Adriana Barone   1949 - present

It all started at Pratt  . . . 

…moving from my suburban neighborhood on Long Island to the harshness of Bed-Stuy in the late 60s. Pratt was a bubble embedded in a rough neighborhood. The bubble lasted only so long as young people woke up to injustices within our society; the war in Vietnam, racial and economic imbalances imbedded in the system. Adding to this was the influx of drugs and student strikes that took over many campuses including Pratt. It was a fracturing time for me. I lost touch with myself and I stoped making art; I was too fragile. 

I found that ‘modern’ art was no longer speaking to me. I needed the groundedness, the solidity of history. I needed the centuries old paintings and artists who came before me. I managed to graduate by shifting my focus to art history, classical music, and the literary classics.  The classics grounded me ...I needed the deep roots of our shared humanity in order to heal. I consumed it all with a soul hunger. Sibelius, Beethoven, Satie, Balzac and the Old Masters spoke to my soul. I found the pain and anguish in classical art that I felt within myself and it healed my sense of isolation. 

Graduating Pratt and moving to NYC I worked as a designer and art director so I could safely provide for myself. I did that for 15 years until my inner free spirit compelled me to quit my jobs and vow to live from my heart and my soul.  And I did. Somehow I got by. It was at this time 1987 that I had a spiritual shift that led me to pursue a career in Energy Healing, working with clients in private practice and teaching.  But something was always missing  — when I started to paint again it was as if all my pieces finally fell into place. 

I have continued my work as an Energy Healer and also I honor my creative pulse by painting as often as I can. I have transformed my home to support both of my passions , creating a beautiful healing space and converting my living room into a large art studio. I currently have a vision, which I hope to realize, of bringing my understanding and experience of energy healing and the human energy field into an inter-active installation.

Now I am moved by many artists, poets and musicians, contemporary and ancient, the known and the unknown. But the one true thing is a work of art can opens my heart…can touch my soul. 

I have a lot of catching up to do. I am like a kid who hasn’t eaten….I am eager to try learn and master different mediums, challenging myself to reach that elusive universal language of the soul.