About Audrey Kantrowitz

My name is Audrey Kantrowitz and I am a local artist of Cheshire, Connecticut. I specialize in drawing and painting, focusing mostly on portraits and illustration. My favorite subjects include such fascinating figures such as Victorian curiosity Joseph Merrick (The Elephant Man), silent film actor Lon Chaney Sr., and various creatures of fantasy and my own quirky imagination. I was born in New Haven, CT, but spent most of my childhood in the rural town of Guilford. Though I always had a series of somewhat troubling symptoms, I was not diagnosed with the Autism-spectrum condition Asperger's Syndrome until I was out of High School. Most of my work comes from the rather unusual obsessions I have with certain topics, and my desire to pay tribute to them. Most of my artistic education came in the form of New Haven's Educational Center for the Arts (ECA) and the sadly now-defunct Gibbs College. After school, I spent a lot of time experimenting with different techniques and skills, which helped to greatly broaden my work. As I have said, I now live in Cheshire with my very supportive fiancee Michel Stango, I previously went to Naugatuck Valley Community College to study Early Childhood Education, but have since redirected back to my art. I am also a historian and the artist-in-residence for the Friends of Joseph Carey Merrick (FoJCM), a community dedicated to preserving the legacy of Mr. Merrick, as well as raising awareness of the rare medical conditions Proteus Syndrome and Neurofibromatosis.