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CLASSICAL ART ACADEMY RETURNS TO OYSTER BAY
LIAFA’s master painters and teachers begin new classes at Art (that matters)
The Long Island Academy of Fine Art (LIAFA) has been running classes in towns across Long Island
for eleven years now, but this year marks an especially important point in the school’s development, as the doors open in April to new classes in Oyster Bay. Thanks to the collective and gallery Art (that matters), at 55 West Main Street, LIAFA will begin its spring semester with a faculty exhibition there on Thursday, April 7th, from 7 – 9 p.m., during Oyster Bay’s monthly Art Walk, and start new classes in the same space the following week, on April 13th.
A number of LIAFA’s instructors have taught in Oyster Bay before. When Attila Hejja, the beloved
director of the Stevenson Academy of Fine Arts, passed away suddenly in 2007, LIAFA’s founder
and director, Robert Armetta, was brought in from Riverhead to teach his classes. Upon leaving the
Stevenson Academy, Armetta continued his classes at Planting Fields, and then went on to open a studio in Glen Cove, in 2008. LIAFA has continued to grow, offering new drawing, painting, and sculpture courses for adults and children, in portrait, figure, landscape, and still-life work, as well as Long Island’s first and only full-time classical program. LIAFA draws the hundreds of students it serves not only from all over Long Island but also from Manhattan and other New York City boroughs, and from out of state.
Now Armetta can offer some of his school’s most popular classes in Oyster Bay. With the start of a new semester in April, LIAFA will open portrait drawing and painting, plein-air landscape, and portfolio-development and young artist’s classes at Art (that matters)’s studio. The course instructors include Dave Peikon, a highly regarded Long Island artist whose portrait clients include William F. Buckley, Junior, and the Nobel Laureate Dr. James D. Watson; and Leeanna Chipana, an acclaimed instructor of both adults and younger students, and the head instructor of LIAFA’s Young Artist Program.
Armetta is especially looking forward to the faculty exhibition on April 7th. “The Long Island Academy is particularly fortunate to be able to show work at this venue, which is such an important resource for artists,” he said. “We are grateful to Christine Benjamin and Roseann Nicotra of Art (that matters) for the opportunity to share their space, and honored to be a part of the inspiring and forward-looking arts community they’ve fostered here.”
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If you’d like more information about the Long Island Academy of Fine Art, or to schedule an interview with Robert Armetta, please contact Flora Chase at 646.508.7645 or flora@liafa.com. LIAFA’s website is www.liafa.com. Robert Armetta’s work can be seen at www.robertarmetta.com.
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