Angela Scozzari is an award-winning artist who works with rusted metal, textiles, and found objects. She creates sculpture and art installations for both exhibition and commission.
Angela was born in Connecticut, lived in New York and moved to Florida as a child. She is a certified Montessori teacher, a mother to three grown children, and a Nana to four grandchildren. She and her husband of 40 plus years live in Jupiter, Florida.
Angela is currently combining found rusted railroad steel with handspun art yarn in mixed media paintings, sculptures, art installations, and wall hangings. She is continually influenced by color and texture found in rusted metals, fabric, and her surrounding environment.
“Craft solves questions; art asks them.” — Angela Scozzari
Nine T Cells, the installation piece awarded ‘Best in Show’ for Naples Art Association’s 2018 juried Feel the Art, is a statement about Angela’s brother Jim’s battle with HIV. She remembers that at one point her brother, suffering from HIV, learned he only had nine T cells. With an unwavering determination to live Jim turned his health around. Through dedicated visualizations and a true sense of gratification for what he had, Angela and her brother patiently watched as his T cell count slowly climbed. Beating all odds, Jim grew stronger and stronger until he was no longer impacted by the virus.
In the beginning, this installation started with white fluff, raw sheep wool, this representing the cell. Angela then hand dyed and combed or carded the wool, blending the colors together. The entire process slow, she met the hours of spinning the dyed wool with excitement. Finally, yarn, the tangible material formed. The next step was knitting, though she still had no conceived outcome in mind.
Angela admits that she begins her work without preconcieved ideas about an outcome, instead she allows her intuition to direct her artistic process.
The organic, helix-like shapes grew, some were knitted with many large holes and some were quite solid. All were different. It was in this phase she knew she was going to make nine of them. They needed a structure, a backbone. They needed to be able to stand on their own, so Angela wove wire through each shape which gave them a sense of strength, a presence. They became more and more malleable, easily pressed in or out of shape, pliable, more flexible, like a helix or maybe less like a helix. They morphed into beautiful T cells.
Angela continued to embellish each one differently using glass and wooden beads, tarnished and shiny copper pipe wrapped with copper wire, twigs wrapped with threads and finally the brass bells, which have become a symbol of hope and a constant reminder of her brother.
Growing up, Angela says, Jim was the artist of the family. After he passed in 2014, Angela felt magically compelled to make art. Much of her work carries a deeper meaning than what is perceivable aesthetically.
Full Metal Quilt – Best in Show
SIZE MATTERS: The BIG and small Art Exhibition (2016),Lighthouse ArtCenter
Press Links:
TCPalm, 2017
Palm Beach Post, 2016
Lighthouse ArtCenter, 2016
AdventureQuilter.com, 2017
Angela Scozzari 