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Artist Nelya Akimova (NELYA-NAKI) is an artist who creates spectacular oil-on-canvas images and also works with digital photographic art. The primary goal of her research is to understand how illusionary our reality is and to encourage the audience to view things differently.
What if it turns out that everyone on Earth is an AVATAR and that everything we do is simply a giant game? And we have the power to determine our own fate for the ensuing 100 years? As a result, Nelya Akimova (NELYA-NAKI), an artist, reexamines the reality of the present world in her work and imagines a variety of potential futures for humans as well as AVATARS. "Welcome to the Game on Earth!"
Her works are evocative of the immensity and purity of snowy vistas, which stand in stark contrast to the imposing presence of contemporary concrete construction. Akimova is able to give her compositions a rough, concrete-like feel by using oil on the canvas surfaces of her works.
Figures appear out of the white expanses of paint in Akimova's work, which she creates through an instinctive approach without having any preconceived notions about how the composition would develop. She uses a limited colour scheme and a stark contrast between light and dark to create elegant simplicity. Akimova had a prosperous career in the pharmaceutical sector before deciding to devote her time solely to making art. But she felt compelled to live a life that went beyond the security and predictability to which she had become accustomed. When she started working on her new collection of paintings in Prague in 2018, it marked the beginning of a new chapter in her life.
Heather Allison is a fine arts photographer based in the Northern California, USA. Her work is influenced by the gloomy skies and dismal beaches near the storm-prone shores of the northern coast, where she lives. Best known for her pensively lit still life photographs of exotic and domestic ephemera, Heather arranges taxidermy, flowers, bones and books into dramatic compositions reminiscent of vanitas style Dutch master botanical paintings. Her photos dance the line between the macabre and the sublime: a nod to her love of Victorian memento mori, she venerates both equally. Her love of- and background in art history can be seen in her works, connecting the modern age to her predecessors in visual art. Though she began her career in photojournalism and event coverage, it was the sudden passing of a family member that inspired Heather to explore the transience of life through still life imagery; it is here that her passion for the medium was revitalized and continues. Heather has an AA in Photojournalism from Brooks Institute of Photography, a BFA in Art History from the Academy of Art University, and is currently working on an MFA Fine Art Photography at AAU. Showing across the United States and internationally, Heather Allison’s imagery has been featured in such art publications as The Shoutflower, she maintains close working relationships with luxury interior design firms such as Raven Vanguard, and her works can be found in private collections both domestically and overseas.
Karin Lanini Arthofer, aka KLA, was born and raised in Switzerland. Having moved to London 10 years ago in search of greater space for her imagination, she now calls it home. Karin has experience in both interior and fashion design, so she lives her life surrounded by art and style. Karin’s work is a natural manifestation of contemporary and abstract art that fits in perfectly with modern settings and functions as a crucial component of the puzzle.
Karin experiments by employing various mediums, such as clay for sculptures, filler, and plaster, in a growth of absorption and thoughts, and with a flowing creative energy. She also enjoys using organic materials that she regards as relevant, such as sawdust, hemp bags, or occasionally sands that have been brought back from particular locations throughout the world. Her works are characterized by a passion that manifests itself in the act of her creative process, a process that mirrors life itself and that, like a circle, ends where it began in the basic complexity of existence. A location where the anticipated irrationality and randomness, as well as the odd and occasionally incompatible materials utilized by Karin, are not perceived as constraints but rather as tools to produce a well-balanced artwork.
Artist about her work:
I enjoy acrylic as well as organic elements like lime, sand, sawdust, and paper and associate them with chalk and colours. The spontaneity and interactions between the materials inspire experimentation and the growth of imagination, which in turn helps me produce my paintings using various stratifications. In my process, I begin with a plain white canvas and add a first layer of modelling paste to give it weight and structure so that later drawings can be done to make sculptures with reliefs that resemble paintings.
My works feature peaks, valleys, cracks, rough and smooth surfaces, and dazzling and opaque parts, and they are reminiscent of aged, eroded walls. An ongoing process leading to a gradual stratification, culminating in the creation of unique works that discover a link between matter and existence, bringing life to this unique universe. They serve as an example of a personal and grounded mapping technique that considers the physical characteristics of the immediate surroundings in order to create an elusive equilibrium.
Victoria Ascanio lives & works in London, UK.
