Al Razza was born in Providence Rhode Island in 1954 and attended college at the Art Institute of Boston in 1973 and 1974, but graduated from Massachusettes College of Art in 1977 with a Bachelors Degree in Fine Art. Just out of college he opened Razza Fine Art Limited in Barrington, Rhode Island, a small but well attended gallery. In 1979 he moved to South Florida, but in 1982 he returned to the North to attend graduate school at Pratt Institute in New York. He was awarded two fellowships and offered an assitantship there, but was unable to complete the masters program due to financial hardships. Upon returning to Florida in 1983, he began to do outdoor art festivals, while working as a printer in research and development for a local manufacturer of printing presses. He assisted in the development of printing presses for 3 dimensional objects, such as bottles, pens, and VHS tapes. In 1989 he went back to school attending Flordia Atlantic University where he worked to complete teacher certification, which he did in 1991. Shortly there after he was successul in winning the covetted South Florida Art Consortium Fellowship, which was a $15000 cash stipend, awarded for artistic excellence. The award was followed by an exhibition of his work at the Norton Museum of Art in Palm Beach, Florida. Since then he has gone on to develop new painting techniques and has taught in the Broward County School System. He is currently an art teacher at the Coral Springs Museum of Art School. In 1995 he started Design Crafters Inc. A small custom frame shop, which is now a fine art gallery, school, and art supply center, which still offers quality custom frame work and restoration of Fine Art. His works have beed continuously exhibited.

Artist's Statement
Whether I am painting representational pictures or something purely abstract, I want the work to be provocative and stimulating.The surface of the work should be active and full of energy, pulling the viewer closer like a magnet.

When I paint images my need to understand who I am as person and the dynamics of the world around me is revealed in some expressive manner. I live every day wondering how I can improve what I see and do to make something wonderful emerge from my subconscious visions. My inspiration come from diverse artistic styles as well as social and environmental conditions. Many years have passed since I first examined what motivates me to create art. I was always fascinated by history, like the Ancient World with all its mysteries, the Italian Renaissance during which so many great artists lived and worked so close to one another, and the Twentieth Century where so many innovations and inventions have affected the way we live our lives.

I draw from the Ancient World at times, and read mythology. I enjoy those myths of our creation. It is in these ancient arts and stories that I have found adventure.

I enjoy so many artists it is difficult to say who is a favorite. In the Italian Renaissance, I try to understand the order and color of artists like Giotto, the veiled emotion of Michaelangelo, and the fervor of da Vinci. The twentieth Century to, has had such and influence on me with artists like Picasso, Kandinsky, DeKooning, Pollock, and so many others. In no other time could I have been exposed to such diversity, which has generated so many opportunities to create an iconogrphy all my own.

So when it comes to answering my own question of what motivates me, I guess I would have to say: "I have always had a strong desire to create, persevere, and be a contributor to history in some fashion, to empathize with the world, and find the essence of that experience in some vision."