Venezia Portraits
About
Born into a family of artists, Gioia Venezia Grenfell carries on a family legacy of artistic talent. Her father was a painter and her mother was a photographer and pianist. Following in their footsteps, Gioia has been drawing and sculpting her whole life, and she applies her skills and passion to her portraiture work.
After taking every art program available as a child, she built a foundation in fine arts as a high schooler by taking night classes in classical portrait drawing and figure drawing at Washington University. She attended Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y. and earned a BFA and MFA in Painting and Sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute.
After graduating, Gioia spent time in Europe, sketching classical art and learning from the masters of classical painting and sculpture. Later, she conducted further studies in anatomy in New York City and Washington D.C.
Gioia possesses a wealth of professional experience in art education. She created a foundation art program at a high school in Brooklyn, where she was a tenured art teacher. Over the course of ten years, she developed and taught a wide range of studio art classes at Central Piedmont Community College and Winthrop University. She has also worked as a freelance artist, selling portraits, drawings, illustrations, 3D props, and mural paintings. Presently, Gioia is working on a figurative sculpture for a public building, teaching privately, and selling portraits and drawings in Washington D.C.
For inquiries about portrait commissions and available artwork contact: