Damascus Gate Panorama 2 (2017) Photography by J.A. Quattro (Qu4ttroStudio)

     J.A. Quattro has produced several 111 page, 12x12 inch, lay-flat photo books of Jerusalem, Israel; the PA & Jordan; Galicia, Spain; NYC & the USA. The photographer specializes in panoramas, cityscapes, landscape, architecture & ancient locations of spiritual significance. Images often feature stone arches, alleyways & ruins, some portraiture & journalistic subjects. The photographer-artist creates, designs, & edits their original, digital photo paintings of their original photographs.

     Two older neighbors were formative, personal influences on Quattro’s development, along with having a father who, besides being a handyman, real estate investor/developer, a U.S. Army veteran and a JCFD Captain, was also a self-taught musician, singer, songwriter, pianist, drummer & dancer, as well as a mother who, besides being a legal professional and a religion teacher, could draw well and learned to dance from her husband. One older neighbor was a talented, local black and white photographer named Artie Van Blarcum, who was featured, along with Quattro’s childhood home, in a photo biography by the well known photographer George Tice. The other early influence was a ceramics maker & painter named Jackie, with whom the young photographer & future digital artist began a weekly painting class for neighborhood children. Quattro & Jackie had both been born to Ashkenasy Jewish mothers, but were raised as Christians, which has come to shape the uniquely mixed experience and perspective evident in much of Quattro’s work featuring images that have meaning to many peoples’ heritages and to many individual’s own identities.

     As a 17 year old Catholic High School student, in 1995, Quattro took part in the administering of the Eucharist, documenting the Papal Mass given by Saint Pope John Paul II, at Giants Stadium, and the one-time used, iron altar canopy from that historic event now permanently rests near Quattro’s family burial plot, where Quattro will eventually join their deceased parents, overlooking the NYC skyline, which is featured in some of their earliest photos. The cemetery is where the young, solitary creative and imaginative mind would often go to find inspiration in the silence and presence of the resting spirits, and where they witnessed the 9-11-01 tragedy, as the WTC Twin Towers had been a part of their daily view from school. While taking early admission college credits from Saint Peter’s University, Quattro simultaneously attended night & weekend classes at Orthodox Jewish Seminary, going on to study at a Yeshiva College, in the Old City of Jerusalem, Israel. There is where the artist’s photographic interest converged & emerged as a calling, combining history, identity and spirituality. Quatto continued involvement in organizations that offered opportunity to combine learning, traveling, volunteering and devotion to developing as a photographer and as a person, which included working for Madonna’s children’s charity, in 2007.

• Nationality: UNITED STATES
• Date of birth : 1978
• Artistic domains: Works by artists with a certified artist value, Works by professional artists,
• Groups: Certified Artists Professional Artist Contemporary American Artists