About the Artist

Cynthia Wells is an internationally exhibited artist and award-winning animation filmmaker. Her films “The Shadow of Doubt” screened at festivals around the world and garnered many awards and accolades and “Interview with Talullah, Queen of the Universe" a satiric docu-drama about a jaded character named Tallulah. This film garnered her two Annie Award nominations and she became the first woman to be nominated for Outstanding Achievement in Animation and Outstanding Achievement in a Short Film.  

After studying animation and design from some of Disney’s famous nine old men (Ken O’Conner, Marc Davis, Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnson, and Eric Lasen and other luminaries of the golden age of animation at the highly esteemed California Institue of the Arts, Cynthia began her career working for Walt Disney studios being trained by master animator Eric Larsen. From there she went on to work for other notables including Richard Williams of Roger Rabbit fame.

Wells has over 80 animation and directing credits in commercials, shorts, documentaries and feature films, including directing a TV episode of, "Mission Hill" (Warner Bros.) Cynthia also served as animation director at Rhythm and Hues as well as directing the animation sequences for the Academy Award nominated feature documentary, "A Sense of Life", Cynthia was supervising animator on "Once Upon A Forest", and "The Thief and the Cobbler". She also worked as animator on two Emmy award winning shows, "Ziggy's Gift", and " Roman City", and on the features, "Anastasia" (Fox), "Space Jam" (Warner Bros.) and "The Quest for Camelot" (Warner Bros).

Cynthia Wells is also an internationally exhibited artist. Her work explores the portrayal of human interaction on paintings where she uses the animator's tools of movement and depth to augment the drama she is describing. Wells also uses color for the same purpose. "I look at my paintings as one act plays that are frozen at the point of conflict. The distortions of form and shape that are necessary to achieve movement in animation are not unlike the layers of contradiction within each of us." Her work is influenced by Lajos Egri’s writing on the theory of theater. His statement, "that because a thing contains a contradiction within itself, it moves and acquires impulse and activity" resonates throughout her work.

Cynthia is currently creating limited edition prints that illustrate the Italian street theatre characters of the Commedia dell Arte. As she explains, “I was thinking about the next film I wanted to create. A few years ago, I began researching my Italian family history and found out about the wonderful festivals that are a part of Italian history. This was all new to someone who had grown up in Southern California fifties suburbia. “I decided that I wanted to combine my love of creating art with my love of cooking and this fantastical world of celebrations,” she says. “The best way to tie all these elements together became obvious – let the characters of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte act it all out. As soon as I began drawing them, they took on their own lives. Characters like Arlecchino, Isabelle, Pantaloon, The Doctor and The Captain are timeless. The nonsense they get up to really speaks to a gioia di vita – life joy – that resonates with the way I like to look at life.”