Tracie is a painter whose most recent work has been acrylic on canvas. She was raised in Pennsauken, New Jersey and has been an artist for as long as she can remember. She has always had an extremely close relationship to her late grandmother, Mary Armstrong, who was also an artist. Mary, who was a painter and award-winning photographer influenced her at a very early age to draw and be creative.
Tracie attended Hussian School of Art in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania after high school. There she was able to experiment freely with different types of mediums and really develop her drawing skills. She also earned her Certified Internet Webmaster certificate at Drexel University in 2000. But after graduating Hussian Tracie lost her way a bit with her art and did not come back to it fully until 2003 when she quit her day job to commit herself to her art business. She has been painting ever since. Her business, Funkshonal Art, includes mural designs, fine art paintings and hand painted furniture among many other things. She says that she has never turned down a job, no matter how obscure the request.
Bradenton, Florida is where Tracie currently resides with her two children, Lyla and Axton. A recent transplant from Collingswood, New Jersey. She paints in her studio and sells her work online and at art festivals. She tries to challenge herself with every new piece to grow professionally as an artist. Her children are the inspiration for much of her work.
“My happiness in life is being creative and fully expressing that creativity. My intention is to pass along some of the joy that I get from creating along to the person receiving each piece.” Tracie Godri
I strive to evoke some kind of emotion within the viewer with my imagery and possibly transport them to a different place and time.
I take very seriously the power that is in the process of creating. I respect that I am, at times, a vessel for someone else’s vision. I paint people and places in order to bring something to life, whether they are still with us or not. And to see the viewer overcome with emotion when presented with the end result is such an overwhelming joy.
Whether I am painting realism or abstract pieces I start my love affair with the canvas the same way in the beginning with very careful planning. Then I totally lose myself in the creative process, giving a little bit of myself to each one. I lose all conception of time and space. I completely immerse myself in the paint, the emotion, the sheer pleasure and excitement of giving birth to something that was void of presence before the brush met the canvas. At the end I am left with these wonderful beings that I have birthed, all holding a part of my being in them. Never knowing at the start exactly how each would develop and eventually define who I am.
