Chelle Destefano
Chelle is an established Visual Artist, having graduated with a bachelor in Visual Arts and Applied Design in 2007.
She works mainly with watercolour, ink and wash, and mixed media. She has a love for the illustrative style and enjoys working within it and outside the usual bounds. Chelle will draw anything that captures her eye and mind, and takes herself into an imaginative field where she comes up with odd ideas that find their way onto paper. The volksys playing pool or Taxi bug going upstairs inside a house are examples or a ghost in an unexpected place. Sometimes she will stumble across an abandoned place and try to narrate it back to its heyday or she dreams about something and illustrates it the next day. She finds herself feeling excited about working on an art piece and Chelle can often be found in her art studio that she converted a third bedroom in the house into, working on a drawing or painting.
The intent of Chelle’s artworks is to tell a story to the audience, either a fiction or theoretical depending on the themes. The visual stories are designed both to entertain and to make the audience think about the possibilities within the story and convey into the world. The themes are sub-sets of the visual stories.
Chelle does commissions and makes her own projects, creating bodies of artwork in watercolour illustrations and as art books. At the moment she is working on a project about her volksy bug Taxi on adventures and another called Blue Ghosts. She is currently represented by Art Images Gallery in Norwood, Adelaide, South Australia.
You can view more of my artworks at www.chelledestefano.com
Chelle Destefano – Artist CV
Studies
2001 – 2006 Bachelor of Visual Arts and Applied Design – O’Halloran Hill TAFE Campus
2008 – 2009 Cert IV in Screen and Animation – Hamilton College (Adult Education Department)
Awards/Scholarships
2016 Richard Llewellyn Arts grant – funding for Wait of World Exhibition in Melbourne
2015 Selected to show in a juried art show in Paris
2015 Selected for the Venice Biennial, Italy with Exposure Program with Luca Curci Gallery
2015 Arts SA Makers and Presenter’s Grant for Blue Ghosts Exhibition in Melbourne, March 2015
2015 Acquired by Art Images Gallery, Norwood for ongoing consignments of my watercolour illustrations
2014 Richard Llewellyn Arts grant – funding to attend Arts Activated Conference, October 2014
2014 Dawn Slade-Faull Award – Painting/illustration
2014 Major Prize Award – Public Exhibition Award by Art Images Gallery; Abandoned Room I, Adelaide Royal Show
2014 First Prize Award in Open Encouragement Special Award, for One Year’s Membership at Adelaide Art Society – Salty Lime Café, Adelaide Royal Show
2013 – 2014 Armature #2 Program workshop relating to curation, promoting own art practices, festival and exhibition involvement
2012 Richard Llewellyn Arts grant – painting/illustration
2010 First prize recipient for the Dream Series II at the Deaf Arts Show
Solo Exhibitions
2016 (upcoming) October – Blue Ghosts Abroad
Australian Embassy, London, UK
Exhibition of Blue Ghost works including new works
2016 (upcoming) September – Chelle’s Collections in Paris!
Galerie Metanoia, Paris, France
Exhibition of ranges of collections including the popular Blue Ghost works, volky series, Europe 2015 works, and the Rainbow Abstract collection
2016 (upcoming) July – Wait of World II
Artisan Framing Gallery
2016 (upcoming) May – June – Wait of the World
Gasworks, Art Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria
Exhibition of works relating to the world changes and the perceptions within, A1 sized watercolour illustrations
2015 October – November – Volky’s Adventures II
Art Images Gallery, Norwood, Adelaide, South Australia
Solo exhibition featuring all large sized (A2 – A1 size) watercolour illustrations of Taxi and other Volkys on Adventures Series II
2015 June – Inking History – Thebarton
West Torrens Council Gallery
Solo exhibition of illustrations on the heritage buildings of Hindmarsh, Adelaide, South Australia
2015 April – Onkaparinga Celebration Month
Manolis Mezes Café
Solo Exhibition on illustrations of Port Noarlunga’s main street shops
2015 March – April – Roam the Blue Ghosts I
House of Bricks, Collingwood, Melbourne
Solo exhibition on ghosts in abandoned places in watercolour illustrations
2014 September – October – Semaphore Art Walk
Semaphore Road (Semaphore’s main street) in conjunction with Semaphore Street Assoc. exhibiting my artworks in 7 different shops
2014 August – Rainbow World Series 2
Adelaide Convention Centre – SALA Festival
Exhibition of Further Advanced Rainbow Works on Wood 2 (Paintings) for the SALA Festival
2014 May to June – Port Noarlunga My Home Town
Port Noarlunga Arts Centre
Solo exhibition of watercolour drawings of the town Port Noarlunga
2014 April to May – Rainbow World Series 1
SA Writers Centre
Rainbow Works on Wood 1 (Paintings)
2014 Jan to Feb – Thickened Gesso set
Manolis Mezes Café in Port Noarlunga
Group Exhibitions
2016 April – NOW Exhibition at Artisan Framing Gallery
2015 December – Juried Art Show: A Single Grain of Rice, Gallery Metanoia, Paris, France
Three watercolour illustrations
2015 November – Venice Biennale, Italy, Luca Curci Gallery in Ca’ Zanardi Palezzo
Collection of Blue Ghost artworks; 4 pieces
2014 Christmas Exhibition – Art Images, Norwood, SA
Collection of illustrations of Taxi’s Adventures (3 watercolour works)
