b. 1995
Athena Parella received a B.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in fine art and theater. In 2020 she completed a three year apprenticeship program under the United Scenic Artists, Local 829. After completing approximately four thousand hours of training she continues to specialize in theatrical painting for primarily Broadway productions at Scenic Art Studios in Newburgh, NY.
Athena's paintings currently reveal her complicated longing and discomfort with childhood nostalgia. Her work features toys that are jarringly displaced from their original context advertised on their packaging. By nature, nostalgia is not physically present - however her process depends on retrieving these toys and artificially placing them for reference. She believes that doing this renders the toy both in place and out of place simultaneously. Doing so generates the anxiety of the uncanny, and she hopes to reveal that discomfort in her use of light, shadow, and composition.