Pat Fortunato

Born and raised in western New York, Pat Fortunato is a painter who aims to "yield an art whose genesis lay in form produced by color."  Her work explores color and light. Her current series, "Material Pleasures" delves deeply into this exploration; her previous work focused more on intensely saturated color. She has also created white-on-white paintings that allow her to delve into "finding color in all reflections and shadows." Since 2002, Fortunato has been using Yupo paper because the paint lays on top of the paper, necessitating extra control and skill to control the washes.

In addition to still life and floral paintings, Pat Fortunato also paints landscapes of places which have moved her deeply, referring to them as "mood works," stating: "Each time I paint a landscape, I yearn to capture the essence of the place.  ’m not trying to reproduce the exact likeness but the mood, the feel, the emotion that embraces me when I recollect the time and place. I keep a journal of my travels which helps me go back to my favorite spots in this country, Europe and the Middle East."