January 2018 - Cherie Bosela

Cherie has been creating art since she was a kid (sometimes to the detriment of her parents’ furniture and walls).  She learned photography from her dad and took her first photography class in high school, and continuing with the medium all through college. She graduated from the University of Central Florida with a degree in Art. During college she was always searching for her medium. She studied every medium available to her. She thought Photography might be it since she had been experimenting with it for so long, but it was missing the hands-on building and creating. During college, she learned about Antoni Gaudí, an architect who used mosaic in his work throughout Barcelona, Spain, she knew right away this was what she wanted to do. The very first mosaic she made was from a kit, and it ended up in the garbage. Not happy with her results, she bought a few books about mosaics and started playing around with different types of tesserae.  Then she started playing with her photography under the glass.  She finally felt like she found her mediums!

She is inspired by the lush natural scenery that surround her and her travels. She tries to capture the essence of the moment, to express something that made an impact on her.  She takes these photographs and recreate them into a mosaic using stained glass, beads, millefiori, smalti and her original photography under the glass, giving life back to that little moment and giving the experience to all who pass it. She loves using many different textures in her work.  She starts with a photograph or a collage of many different photographic images. Then, she will add a layer of paint (metallic paint and glitter are her favorite) to accentuate certain aspects of the image. Next, she adds the glass over top the painted photograph; sometimes creating patterns in the glass to play off the images in the photographs and sometimes using the grout lines in between the glass pieces to outline the shapes of the image. She incorporates many different sizes, shapes, colors and textures of glass to the surface to capture her one of a kind vision of these moments.

Her artwork has been included in exhibits at The Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA, 1st Thursdays at the Orlando Museum of Art, Mayor’s Gallery in Orlando’s City Hall, and CityArts Factory, just to name a few. And you can also see her at several of the local art festivals. She has won several awards for her mosaic artwork.  She is a member of the Society of American Mosaic Artists and served on the Board of Trustees for 3 years.

Her studio space is in Orlando, which is also her business, Luna Mosaic Arts.  She hosts mosaic artists from all over the US to teach workshops and she sells mosaic supplies there. In addition to creating hanging artwork, she can create custom mosaic installation work for your home or business.

Learn more about Cherie at www.cheriebosela.com and www.lunamosaicarts.com