Julianna Paradisi

Julianna Paradisi is an award-winning painter who earns her living as a nurse. She finds themes in the convergence of science, humanity, and art. Working in healthcare provides unique opportunities to observe real life circumstances she then grapples with conceptually in the studio. Asked if painting is therapeutic for her, she answers, “no, not in the sense of watching the Comedy Channel or going out for a run.” For her, painting requires candid introspection, and inner resolution is not essential to the process. “Sometimes discovering the question itself is the insight.”

Julianna recently curated Memory is the Inhabitance of Absence, a group show of paintings at the Goldsmith Blocks, in the Old Town/Chinatown neighborhood. Her current body of work explores memory and permanence. Also a writer, her two short stories, Icarus Again and Voyagers, are included in Kaplan Publisher’s anthology, New Lives: Nurses’ Stories about Caring for Babies, in stores in Spring 2009. Her chair for this year’s Affair draws from the acclaimed literary work of Simon Schama’s book, Landscape and Memory.

Visit Julianna’s website juliannaparadisi.googlepages.com to learn more about this emerging artist.