She was born and brought up in Spain. She studied Fine Arts at Madrid University before moving to England. There she studied Printmaking at the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford and was a Founder Member of the Oxford Printmakers Cooperative Association. She has taken part in fairs and exhibitions internationally and her work is in many private and public collections.
Ascanio has been represented by Galeria Gaudí in Madrid for over 15 years and is represented by For Arts Sake Gallery in London, Artifact Gallery and Amsterdam Whitney Gallery in New York and Paks Gallery in Austria and Munich. She is a member of the Printmakers Council.
Tamera Bedford is a Hong Kong - based mixed media artist who is noted for her extraordinary dedication both to her artistic practice and to the nature of her diverse subject matter. Her work turns to visual representation to capture her deep respect for environmental phenomena, and beyond, to biological life and mental flows of the human brain. Her effect is at once to telescope to the micro-elements of these exquisite realms, networks and systems as it is to pull our perspective back to appreciate their superstructures built of exquisite flows, lines and patterns.
Barry has sculpted portrait busts of Julius Caesar, Shakespeare and many others from solid Carrara marble blocks imported from Italy. He also sculpted a larger than life-size statue of the 16th century Bishop William Morgan from Llanrhaeadr-ym-mochnant who translated the Bible from Hebrew into Welsh, and was unveiled by First Minister of Wales Carwyn Jones in 2012.
Barry’s sculptures are the culmination of decades of study of human and animal anatomy, classical, renaissance and Baroque sculpture at the same time developing his own dynamic yet slightly ethereal style.
Akshita Gandhi (India, 1988) is a Mumbai-based photographer and multimedia artist.
Gandhi manipulates her images by painting over them, working digitally with repetition
and distortion, and collaging to study obscurity/perceptibility and construction/
deconstruction, broadening the boundaries of the photographic medium.
Gandhi has an MFA and has had her work shown in twenty-seven galleries and art fairs around Asia, Europe, India, the Middle East, and the United States. She's also worked with the United Nations Chamber of Music Society, Katerblau, a German music festival, New York designer Frank DeBourge, India's Kurtees, a fashion label, and Celesté, a premium tea brand.
Internationally renowned German artist Bea Garding Schubert is based in Nienburg/Germany and Mallorca/Spain. She pursued a fine arts degree at the German Braunschweig University of Art (Painting/Prof. Hermann Albert). She spent eight years travelling the globe after receiving her degree before relocating first to La Palma in the Canary Islands, years late to Mallorca in the Balearic Islands. In 2007, she began her career internationally and he has shown her work in art fairs and galleries in several countries from Beijing to New York, including The Affordable Artfair in London to Artexpo New York, and her pieces grace the collections of prestigious institutions such as the Deutsche Botschaft in Athens, the Copelouzos Museum in Athens, and the Chagall Museum in Vitebsk, Belarus.
Bea's eight-year voyage around the globe, which included camping and hiking through the Himalayas, the Rocky Mountains, and the Sierra Madre, gave her a singular perspective on life and art. She developed a strong belief in the power of dreams and the value of never giving up on them as a result of this event. Her widely recognised pieces, which celebrate the beauty of life and pay homage to the music that inspires her, are filled with joy and hope. Her bold hues and strong compositions are a breathtakingly gorgeous homage to love, hope, and the human spirit.
Artist about her work:
My deep desire to give people hope for the future inspires my art. I combine elements of street art and abstract art, using brilliant colours and dramatic compositions to produce works that are visually appealing. My work conveys strong emotions and sentiments and is inspired by song lyrics.
From the "The Show Must Go On" series, which was inspired by Freddie Mercury, to the "Heroes" series, which was inspired by David Bowie's song, my art supports embracing life's journey and recognises the possibility of heroism. I aspire to evoke hope, spark people's imaginations, and help them feel a connection to the beauty and resiliency of the world through my works of art.
Dobri Gjurkov was Born in Sofia, Bulgaria 1963 and grew up in Havana, Cuba. He graduated from the Special School of Applied Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1982 and worked as a scenography artist in different theatres in Sofia from 1984 to 1987, then as a graphic designer for the Cultural Centre of the then Polish Republic in Sofia, until he left the country for Germany in 1990. In Germany, Dobri studied further graphic design with the new computer technologies while painting, drawing and making exhibitions as a freelancer until now. Dobri has presented solo exhibitions in Bulgaria, Poland and Germany since 1985, and more upcoming exhibitions will be in Italy, France and Spain in 2022.
