About the Artist

Frank Pietronigro is a fine artist, new media artist, author and an ‘Artronaut’ who has achieved international recognition as the first American artist to create “drift paintings” as he and the 3D painting floated in weightlessness, in zero gravity, created during a parabolic flight aboard NASA’s KC135 turbojet.  
Frank Pietronigro, Photography by Joseph Szymanski

He has lived in San Francisco since 1977, graduated with a BFA in Interdisciplinary Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute. He has served the community by producing Art In The Park and Intergeneration: Building Queer Community Across the Ages Through the Arts. He also directed the San Francisco Arts Commission Festival which is a month long celebration of the visual and performing arts in San Francisco Civic Center Plaza. Currently, Frank continues to work in traditional media as well as serve as Co-Founder and Chief Visionary Officer of the Zero Gravity Arts Consortium (ZGAC), an international space arts education organization advocating for greater access for artists to space flight technology.  He considers himself an ‘artonaut’ and has presented plans for potential sub-orbital and orbital flight concepts he would like to create.