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often paint bridges and pathways because they
lead to places and journeys.” She used to cross
that bridge daily, on her way to Art and Design
High School and Hunter College for her degree
in Fine Art.
So, what’s the connection between Queens and
Cortana? “I see them both as a part of me and the path
my life has taken,” said the Bayside resident whose
LIC studio is part of a complex (with a gallery where
her artwork was showcased), where many artists work
in a variety of mediums.
30 JULY 2019 I LIC COURIER I www.qns.com
During her first trip to Italy, Stokolosa studied art
in Tuscany then painted in Florence. “What better
place? I fell in love,” she recalled. “A few years later,
when I just started teaching art for the Board of
Education in Queens, I had the opportunity to study
Italian in Cortona. I was still going to Hunter and saw
a posting about the trip.”
The lucky creative spends a few
months during the summer and fall
in Cortana. “The people are kind and
have open hearts. There are beauti-ful
surrounding towns. You can go to
Florence, Perugia or Lake Trasimeno
for a day trip. The fields are filled with
sunflowers in the summer,” she said.
Her solo show, “Passegiando per Cortona Estate
2019” (“Walking through Cortona”), takes viewers on
a tour of the town and surrounding landscape. New
linear paintings and a retrospective of classical pan-oramas
mark the way, with scenes of iconic churches,
friendly cafes, restaurants and people you meet along
the way. “In Italian, they say, ‘Ci vediamo in giro,’ which
means, ‘I’ll see you around town,’” Stokolosa explained.
Viewers can experience the peace and quiet as they
stroll in the park and look out over the valley.
Her work will be on display at Palazzo Ferretti on
the main street in Cortona at Via Nazionale 47, from
July 25 through Aug. 4.
“The Clock Tower” above the steps of Commune
di Cortona, the town hall in Piazza della Repubblica,
is the painting she chose to represent the show. “It’s
a gathering place on summer evenings where people
take a seat on the steps and enjoy a gelato and chat
with friends,” Stokolosa noted.
“Besides places, I like to paint people and how
they interact with each other and their surroundings.
I paint the large meeting places from the piazzas of
Italy to the transit hubs of New York, as documented
in my ‘NYC Faces’ series. The buildings, the vistas,
are both familiar views to me, and both hold a warm
spot in my heart,” she added.
There are similarities between the 59th Street
Bridge painting, “Crossing Over,” recently on display
at the Plaxall Gallery in LIC,
and another work titled, “Piazza,” which will be on view
at her Cortana exhibit.
“I was honored to be invited in 2017, to become
a member of The Circolo Culturale Gino Severini di
Cortona, a group named after Severini, the internation-ally
acclaimed Cortonese painter. My work is also on
display at Galleria Nazionale in Cortona, Via Nazionale
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