Featured Artist : Aubrey Feliciano
Aubrey Feliciano is an artist living and working out of the Hartford area. She has a background in classical ballet training and a lifelong fascination with the ocean, so dancers and marine life are the main focus of her work. Through depicting these seemingly contradictory subjects in similar technique, she brings out the graceful power of both.
In 2020, Aubrey began working with Ballet Hartford as their Resident Visual Artist, and has contributed her expertise to the company brand through designing merchandise and imagery for performance marketing campaigns, and periodically created crafts and activities for the younger audience. She also has participated in their annual summer dance festival “Awakening” each year since it began in 2021 with segments of live-painting the dancers onstage. Lastly, she has helped to facilitate Open Artist Days at the company studio, where artists in the community can come in and sketch the dancers. “The most valuable education I ever received in figure drawing was sitting and sketching dancers as they moved. To see how the body works and how much strength it takes to appear graceful was so inspiring and eye opening. I want other artists to have a chance at a similar unique experience.”
Marine life became a more prominent subject in 2021. Each summer, Aubrey has created a series of marine life images for her Art for Sharks Project, a campaign to bring awareness to the importance of preserving marine ecosystems. This annual conservation project continues to evolve every year.