Featured Artist Frances C. Andahazy

Founder and Creative Director of Party By Design, Frances is an honors graduate from Massachusetts College of Art, with a BFA in art education. A teacher of art and design for over 30 years, she was also an instructor of two and three-dimensional Design at the School of Fashion Design, Boston. Upon completion of her teaching career, she developed an award winning special events design company in which she is CEO and Creative Director of Party by Design, now rebranded as PBD-events.com. A painter since childhood, Frances’s years of creating 3-dimentional props, backdrops, layouts, and conceptual designs, has seasoned her as an artist. She is a recipient of numerous national awards and has been interviewed on television for her work as a designer. Frances has also been noted as an expert in her field of art and design, frequently asked to sit on design panels, and juries, and also teaches workshops in her studio/gallery.

After 25 years in her growing business, she now focuses on painting full time, and is founder of Oceanside 17 Studio and Gallery located on the south shore of Massachusetts. The gallery and working studio for the artist, represents several south shore and Provincetown artists in addition to showing her own work. She is an active Advisor, and past three year Director at the South Shore Art Center in Cohasset, and has also been represented by the Kobalt Gallery in Provincetown.

Frances approaches her canvas in the same fashion she would design a large convention space, with emphasis on bold dynamic color choices, strong light sources, and a dynamic sense of composition. She is influenced by her everyday surroundings often painting images from life, whether it is interior or exterior landscape. She is also interested in the changing images of the New England coast.

“My painting is a direct result of influences from many years of theatrical painting in which bold colors, strong compositions, and alternative points of view are a focus. I approach painting very methodically with many drawings beforehand, often creating a selection of compositions until I find one that captures me. I consider palatte colors, under paint, canvas sizes and think through a plan. I believe this is important to a good painting. My painting then emerges based on my emotional response to my subject, within a specialized environment. This may result in many levels of finish in my work depending on the mood of the environment. The real fun comes in the “act of painting,” often changing my plan and the end result often surprises me”.

STILL LIFE

FIGURES

LANDSCAPES