Farina to address art society today

The Sussex County Art Society will host a program showcasing the talents of Sandra Farina at noon Thursday, Sept. 14.

The program will be at the Hampton Community Center, 1 Rumsey Way, Hampton Township.

The public and prospective members are welcome to attend.

The Sussex County Art Society regularly meets on the second Thursday of each month except for in July and August.

Farina, who has an art studio in Hackettstown, has a bachelor’s degree in fine art with highest honors in art direction and communications design from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn.

She was an invited artist in the exhibition of Pratt Institute student work in Japan, Europe and New York.

She worked in advertising in New York City and as a graphic design consultant in New Jersey.

Many of her paintings have been accepted and won awards in the juried art show in Tewksbury. She currently participates in AAR and NJAA art clubs.

Farina has considered herself an abstract expressionist although today she would describe her art as modern. Her subject matter may be based on realism but does not solely rely on it.

Finding images of new found forms from natural and scenic environments in Warren County is setting a new foundation for her graphic landscape designs. Working with light as color and making color decisions from personal moods are the most important aspect of her paintings.

Her new paintings are taking on the immediacy of poster art. The directness and simplicity that she would like to bring to them are seen through shapes of upbeat graphic elements, identifiable through her sense of style.

In her “block-shaped” paintings, rotating the canvas while in progress, she creates a design that works on all four sides. This is an example of “seeing” a painting in a different way that constitutes a strong design. It addresses the completeness of her creative process.

She believes that she has come into a new art mindset: To keep pushing boundaries. Any change is good and each new painting needs to expose more ideas from the artist: higher color, fresher form and beauty.

Using larger canvases and brushes allow her to draw looser images for the expansion of more forms of abstraction and creativity.

The Sussex County Art Society has served artists in Sussex County since 1964. Besides inviting guest artists to demonstrate in various media at its monthly meetings, members hold informal critiquing sessions.

Members also exhibit their artwork in the municipal buildings of Lafayette, Frankford and Hampton townships.

Funding for their demonstrations has been made available in part by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, through the State/County Partnership Block Grant Program, as administered by the Sussex County Arts and Heritage Council.