Artist Statemnt: „Sharing my quest for a coherent perception of the modern world, with many questions, and very rarely finite answers.“Pen and ink drawing was always of primary importance for me because of the straight-ahead, unambiguous honesty of the black lines, the very limited and demanding choice of techniques and the precision involved. Furthermore, a penchant for contextual and formal contrasts is characteristic of my work, not only black versus white, the tactile versus the two dimensional, but also a richness of detail versus the unnamed, precise positioning versus ambiguity, asceticism versus sensuality, faith versus consumerism/atheism. I have been influenced by the virtuoso work of artists like Albrecht Dürer, Goya and others. However, my creative output refuses to submit stylistically to any narrowly bound art category or current.
Nic Gotch is a London-based fine art photographer, well-known for her unique series of works focusing on nature. Artist about her work: "I rediscovered my love of the still image after a 15-year career in Broadcast TV Production working with the moving image. I intuitively moved towards the Still-Life photographic art that I now create. My collections of circular artworks note the subtle aspects of the seasonal changes, the shift in romantic emotions over time and the underlying nuances of Victorian fairy tales. I use a Fuji x100 camera and do not use any filters or special effects. The images are created using mirrors and reflections. My visual influences include Robert Maplethorpe and Georgia O'Keefe, and I tend towards using a Preraphaelite and Dutch Master colour pallette. My work has a very painterly look that is aided by printing onto specialist fine art papers. These artworks are created using natural materials collected with care and arranged to perfectly reflect the essence of an emotion or to suggest stories interwoven into the hidden depths of the image. I developed the technique using mirrors alone and did not use artificial software or post-production to create the 3-D illusion. I print onto archival fine art paper to enhance the painterly look of my images."
Carine Hayoz is an architect and painter from Bern, Switzerland, who enjoys painting acrylics on canvas. She employs the formal vocabulary of landscape and architecture. She assembles compositions of surface, colour, and light that she artistically abstracts into a singular piece. The range of hues and shapes allows us both our personal interpretations and the unadorned and flawed.
In order to investigate the landscape and architectural components, Carine Hayoz uses atmospheric hues, abstract shapes and lines, accents, and subtle contrasts in her acrylic paintings.
On the square canvases, human forms start to appear more and more, capturing the buildings and landscapes.
She has participated in numerous solo and group exhibits over the past ten years in art galleries in Zürich, Basel, London, New York, Milan, Perugia, and Venice.
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“In every image, I give an unfinished story that the audience is free to add to, imagine, or even remake. Every motion, every position, and every interaction with the environment that the human being in my paintings makes conveys a fresh, insightful tale. "
HeAven's is a self-taught painter who was born in Noumea, New Caledonia, in 1989. She resides and works in Paris. She is a computer science graduate who first displayed her work in an eclectic bookshop between 2018 and 2020 before taking the exciting step of exhibiting at the 15th contemporary art fair Sm'Art in Aix-en-Provence in 2021. It was a great adventure and a revelation because it revealed that her artistic soul had finally found its home.
HeAven's explores healing, self-knowledge and acknowledgement, and admiration for the universe and its wonders, and draws influence from various cultures and mother nature in her artworks. She renews wonder, and brings hope, calm, and happiness. She envelops you with warmth, gentleness, and lightness. She has the "superpower" to turn the dark, painful, and negative into the bright, cheerful, and good.
She finds inspiration above all in the wonders of nature: trees, oceans, nebulae, melodious universes, and osmosis between sun and moon. She draws from the depths of the unconscious, temporal concepts, the paths of the past, Norse mythology, Korean legends and different cultures.
Dora Bertolutti Howard was born in Faedis (Udine), Italy in 1957. She is an experienced Fine Art photographer and a studio assistant to her husband Ken Howard RA OBE. She has always been a keen photographer with the obsession of immortalising what she finds inspiring. Her limited edition prints are in a number of private and public collections and have been exhibited throughout the UK and Europe. Today, along with exhibiting her fine art photography projects, she has the opportunity to work between London, Cornwall and Venice. Her extensive portfolio includes photographs of London and Venice cityscapes, vast deserts of Egypt, rural life in India, portraits of exceptional individuals across the world and dramatic sunsets.
She has had several exhibitions at the Royal Academy of Arts for the Marie Curie Cancer Care.
She has donated her work to Arts for Youth, Young Art at the Royal College of Art, and many other charities in the UK.
