Based in New York City, Amber Vittoria is a painter, poet and rising NFT artist whose work centers around depicting true representations of the female body, both in physical and emotional form.
After studying graphic design at Boston’s University College of Fine Arts, Vittoria found inspiration in the bold imagery of British painter Jenny Saville – who once visited the Boston campus for a lecture — as well as American contemporary artist George Condo.
In her pursuit to dismantle antiquated gender-biased stereotypes through art, Vittoria reframed expectations, wholly rejecting the grandiose ideals of the fashion industry and its exclusionary archetype of what constitutes perfect beauty.
Her early fingertip figurative pieces tenderly displayed females with oversized body compositions, the curves and contours of their limbs intentionally over-proportioned to, as she put it, “focus on the physical aspects of womanhood.”
“I struggled seeing myself in advertising and fine art, so the best way that I could make work that I could see myself in was drawing figures that I could relate to," she said.
A few years on, and not only has her artistic success blossomed — having collaborated with the likes of L'Oreal Paris, Adidas, The Hundreds, BBC Proms and Meta, among many others — but also her thematic style evolved from figurative to abstract.
I wanted the ideas within my work to speak to more than just the physical experience, but also the emotional aspect of what it's like to be a woman in this world.
Each individual's perception of art is entirely subjective. For some, visiting art galleries and museums can be a daunting experience, as their intimidation of creativity and apprehension to acquire knowledge overwhelms any notion of curiosity.
For others, precisely the people who stare at clouds and point out the appearance of unicorns dancing with leatherback turtles, the exact same experience can be a captivation of sensory fulfillment.
By most accounts, the piece above ‘I Think I’m Stuck’ is easier to assimilate and decipher at first glance than the below piece ‘If Only We Knew’, which requires more a trained eye or educated mind to reach the same level of understanding.
‘If Only We Knew’ could be interpreted visually as quirky, modern and uplifting due to its bright color palette, with pareidolia as slices of pizza, icicles and Jenga pieces, or philosophically as a symbol of stability and togetherness.
In this sense, Vittoria’s evolution of artistry has traveled full-circle, from a vulnerably exposed expression of identity to the more delicate and metaphorical abstract art she is synonymous with today.
People's interpretation of abstract art can at times differ from the original intention of the artist. Vittoria revealed that she enjoys this process as it epitomizes the uniqueness of humans, affording insight into the stories and memories within their own lives.
In October this year, Vittoria become MoonPay’s inaugural Artist in Residency - a newly established quarterly program which seeks to recognize and empower female and non-binary figures within the artistic scene, specifically those utilizing NFTs.
Over the last three months, Vittoria has participated in Twitter spaces and Instagram takeovers to share her experience as a digital artist. This schedule will culminate in the release of a 1,530-piece NFT collection with MoonPay on Dec. 15 titled ‘Untitled’.
It is available to mint through Terminal 27 starting Dec 15, 1pm EST.
Vittoria has created 100 individual artworks across a supply rarity of 1/1, 1/15 and 1/30. Each piece will be available to mint for 0.1 Ethereum (ETH), equivalent to $125 at the time of writing. There will be no allowlist, and the art will be unrevealed at the point of mint.
‘Untitled’ will be Vittoria’s tenth NFT collection since entering the space in early 2021, yet the first she believes is a pure “celebration of form.”
“In my experience, if my work – especially if abstract – isn’t tethered to an idea about furthering how women are seen within the world or the art world, it tends to be disregarded. Whereas, our male counterparts in the art world can paint about anything and it seems to be well received”, she claimed.
Vittoria expressed a desire for her ‘Untitled’ collection to portray freedom without the feeling of being, as she said, “limited by the struggles within my own life to drive a narrative.” For her, this thought process epitomizes how artists evolve through time, both as people and as creators.
Vittoria’s first four collections minted on OpenSea were created in a digital form using software programs Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.
However, since the ‘It's Because You're Pretty’ collection was released in October 2021, she has exclusively chosen physical artworks for the past five consecutive collections.
The majority of her physical art is created with acrylic paint on paper, but sometimes the canvas is board or linen. The process of creating a piece such as Building a Maze is less mathematical, and more intuitive based with an emphasis on embracing the occurrence of natural flaws, she explained.
Once finished and dried — a process which can take up to two weeks — the physical pieces are digitally scanned using a flatbed scanner and the resulting jpeg image converted into an NFT.
The ‘Untitled’ drop signals a shift back to digital, a form which Vittoria believes most people within the NFT space resonate closer with than traditional art.
I did a lot of digital work as a freelance illustrator predating Web3, and what I liked about NFT's is that it opened up my mind to creating fine art as digital art.
“I love doing both, it kind of oscillates. I'll really be into creating work digitally for whatever theme that I'm working on and then I'll cycle back to making work by hand. I don't know if that's just because I'm a child of the 90s [knowing life pre-computers], but I really love how both inspire each other.”
Vittoria’s debut book ‘These Are My Big Girl Pants: Poetry and Paintings on Womanhood’ will be published on Jan. 3 in partnership with Andrews McMeel Publishing, and is currently available for pre-order.
The poems within the book have been consciously coupled together with a piece of abstract artwork, the former serving as a conduit of understanding between the viewer and the artwork.
“The whole idea behind ‘These Are My Big Girl Pants’ is coming into oneself and how we grow into different versions of ourselves as we grow older, and a lot that comes with that is exploration and experimentation as a person.”
