LORETTA TEDESCHI-CUOCO
Mixed Media / Figurative Women
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Her career in New York City's Fashion Industry spanned over thirty years. As a Fashion Illustrator, Loretta produced artwork for many prestigious clients with a brief list including Polo Ralph Lauren, Burberrys, Disney and NIKE. Loretta ran her freelance art business while simultaneously teaching those same creative design skills to students at Parsons School of Design on their New York and Paris campuses.
Upon their relocation to Arizona in 2016, Loretta taught Fashion Illustration at Arizona State University and Fashion Design Workshops for Youth at the Mesa Arts Center. During lockdown, she led virtual drawing classes that reached a global audience from her own studio. She’s also led workshops at the Phoenix Art Museum, the New School for the Arts and Academics in Tempe and impromptu figure drawing sessions at the School of Architecture at Taliesin West in Scottsdale during her artist residency in 2014.
In 2018, Loretta began working as a Live Event fashion artist at luxury retail boutiques at Scottsdale Fashion Square for Ferragamo, Vuitton, Dior, David Yurman, Cartier as well as at Fashion Shows and private events. Concurrently, she began to attend painting classes and experiment with various materials while developing her portfolio of fine art pieces. She is enjoying her ever-evolving transition from being a commercial artist, to having her fine art exhibited and purchased by collectors. This has been a fulfilling "next chapter" in Loretta’s artistic journey. And the beat goes on…
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I’m a mixed media figurative artist, who has been intrigued by fashion from a very young age. My mother and grandmother were seamstresses and I grew up in stimulating and creative environment, full of fabric, color and texture. I’m driven to recreate that sense of controlled chaos (aka, their sewing room) in my fashion-related paintings – adding anything from cigar bands to glass bugle beads – to make that happen.
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In my past life, as a fashion illustrator, drawing the attractive fashion model in the pretty dress was the end goal. These days, as a painter, I’m still captivated by the twists and turns that fabric makes on the figure, just on a different level. But it’s not just about the clothes. I’m inspired by the quiet strength of the women who wear them and focus on capturing the nuances of each subject’s face, as that’s where the viewer connects with the piece.