Regularly displaying at restaurants and cafes in Italy and London.
Virgin Money Lounge, Eagle Place St James’s, London, 2019.
Old Brompton Gallery, London, 2019.
A&D Gallery, Marylebone, London, 2018.
Venice Ball at Sobanski Palace in Warsaw, Poland, organised by Fundacja Isabella Anders & Burlington Schools, 2017.
An exhibition with Ken Howard RA OBE, The Gallery Café, Sackler Wing, Royal Academy of Arts, 2017.
Associazione Culturale Imagoars, Cannaregio, Venice, 2016-2018.
PZ Gallery, Penzance, 2014.
Nicole Sylvia Javorsky lives and works in her native New York City. Her art is primarily abstract and is a reflection of her own experiences, including her grief, healing process, and observations of nature, research, and daily life. Her mixed media, paintings, and drawings all revolve around the idea of duality. She blends varied textures, colours, and lines with abstraction, organic shapes, portraiture, and text to express various facets of the human experience.
Her work expresses the complexity of life, reflecting the co-existing beauty, agony, and knowledge discovered through survival, healing, mourning, and continually choosing to live. Nicole has endured great darkness; a survivor of sexual abuse, she battled for survival throughout her teens and early adulthood. Each piece of art can stand alone to represent a particular layer or facet of the human experience, but she also constantly organises and ties them together like shifting jigsaw pieces to create a picture of reality that is always evolving.
Nicole has exhibited her artwork at The Other Art Fair, Van Der Plas Gallery, Pelham Art Center, Gallery Clarendon, and others. Her art will also be shown at Clio Art Fair this May and will be featured in an upcoming volume of Studio Visit, a series of juried artist books produced by the publishers of New American Paintings. Her work has sold to collectors throughout the United States, including New York, Texas, and California.
Artist about her work:
"Our lives are interwoven together by the contrasts of darkness and light, change and consistency, stillness and movement. My work emphasises the idea of duality and exemplifies the complexity of life. To depict multiple fragments of human perception, I combine a variety of textures, colours, and lines with abstraction, organic shapes, portraiture, and text. As they embody the healing process, the changes and transformations that are part of existence, duality, and the ability to embrace pain, my works serve as reminders of the magic and beauty of being alive.
As a survivor of sexual abuse, I struggled to keep myself alive during my teenage years and early adulthood. My artwork reflects my own story, healing process, and grief as well as my observations from nature, research, and everyday life. Each artwork can stand alone to depict a particular layer or aspect of the human experience, but I also constantly group and connect them together like fluctuating puzzle pieces to create an ever-expanding picture of existence."
Mariko Kumon is a Japanese artist who lives in Barcelona, Spain. She graduated in applied mathematics from Fukuoka university in Japan. Almost twenty years ago she changed her life and began to study art. She studied casting and sculpture at the La Llotja Superior School of Design and Art in Barcelona and became particularly interested in creating installations. She sells a small line of jewelery at the Joan Miró Museum.
For her, sculpture is the most common form of expression as it allows her to describe life with deep emotions. Depending on the moment and state of the creative process, she intuitively plays with spontaneity and expression. Also for her, the line transmuted into wire is the personal representation of her ideas and thoughts. A line that, curving, twisting and undulating, seeks to find its own space from the inside. These suggestive power lines convey moods, thus building a personal language.
Jasmin Leer was born in Germany in 1981. She is a citizen of both the United States and Germany. She lives in the Netherlands with her family. Following years of study in photography and image processing, Jasmin didn't begin painting professionally until 2015.
She has been creating art ever since she was a small girl. She was motivated to pick up a pen or pencil and a brush to create her own artwork by her father's portrait works. He composed his own music and frequently played live shows with his band. While her father created music and drawings, Jasmin focuses primarily on the visual arts.
Jasmin creates her paintings using a variety of contemporary techniques, including acrylic pouring, alcoholic ink, mixed media art, fluid art, and epoxy resin pouring (resin art). In abstract paintings she loves to use materials that surround us in everyday life, like fabrics, bark and various sands. Things found in nature, but also unexpected paints like wall paint. Regardless of the ingredients, her intuitive creativity binds them all together. Significant life experiences in personal, social and creative environments have shaped her into a self-taught artist who will never stop experimenting. She enjoys relating to both extraordinary and everyday people who also enjoy life and art.
