Anthony Faiola

Artist Bio

Born in upstate New York, Tony Faiola has been a painter, printmaker, and designer since the 1970s. He now lives/works in Kentucky. Originally trained as a printmaker (specializing in lithography), he gravitated toward painting in the late 1970s. Tony is also a health scientist who designs health information technology to improve the lives of patients suffering from mental and cognitive impairment. Like many artists of the past and present (e.g., Leonardo da Vinci, Anicka Yi, Neri Oxman, Edward Tufte), Tony finds divergent thought a means to maximize his intellectual curiosity in seeking new forms of visual problem-solving. Faiola received his BFA from SUNY New Paltz, MA from SUNY Albany, MFA and MA (design) from Ohio State University, and PhD in communication from Purdue University. He studied at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Urbino, Italy, in 1976, and is a three-time Fulbright Scholar to Russia.

Artist Website

Artist Statement

My work underscores my curiosity about simplified objects or shapes in space that represent statements on the human condition. These ideas and conjectures have come primarily from my observation of a growing sense of loneliness and mental anguish that pervades society, both in the U.S. and around the world. Much of these considerations grew out of my many years of living in and traveling to Russia (1991 to 2018). These notions have increased over the last five years since traveling to India and Saudi Arabia, and most strongly throughout and following the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is also important to note that I am a health scientist, which puts me in different types of clinical environments where I regularly observe patients who are very ill, e.g., with cancer or pulmonary infections. My observation of these patients and their family members has had a considerable impact on my empathy for those who are suffering. Being a patient in critical care is a very lonely experience, cut off from one’s community and family, and the world you know. What makes my work unique is, that all my colleagues in these same environments have no creative means to express the anguish they observe day by day. But, because I am an artist and scientist, I’ve chosen to communicate or illustrate in abstract terms my feelings through art.

Much of my thinking on this topic has been further confirmed after reading two published studies, titled: Mental Pain as a Global person-centered Outcome Measure (2021) and Chronic Pain and Mental Health (2018). In many cases, these ideas have informed the titles of my art.

In sum, through the use of health-related titles, my work becomes a dialogue about our empathy for the frailty of human life and our endless quest to transform it. Because understanding the condition of humanity is difficult to grasp, I believe it is best to represent it through the implicit interactions of objects, shapes, colors, dimensions, and textures, rather than through representational imagery. Technically, my work includes paintings created in oil, acrylic, and encaustic on canvas and paper. My work also includes giclée prints and drawings.