About
"As a painter with deep roots in landscape, my work is influenced by daily observations of changing seasons, urban and natural environments, new and familiar neighborhoods. I'm interested in places we are drawn to in our lives and stories that belong to those places."
American artist, DONNA BRUNI, is known for creating abstract, atmospheric oil paintings on canvas. She uses broad, richly layered panes of color to create a sense of place within the canvas surface. Her paintings reflect temporal elements in our shared environment — weather, changing seasons, air, water, sky, land, light patterns. The compositions are based on form and flux of spaces we inhabit. Conceptually, the canvases focus on our perception of time and space, sensory experience and memory, through the painting process. Travel in Italy, Spain, Central America and the United States provide diverse visual references and artistic influences in her work.
Her work is widely exhibited and held in public and private collections in the United States and Italy. Donna's studio practice encompasses teaching and curatorial projects. As art curator at M Health Mill City Clinic Gallery, she collaborates with medical and artist communities to engage imagination, meaning, creativity and wonder in community clinics, through the Art in the Healing Environment Exhibition Program.
Donna studied art and graphic design at Endicott College in Massachusetts and the School of Visual Arts in New York. She received her BA from the University of Minnesota in Visual Art and Healing. She has worked as an Art Director, freelance graphic designer and design business owner in the New York metropolitan area. She was a board member of Inspire Arts at Hennepin Medical Center and is a volunteer guide at Weisman Art Museum on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis.
"Color, energy, emotion and movement are the foundation of my visual style and intuitive approach to painting. I love the fluid materiality of oil paint and the process of transforming two-dimensional surfaces into dynamic layered compositions through interaction of color, form and line. My paintings blend elements of nature with abstraction as a means to create visual poetry."
Venice Waterways, oil on custom built canvas, 72"H x 96"W x 2"D, Available at DF&A Gallery, Minneapolis, MN USA
Notable Exhibitions:
Art in Embassies Exhibition, Ambassador's Residence, Geneva, Switzerland, 2023
Celebrating 50 Years, Douglas Flanders & Associates, DF&A Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, 2022
The Warehouse Show: Part 2, Paintings +, Douglas Flanders & Associates, DF&A Gallery, Minneapolis, MN, 2022
Donna Bruni, Recent Paintings, Summer Solstice, Solo Exhibition, Douglas Flanders & Associates Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
Ensemble: Together Again, The Painting Center, New York, New York, 2020
Visual Poetry, Donna Bruni, Juan Carlos Collada, Gardner Colby Gallery, Naples, Florida, 2020
Art in Embassies Exhibition, Ambassador's Residence, San Salvador, El Salvador, 2020
Art in Embassies Exhibition, U.S. State Department, Ambassador's Exhibition, Riga, Latvia, 2020
Abstraction in Minneapolis, Douglas Flanders & Associates Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2015
Beyond Water and Sky, Solo Exhibition, M Health, Mill City Clinic, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2019
Mentors & Proteges, Two Artists, Watkins Gallery, Winona State University, Minnesota, 2015
Figuratively Speaking, Solo Exhibition, Tractorworks Gallery, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2014
Floating to the Surface, Solo Exhibition, BMW Gallery One, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2014
Art on the Plains Biennial IX, Plains Art Museum, Fargo, North Dakota, 2012
Foot in the Door, Minneapolis Institute of Art, MIA, 2000, 2010, 2020