Local artist Fred Nocella’s debuted his exhibit “Prosopagnosia: Do I Know you?” on Friday with a reception at the Eddie Rhodes Gallery.

The exhibit focused on Nocella’s theme of prosopagnosia, a cognitive disorder where a person is unable to recognize a person’s face otherwise called “face blindness.”

This was the theme of the exhibit, Nocella’s inspiration of the portraits or as the exhibit statement describes it as “Probing discomfort of the unknown.”

Art professor Dana Davis is a friend of Nocella who had invited him to showcase his work at the Eddie Rhodes Gallery.

Davis said he liked Nocella’s work and asked him to bring more of it to display in the gallery.

“The work is unsettling yet very intriguing and interesting. I had shown my students as most of them having been to an art show. They were surprised but loved it, they haven’t seen anything like this,” Davis said.

The art was of portrait paintings of isolated mannequins.

Each piece was a realistic and 3D-like painting of a single headpiece of a mannequin with grand detail.

Some pieces look more human than mannequin and vice versa.

The exhibit included a section of “trial and error” which were failed versions of pieces where you see each attempt improve until you get the final product.

Nocella said his inspiration is random, and it comes from the world and what interest him.

The world is constantly changing and so is my idea’s and inspirations he said.

Nocella has been painting since the 1980s and went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for his Bachelor degree for Fine Arts.

Nocella has won awards for his works, and as a day job Nocella works as a commercial artist.

He gets projects for places such as museums and carnivals, and the projects he works on influence his personal growth as an artist, he said.

“He’s an amazing artist,” Brian Baker, friend and coworker, said, “This is the first time I’ve seen his personal work outside of working on projects together.”

Baker has worked under Nocella on art projects.

“He has amazing brushstrokes and I love his contrast of realism and how blank the mannequins look. The art is creepy yet intriguing at the same time,” Baker said.

Multimedia artist and musician from San Francisco Brice Frillici, otherwise known as SEKDEK said, “His art makes me want to paint. It needs more blood though. Like a lot of it.”

Other guests like Steve Newell, who is a friend of Nocella said, “I like the craftsmanship. The art has good perception and looks very 3-D. At first I thought they were photos but up close you can see they’re actually paintings.”

The exhibit at the Eddie Rhodes Gallery will be open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and run until March 3rd.Local artist Fred Nocella’s debuted his exhibit “Prosopagnosia: Do I Know you?” on Friday with a reception at the Eddie Rhodes Gallery.

The exhibit focused on Nocella’s theme of prosopagnosia, a cognitive disorder where a person is unable to recognize a person’s face otherwise called “face blindness.”

This was the theme of the exhibit, Nocella’s inspiration of the portraits or as the exhibit statement describes it as “Probing discomfort of the unknown.”

Art professor Dana Davis is a friend of Nocella who had invited him to showcase his work at the Eddie Rhodes Gallery.

Davis said he liked Nocella’s work and asked him to bring more of it to display in the gallery.

“The work is unsettling yet very intriguing and interesting. I had shown my students as most of them having been to an art show. They were surprised but loved it, they haven’t seen anything like this,” Davis said.

The art was of portrait paintings of isolated mannequins.

Each piece was a realistic and 3D-like painting of a single headpiece of a mannequin with grand detail.

Some pieces look more human than mannequin and vice versa.

The exhibit included a section of “trial and error” which were failed versions of pieces where you see each attempt improve until you get the final product.

Nocella said his inspiration is random, and it comes from the world and what interest him.

The world is constantly changing and so is my idea’s and inspirations he said.

Nocella has been painting since the 1980s and went to the School of the Art Institute of Chicago for his Bachelor degree for Fine Arts.

Nocella has won awards for his works, and as a day job Nocella works as a commercial artist.

He gets projects for places such as museums and carnivals, and the projects he works on influence his personal growth as an artist, he said.

“He’s an amazing artist,” Brian Baker, friend and coworker, said, “This is the first time I’ve seen his personal work outside of working on projects together.”

Baker has worked under Nocella on art projects.

“He has amazing brushstrokes and I love his contrast of realism and how blank the mannequins look. The art is creepy yet intriguing at the same time,” Baker said.

Multimedia artist and musician from San Francisco Brice Frillici, otherwise known as SEKDEK said, “His art makes me want to paint. It needs more blood though. Like a lot of it.”

Other guests like Steve Newell, who is a friend of Nocella said, “I like the craftsmanship. The art has good perception and looks very 3-D. At first I thought they were photos but up close you can see they’re actually paintings.”

The exhibit at the Eddie Rhodes Gallery will be open Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and run until March 3rd.