About the artist
Kiki Zonari is a contemporary Brazilian painter, residing in AVENTURA, FL, who combines vibrant, abstracted imaginary elements with geometric dots and lines, in other moments brings themes related from her native Country in a playful movement.
Kiki was born an artist. It was no surprise to her parents, a talented musician of Brazilian music such as Samba and Bossa Nova and both of them successful entrepreneurs, to see her talent bloom, their best advice was “live extraordinarily, try exceed the unexpected, do it with passion”
Just before the age of 9, she began to travel every Monday to the lovely atelier of Brazilian plastic artist Marisa Lacerda in Olinda to take art lessons. To this day Kiki loves Mondays - she waited eagerly each week for those wonderful afternoons to arrive.
Her burgeoning interest in drawing quickly evolved to trying out oil painting, pastels, ceramics, and acrylics. She was fascinated by colors and the fact that she could communicate through her creations. At this point, she figured out that her gift of creating art was endlessly enjoyable as it was challenging, fascinating and pleasurable.
Curious creative teenager, she started working with her mother, hand-painting on fabric for her clothing line and store, indefinable flowers, fish movements and lots of abstracts compositions mostly.
1986 she studied Plastic Arts at the Federal University of Pernambuco, leaving a few years later to travel to Europe for a pivotal period of growth. She travelled to museums and art galleries across the continent, engaging with the Old World and deepening her artistic point of view, all while improving her English.
Returning to Brazil, she fell in love with hospitality, the new family business, and soon became a hotelier in a blissful spot on the Coastal Northeast of her native Country called Porto de Galinhas, where the natural reefs were visited by thousands to see the incredible movement of school of fish, dancing on the crystal clear water that sometimes can play invisible. The artist never left her, more then a hundred large paintings of large fish, corals, sea creatures are in a permanent display at the hotels.
Throughout her life Kiki has stayed involved in her community. She used her artistic skills to help create the image and brand of Porto de Galinhas, providing leadership for the tourism industry and leading Porto to be voted “#1 Village by the Beach” in the State of Pernambuco for 10 years.
Selected Exhibitions
2021/2022 at Art Fusion Galleries in Miami and St Petersburg.
2021 "Happiness ", Online Exhibition by EXHIBIZONE.COM
2021 " Here comes the Sun" , curated by Tampa based artist Savannah Magnolia, Art Center Sarasota, Sarasota, FL.
2021 "Joy: An Art Exhibition Celebrating Life", curated by owner Jose Gomez, House of Shadows Gallery, Clearwater, FL.
2021 " Black & White with a Pop of Red", Judged by Prof. Ann Larsen, Ridge Art Association, Winter Haven, FL.
2021 "May 2021 Group Art Show", curated by David Jones, The Jones Gallery on Art District Kansas City, MO.