Prestige Fine Art Presents, Al Razza and The Gear Works Collection

.......Gearilla Works
...........Collection
.......Gear-Tweens
.......Paint Skins
.......Drawings

.......Prestige Fine Art Presents
.....Artist, Al Razza

Al Razza was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1954. He moved to South Florida in 1979, and currently resides in Coral Springs with his wife Sheila and daughter Alicia. Educated in New England, Razza received a Bachelor of Fine Art Degree from Massachusetts College of Art in 1977. He also attended the Art Institute of Boston, the University of Rhode Island, and Florida Atlantic University. In 1982, while working on a Masters Degree at Pratt Institute, in New York, he was awarded an assistantship and two fellowships. In 1991, Razza won one of the first South Florida Consortium Fellowships, awarded for artistic excellence by the South Florida Art Consortium and the National Endowment for the Arts; which included a $15000 stipend. His work has been exhibited in museums,and galleries, and is included in many private and public collections. He has taught in the Broward County, Florida School System, and was an instructor at the Coral Springs Museum of Art for 10 years. He is also the owner of Design Crafters Gallery and School of Art, Inc. located in Coral Springs. Razza's most recent Live Performance Art Project Dance of Chains can be viewed in this video (click on link).

Body Of Work
Gearilla Works Collection
Gear-Tweens
Drawings
Paint Skins

Artist Statement

Whether I am painting representational pictures or something purely abstract, I want the work to be provocative and stimulating. I want the surface to be active and full of energy, pulling each viewer closer like a magnet. When I paint images my need to understand who I am as a person and the dynamics of the world around me is revealed in some expressive manner. I live every day wondering how I can improve what I see and do to make something wonderful emerge from my subconscious visions. My inspiration comes from diverse artistic styles as well as social and environmental conditions. Many years have gone by since I first examined what motivated me to create art. I was always fascinated by history, like the Ancient World with all its mysteries. The Italian Renaissance where so many great artists lived and worked so close to one another, and the Twentieth Century where so many innovations and inventions have affected the way we live our lives. I draw from the Ancient World at times, and read mythology. I enjoy those myths of our creation. It is in these ancient arts and stories that I have found adventure. I enjoy so many artists it is difficult to say who is a favorite. In the Italian Renaissance, I try to understand the order and color of artists like Giotto, the veiled emotion of Da Vinci, and the fervor of Michaelangelo. The Twentieth Century too, has had such an influence on me with artists like Picasso, Kandinsky, DeKooning, Pollock, and so many others. In no other time could I have been exposed to such diversity which could generate such opportunities to create an iconography all my own. When it comes time to answering my own question of what motivates me, I guess I would have to say I have always had a strong desire to create, prevail, and be a contributor to history in some fashion. To empathize with the world, and find the essence of that experience in some painterly vision.

Gearilla Works Collection. Gearilla Works is a humorous, but enigmatic reference to a body of work that uses gears as the main design element. They were inspired by the contemporary notion that “A Machine” is behind all that is, that a device or mechanism is turning our world, be it mythical, magical, or simply implied. These works are the unmasking of that suggested device.