Danielle Festa
Artist, Educator and Executive Director
In 2021, contemporary artist Danielle Festa began painting trauma survivors to honor their resilience and strength. What she thought would be a one-time exhibition grew into something much bigger, eventually becoming The Aplomb Project, a nonprofit bringing art, creativity, and community together.
Since graduating with a BFA from UMass Amherst in 2007, Festa has focused on hyperrealist portraiture and mixed media, incorporating fabric to challenge perception and explore identity. Alongside her own artistic practice, she has led art workshops over the past two decades and is passionate about making art more accessible and creating opportunities for people to explore their own creativity.
The survivor portraits began with her cousin, who opened up about experiencing childhood intrafamilial abuse. Painting her became a way for Festa to process her own emotions while reflecting the strength she saw emerging from her cousin's experience. Years later, during her own cancer journey and chemotherapy, painting continued to offer Festa a way to step outside her worries and reconnect with her creativity during an incredibly challenging time.
Today, Festa is honored to create and gift portraits to survivors who trust her to reflect their stories and the resilience she sees in them. Fabric remains an important element of these paintings, representing each survivor's choices in how they are portrayed and their own sense of empowerment.
With the support of a dedicated board and a growing community, The Aplomb Project has expanded beyond the survivor portraits into a creative space on Central Avenue in Dover, New Hampshire. Through its gallery, art café, workshops, live music, poetry, and creative programs, Aplomb brings different art forms together and makes art more accessible, welcoming people to explore their creativity, connect with others, and experience the arts in new ways.
In addition to painting the portraits and spearheading the community programming, Danielle has a background in graphic design and web design that enables her to run a full range of operations for the organization. Listen to a Seacoast Stories podcast Danielle was featured on here.
the paintings
Click to read the stories if you are in a place to receive them. Each is an empowering example of finding strength after the trauma but reading the details may bring up some emotion. If you or someone you know has experienced trauma and are looking for support, here are some reputable organizations available to help.
"Stitched Together"
Oil and acrylic on linen by Danielle Festa and crochet by Sravya Kaniti 2024
Read the story
Artist Statement
Danielle Festa creates hyper-realistic, mixed media oil paintings that highlight resilience in trauma survivors. Figurative paintings of the Renaissance period were reserved for the rich and powerful, with carefully selected attire to highlight their prominent placement in society. Festa highlights a different type of power embodied in individuals who have faced incredible adversity, and paints survivors in self-selected wardrobes that showcase their strength.
There are many ways of coping with physical or mental trauma when it comes to outward appearance. Material can be a mechanism: for hiding, for comfort, for control. Festa discovers and paints survivors who have found the confidence to step back into the light. Color, pattern, fit, and embellishments worn with confidence, or that tell a story, can inspire others to rise up in the face of adversity.
The abstracted brush strokes or ink backgrounds contrast the detailed hyper-realistic portraits. The colorful, or sometimes dark, elements represent the complexity of entangled traumatic experiences, rising emotions and the emergence of courage.
Each survivor collaborates to find a Renaissance painting that speaks to them. This becomes an inspirational reference for Festa's modern interpretation of each portrait recipient's position, along with background elements. The Aplomb Project ensures that every survivor ends up with their portrait as a reminder of their strength.
The Aplomb Project is a 501(c)3 organization that uses the transformative power of art to uplift trauma survivors, promotes creative healing and presents inclusive artistic opportunities.
If you or someone you know has experienced trauma and are looking for support, here are some reputable organzations that are available to help.
Stand with survivors
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EIN #92-1844895 | The Aplomb Project
262 Central Ave, Dover, NH 03820
603-208-3300
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The Aplomb Project is a non-profit a 501(c)3 organization that uses the transformative power of art to uplift trauma survivors, promote creative healing, and present inclusive artistic opportunities. All contributions are tax deductible to the full extent of the law.
Aplomb Gallery resides at Cocheco (CO-chi-co) on N’dakinna (n-DA-ki-na), now called Dover, New Hampshire, which is the unceded traditional ancestral homeland of the Abenaki (a-BEN-a-ki), Pennacook and Wabanaki Peoples, past and present. We acknowledge and honor with gratitude the land, waterways, living beings and the Aln8bak (Al-nuh-bak), the people who have stewarded N’dakinna (n-DA-ki-na) for many millennia.