Overview

About the A Heart Imagining Itself series At the time these paintings were done I had just moved to New York City from San Juan, Puerto Rico, where I had a beautiful light-filled studio from which I could step out on the terrace and see the ocean. The immense shock of finding myself back in a northern climate and in one of the culturally densest metropolises of the world brought about profound changes in my work. I needed to relearn painting again from scratch. First of all, a five-floor walk-up in the East Village could not hold the large paintings and drawings I was accustomed to making. Even my years of fine art training seemed wrong for what my heart was telling me to paint. I began to doodle whenever and wherever and from these doodles came the first 'imagining hearts'. The colors needed to be bright to recall the Caribbean sun for my eyes, so I painted in sign painter's enamels. These are gloppy, shiny paints that matched the loose child-bright images that wanted to come out. These small paintings quickly became my spiritual and emotional refuge, and I became through them more of an islander and more Latina than I had ever imagined myself. This was something new and unexpected because I had grown up in New York City, and had defined myself as a New Yorker who happened to had been born in Cuba. In other words, I had to dig down to the 'exotic' within myself for anchoring and definition.The ten years that I spent in Puerto Rico had changed me in ways that I was not aware of until I was no longer living there. Twenty years have passed and my work now looks nothing like these paintings. I look back on this time as one looks back at a wonder-filled childhood when one dreamed dreams that an adult cannot comprehend. And I'm thankful that I could paint them to share with others and remember a very special time. This book has special room reserved for you. There's an open page across from each image where you can speak and listen to your own imagining heart.

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9781500280536

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Yolanda Fundora was born in Havana, Cuba. She grew up in New York City, studied at the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University, spent 10 years making art in San Juan, Puerto Rico and returned in 1991 to New York City. She currently lives in Chatham, New Jersey. She has been making art in the digital realm since acquiring her first Mac 512K computer in 1985. She has participated in two major shows at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The first in 1990, Art and Communication, explored the use of modern technologies as media for contemporary art. The second of these: Toward a Digital Aesthetic: The Art of Yolanda Fundora, emphasized the unique characteristics that digital production brings to the visual arts. Fundora's work forms part of many private and corporate collections including the Museum of Contemporary Art's permanent collection. A Garden Alphabetized (for your viewing pleasure) (2008) co-authoured with botanical writer, Marta McDowell, is based on Yolanda's digital print series by the same name. Besides her fine art, Yolanda designs textiles and books, illustrates children's books and works with local businesses to create their own unique branding. Her current work, all digitally imagined, is exhibited on an ongoing basis at her JOURNEYS Gallery located at MONDO in Summit, NJ.

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