About Me

Artist Statement

R. J. Mendola grew up in a traditional Italian home in Brooklyn, New York, where children, parents, and grandparents treasure their close-knit family structure. He became interested in the arts after a move to Staten Island as a teenager and signed up for art classes at the local college.

Additionally, Mendola gained experience as a playwright and also found that he had the ability to improvise on the piano. Gradually, as the artist/playwright/musician experimented with different art forms, his interests and passions morphed into the plastic arts.

In the mid 1980s, Mendola was starting to get some traction in the art world, being part of a group show at the Ariel Gallery on Broome Street and a show in a Gallery on Staten Island.

By the beginning of the 1990s, life got in the way and he had to concentrate on his partner’s Bakery business so by the time he was able to return to artwork it was already well into the new century.

Over the years he has practiced his art, amassing a large collection of canvasses but being a typical artist, he is passionate about art, not marketing so he has largely gone unnoticed. With shows and recognition moving forward he is expecting that to change. In recent years Mendola has turned his passions to digital artography and has composed many series, some of a geopolitical nature, some of an ethnocentric nature, and some are whimsical. A few series of both his canvasses and artography may be found on his website at rjmendola.com.