About Giovanna
Giovanna Dutra was born in Avellino, Italy in 1962. She migrated with her parents to Australia when she was six months old and has lived and worked in Canberra since.
Giovanna’s life experiences and challenges influence her pieces, including her early years in Italy, and later displacement to a distant and (at the time) strange country. What results are stunning works of art in her studio that reflect her emotions and inner feelings through these times.
Every painting is unique, with the quality, colour and type of paint playing an integral part in her means of expression. Giovanna does not utilise traditional paint brushes or pallet knives, preferring several different shapes and lengths of specially formed sticks and short wooden dowels to achieve her desired patterning. Colours and textured layers are applied with direct purpose, each energetic stroke falling in a controlled manner to achieve a certain balance and symmetry within the accumulated depth of drizzled colour.
Giovanna experiments with various other media such as wood panelling, glass and attains dramatic transformation of simple mannequin torsos through her fierce application of intense colour contrasts.
