The Ohio Artist Registry (OAR) is an exciting opportunity for artists to share their work, connect with the creative community, and establish an online presence—all on a free, virtual platform! The OAR encourages artists working in all art forms, throughout Ohio and beyond, to create a profile, which allows them to better promote themselves and their work. Being listed in the OAR provides artists with new opportunities to share their work with clients, galleries, patrons, and audiences. A listing in the OAR does not confer an endorsement, approval, or verification by the Ohio Arts Council.
For more information, contact Kathy Signorino, artist programs director, at kathy.signorino@oac.ohio.gov or 614-728-6140.
2024 Ohio Artist Registry Juried Exhibition
Kirsta Benedetti
Bio
Kirsta Niemie Benedetti lives and works in Columbus, Ohio with her husband and two daughters. She completed half of her Bachelor’s degree at Maryland Institute College of Art, took a year off to live in India, and completed her degree at Columbus College of Art and Design upon returning.
Kirsta has worked as a freelance artist partnering with Minted and West Elm since 2015, and as a commissioned artist for patrons around the country. Parallel to her art career, she founded a nonprofit resource center in Columbus that welcomes refugees and immigrants to America. This experience has deeply impacted and shaped her artwork and her direction of focus.
Currently, Kirsta is launching The Whole Picture Project, an initiative to bring people together through art and storytelling. She seeks to create platforms where people who have been overlooked or misrepresented by broader society can reflect to the world how they want to be known. She focuses on her subject’s personal stories and values, striving to highlight the beauty within their experiences and the honor and dignity within their personhood.
Artist Statement
As an artist I seeks to create platforms where people who have been overlooked or misrepresented by broader society can reflect to the world how they want to be known through my portraiture. I focuses on my subject’s personal stories and values, striving to highlight the beauty within their experiences and the honor and dignity within their personhood.
“When you tell a person’s story and you see that gleaming detail of them, and you’re able, even in just that one molecule to tell them truly, so that others can connect to them, then you love them. And there’s no going back after that.” (Lauralee Farrer)
