Judy Onofrio


Judy Onofrio is an American artist who lives and works in Rochester, Minnesota, United States.

Career

Born in New London, Connecticut, Onofrio studied business law and economics at Sullins College in Bristol, Virginia. She moved to Minnesota in 1967, where she became involved with the arts community in Rochester. In 1970, she became acting director of the Rochester Art Center where she founded the children's art program Total Arts Day Camp.
Involved in many other facets of the Minnesota art community, Onofrio also helped found and acted as president of the Minnesota Crafts Council in 1972, and served on the founding committee of the Minnesota Artists Exhibition Program at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 1975.
According to art critic Tanya Hartman, Onofrio explores the relationship between life and death through clay sculpture and found objects. Known for glittery objects and installations, Onofrio began her artistic work in clay in the early 1970s, working out of a clay studio in the basement of her family home. She was strongly influenced by outdoor art and built armatures on which to layer the collections of miscellaneous beads, glass, and hardware. This work was somewhat autobiographic, but humorously so.
By the early 1980s, Onofrio was creating outdoor installations, influenced in part by regional Midwestern attractions such as the Dickeyville Grotto in Wisconsin and Grotto of the Redemption in Iowa. These large-scale outdoor installations led to events such as "fire performances" in at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa in 1984 and Grand Forks, North Dakota in 1985, pieces in which wood-and-paper pyramids laced with gunpowder were set alight. Onofrio's first major exhibition, Judyland, opened at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in 1993.
She has also worked with wood and in jewelry. Beginning in the late 2000s, her work became less colorful, with a focus on dried bone sculptures. In 2010, her work was exhibited in a collaboration at St. Olaf College with her daughter, photographer Jennifer Onofrio Fornes.

Awards