2014 October – Volky Adventures Collaboration
Adelaide Convention Centre as a second invitation for Artbeat
Volky Adventures I in watercolour by me, and mosaics by new emerging artist Roberta Sassi
Commissions
2016 – Various commissions ordered on themes including Blue Ghosts, Venice collection and Volksy Adventures Collection
2016 – Upcoming – Second deck collaboration of Carnival theme with the same global group that created the tarot deck earlier in 2014, designing one card for the deck
2015 – Second deck collaboration of Nautical theme with the same global group that created the tarot deck earlier in 2014, designing one card for the deck
– Five private commissions for people relating to their favourite things, family and pets, their life stories
– Corporate/Public: big body of work of a historical town for the council of West Torrens
2014 – Typewriter and Camera duo, private commission
– illustrations for a ceramic artist (this is in progress now)
– First and Limited Edition deck collaboration of Fantasy theme with a global group, designing one card for the deck
– The SAHMRI building on corner North Terrace and West Terrace, commissioned by SA NT Datalink within the Uni SA and Health SA boards – large illustration of the building from the outside, view from across the road, almost architectural style illustration
– Rainbow abstracts (private commissions):
August – 1m x 1m Rainbow abstract June – 3 piece large Rainbow abstract work at 500mm x 450mm each piece March – Rainbow abstract work 600mm x 600mm, framed
Private/Public collections
2015 – International; France – purchase of a volky piece from the juried group exhibition
2015 – Local, national and international collection of the Volky (Vdub) Adventure Series
2015 – Thebarton historical buildings body of work of 10 pieces, public collection by the West Torrens Council
2015 – Local and national collection of 12 Blue Ghost series
2014 – Local collections of five of the Rainbow Abstract series on show at Adelaide Convention. Local collections of 7 artworks from Port Noarlunga exhibition. Local collections of the thickened gesso series (3 of these, acquired from Manolis Mezes)
2012 – France – Red Phone in Hallway from Vintage is Good exhibition)
– Local collections of 7 artworks from Vintage is Good exhibition
2011 – Local collection of the second Dream Series
Experiences
2015 Teaching at a Workshop under Access2Arts – for artists who want to learn how to market their arts
2014 Attended Arts Activated Conference and was invited by international art bodies to show my art in the UK for 2015 and 2016
2014 Art Teacher at Brighton Primary School, guest role leading to an invitation to do a Christmas special and then ongoing once a term in 2015 pending approval from the principle – October 2014
2014 Guest speaker about my arts at Windsor Gardens Secondary College – July 2014
Publications
2015 East Meets West Design Week, UK; feature article introducing my artist profile into the UK Arts
http://artdirectory.ning.com/blog/venice-biennale-to-welcome-australian-artist-chelle-destefano-thi
http://www.eastmeetswestdesignweek.com/day-9—finale.html
2015 Empty Easel online art magazine: article on my watercolour works, May 2015; http://emptyeasel.com/2015/05/27/chelle-destefano-fantastically-quirky-watercolor-illustrations/
2015 Talking Points quarterly magazine of City of West Torrens, Adelaide, South Australia, Autumn 2015 Edition. One page featuring my artworks on the historical buildings of Thebarton, in the West Torrens area
2015 Crowd Crux on my Kickstarter project about Roam the Blue Ghosts Art project at www.crowdcrux.com/symbiotic-patronage-backers-creators-creators-backers/
2015 The Amazing Australian Artists book – two page spread of my arts and bio
2014 SA Life on the Semaphore Art Walk
Contact details
Chelle Destefano
Visual Artist, Freelance Illustrator and Artist Business Administration
12 Essexvale Avenue,
Huntfield Heights,
5163, South Australia
Australia
Artistic Directors
Chelle Destefano
Online
Email: gypsysnail@hotmail.com
Website: http://www.chelledestefano.com
Twitter: @gypsysnail
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gypsysnailsarts
Blue Ghosts
Description: This is a visual art exhibition by Chelle Destefano, showing 10 pieces of large scale illustrations based on old places and abandoned places and ghosts that surround and tell the story. The artworks are created with pen, ink, watercolour and some mixed mediums altogether, and on large size watercolour paper (A3 to A2, some A1).
Extra information: The art exhibition will be shown in Melbourne at House Of Bricks Gallery from March until April and it encompasses the story telling nature of old places. The opening night will be on the 20th March and it is estimated about 150 to 200+ people will be attending the exhibition. It is hoped that the exhibition will expand my prospects further, and possibly abroad. Chelle would like to show this exhibition abroad in London or other parts of Europe where she has a large fan base who enjoy her artworks and new audiences who would get the chance to view her artwork and gain insight into the artist.
People on road: Two people - Chelle the artist and her arts manager and support person.
Freight: necessary
Freight details: It is expected freight will deliver the framed artworks to the gallery in Melbourne, and the chosen freight is Pack and Send who are a reputable courier company that deals with artworks.