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AnnMarie Tornabene graduated from Long Island University/CW Post in 1998 with a BFA in Photography, magna cum laude. Coming from a lower-class family, with a mentally-ill father and a domineering, abusive mother from Long Island, New York, she dabbled in art and music throughout her childhood Though these interests were never encouraged, she took photography, art and music courses in school. After graduation, she began working in a wedding photography studio. It was there, that she realized that photography was her calling, and a few years later, went to college to learn the craft.

From the beginning of her college career, AnnMarie always photographed people over any other subject matter. She would choose physically beautiful men and women to photograph, wanting to capture their beauty immortally, for, as an overweight woman, she wished to possess that kind of beauty that was considered ideal. Upon talking to her subjects, she learned that none of them felt confident in their appearance. She then began photographing her self as she wanted to be seen - as beautiful. Through encouragement by her peers, as well as her new job as an artists' model, a confidence grew within her.

With music being a profound inspiration, she is also inspired by the art of the Pre-Raphaelites, Symbolists, Romanticists, and other art of the Victorian period. It is here where beauty was the strong point in a piece or work, while the artist and his/her society was troubled. AnnMarie sees her life as a parallel and tries to take all of her issues and nightmares and turn them into something beautiful. She calls it a “layering”, or as she likes to sometimes call herself - “an onion”.

AnnMarie Tornabene is committed to the process of self-portraiture and to push the envelope in how she wants to be perceived. With photography being the core medium, she is now working with mixed media.

Since the very beginning of my creation process, about 15 years ago, I have always had a fascination with the idea of layers. Since I was shooting traditional photography, I would use masks, sheer fabrics and other means to express that idea. A few years ago, one of my dear friends started doing acrylic transfers of scanned flowers and mounted them to mat board. She asked me to help her make some of the transfers and in doing so, a light went off in my mind that this would be the perfect next step in reinforcing the layer concept.

An acrylic transfer is an image transfer process using acrylic medium. You start with an ink jet or Xerox print. You brush on 8-10 layers of acrylic medium (I use Liquitex matte medium). Drying each layer with a hair brush, once the last layer is applied, let the whole print dry overnight. Soak the print in a tray of water for 5 minutes and then peel off the paper. The image is impregnated into the acrylic and you are left with a flexible, translucent image. Because of the translucent quality, the transfer can be placed on top of things and where the white areas of the image are, whatever is underneath will show through.

I am in the process of a new body of work in which the pieces will take on a Medieval manuscript feel. I am still in the shooting phase of that work though.

AnnMarie Tornabene is an award-winning artist exhibiting and publishing her work internationally, as well as being reviewed in The New York Times, Newsday, other publications and Internet venues. She has been interviewed by women’s organizations on the topic of body image in contemporary society. Essays and prose have been written as reactions to her photographs.

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