixed media.

“Creating art, really honest soul-searching art, to me is an extension of the inner sanctum. It’s being true to oneself and thereby creating ‘self’ in each piece.  My work also represents my own particular progressions through life’s time periods and circumstances; this is why my work is sometimes so varied from piece to piece.  This ‘truth’ is what I strive for. For my viewer I seek to create a personal experience: emotional, spiritual or physical.  Through color and tactile surfaces I ask each person to move beyond the realm of everyday aesthetic existence and discover the world of shape, texture and movement and ask themselves just how they are affected.”  

Joannie Fusella, Artist
Painting and Mixed Media