About Andrea Fono:
A Creative Life
Andrea Fono realizes her artistic and intellectual aspirations through a variety of modes and media, including writing, painting, teaching and philanthropy. View Andrea's Resume.
A professional artist for over three decades, Andrea Fono has traveled and exhibited her work extensively around the world. Her work combines the inspiration of spiritual discovery with a reverence for the natural world. Her paintings, mono-prints and drawings are visual meditations that remind us of our connection to the larger world around us and, ultimately, the infinity of the cosmos. They explore moments of tranquility and transition in the landscape and invite the viewer to connect emotionally with a place and time they may not have visited.
In 2011, Andrea went to the Amazon and witnessed firsthand the devastation of the deforestation of the jungle and grasped the urgency of the situation. Alarmed by the global threat of petroleum drilling in the Ecuadorian Rainforest, she has pledged to convey in her work the unfolding story of what could be lost due to the peril that climate change presents to our planet.
In her words: "I hear a calling for a new kind of Eco-justice-artist whose function will be to bridge culture, education and the sciences. When we are able to see our earth as sacred, we will not want to exploit it."
Her concurrent commitment is to mentor other artists, igniting their inner spirit and encouraging them to explore and trust their visual voices. At her studio in Redwood City, California, she focuses on in-depth personalized instruction geared towards artistic and technical training at any age.
Andrea also hosts Corporate Creativity Field Trips throughout Silicon Valley. These sessions are meant to encourage enlivening communication, and innovative thinking while fostering a sense of openness and play.
In 2008, the artist inaugurated Global Coloring: Painting for Peace, an ambitious and unique community art celebration in which more than 2500 people on five continents have participated to date. She has also introduced people to her Basics & Secrets of Art Making on Bay Area television. Her segment on "Inspiration" for View From The Bay was nominated for a local Emmy Award.
With her husband Frank, a native Fijian, Andrea is the cofounder of the Fiji Reads Project, which contributes art supplies and thousands of books to schools throughout Fiji.
In her ongoing exploration of "how to reveal love through art", Andrea returned to school to study mysticism and contemplative creativity. In 2015 she earned her Masters of Arts in Culture & Spirituality from Holy Names University, Oakland, CA. She received her B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, New York in 1986.
Influences
On a visit to the Grand Palais in Paris in the 80's, I saw Paul Cezanne's water colors. His still lifes of fruit and tree-scapes were captivating. Their "unfinished" airy quality seemed like refracting gems on a page.
Other influences are Henri Matisse's bold simplification of forms from nature, Wassily Kandinsky's abstractions, denoting the spiritual in art, American born, Milton Avery's use of broad plains of flat and pretty colours, to living artist, Richard Tuttle's urgent need to evoke play, and irony into design and language.
My other favorites are Jennifer Bartlet who's skilled draftsmanship combined with practiced repetition using every medium to make paintings of beauty in a hundred different styles. They blow me away, and I start every project by looking at her books first. And finally, Nicky St. Phalle, who was a maverick in her use of fantastical spirited themes in giant multi-colored demi-god, semi-beast sculptures - her art leaves me with the experience of glee and wonder.