"My aim is to create visuals that grip the imagination, that tickle the soul with the unexpected. Most of my artworks are socially engaged statements, hoping to make people feel and think about change." Says artist about her work.
Steven Light AKA SLART is a figurative expressionist artist working and living in Swindon, UK. His work mainly revolves around portraiture and figurative art. He has always loved drawing since early childhood and is drawn to creating people-centric art because he loves the diversity of people, their stories, problems, issues, baggage, quirks, and personalities.
He dropped out of his A-level Art class because of an unsupportive tutor who said, “You can’t draw on a large scale”. Since then, he rekindled his love for art and has painted multiple large-scale murals in his town, produced many works from his studio, and has been part of group exhibitions in the UK and Germany as well as 2 well-received UK solo exhibits. One of the solo exhibitions, Fistula, documented his journey in living with chronic kidney failure.
Artist about his work: "I am a figurative expressionist at heart, who reveals and disarms human issues through my art. Some of my expressions include body image, anxiety, adoption trauma, kidney failure and crippling shyness. I enjoy using large canvases and outdoor spaces to make a big impact. I have been told my style is unique and has something special about it. I certainly agree that it is my own unique style and I let my passion for drawing and painting come through naturally, rather than trying to apply a particular technique. Being self-taught affords me this freedom."
Francesco Lietti was born in Lecco on the southern shore of Lake Como in Italy. He studied architecture in Milan and furthered his studies in Paris at the École des Beaux-Arts, La Seine, and also at the Clerkenwell College of Printing in London. His works are featured in private collections worldwide. When not painting in his studio,
Francesco is probably riding his motorbike on the Hong Kong hills trying to catch a new view or travelling across Asia in search of inspiration.
He has been living in Hong Kong since early 2006 and his love of this vibrant, eclectic city is immediately apparent in his works, which derives from the mnemonic imagery of the artist, who lives in symbiosis with the themes of travel and discovery.
Lietti also captures the colours and delights of other Asian destinations. The lush greens of Vietnam and Bali, the golden sunsets of Rajasthan, the deep blue seascapes of the Philippines, these are just some of the many places he has visited and experienced. The artist gives us rare glimpses, merging reality with a magical world.
Angus McDonald is an accomplished advertising photographer from the North of England who has been shooting for major product and lifestyle brands for over 16 years. His intrinsic love of art was inspired by watching his father work in his Newcastle-based photography studio as a child. Like his father, he has developed the ability to work in a variety of photographic genres, including still life, food, fashion and product, some of which have gained industry-recognized accolades. When not shooting for commercial clients, Angus's own personal projects have inspired him to give the natural world a pop art twist.
PAP Images - These images are a part of the Punk Ass Poultry series. Humans live in a world where culture, music, and behaviour are quickly becoming more homogenous. A view of one of our closest surviving relatives to the extinct dinosaurs gives us an almost punk-like perspective of personal beauty. These portraits provide a unique look into the poultry species giving them an imaginary rock star stage to proudly fluff their feathers. Limited edition prints of these remarkable images are offered in sets of 10, both framed and unframed, providing the perfect option for art connoisseurs worldwide.
His most notable accomplishments are a Silver Roses Award for Photographic Promotion from 2012, a Best Photographic Promotion Award from Shot Up North 2015, and a Public Street Exhibition around Leeds on billboards and outdoor advertising hoardings in November 2020.
"Unpredictability of the body and its texture feeds the fascination for the unknown. Everything is interdependent and mutually influenced. In order to reflect and express these ideas, I spend most of my time exploring the relationships with body parts, paper, and balloons. I am guided to a spiritual and physical awareness of existence when I simultaneously engage with multisensory experiences in both spiritual and physical senses. As with the spontaneity of book space, my practical work attempts to hunt interrelationships between the inner self and the languages of the physical and symbolic body through clues…"
British-Canadian artist Elise Mendelle resides in London, United Kingdom. Her figurative art explores the relationship between experience and emotion, revealing what it means to be present in our surroundings, and examines how we perceive ourselves in the modern world.
Her work is both nameless and recognisable, enabling viewers to enter the narrative and instantly identify with the given scene. She reinterprets the feminine gaze through her focus on female characters, guiding us in the direction of purpose, strength, and ultimately empowerment.
Elise's most recent accomplishments include having Gabriel Fine Arts exhibit her work at Koppel X in London, Piccadilly Circus and at the Affordable Art Fair in London, Battersea as well as winning two Highly Commended awards at recent exhibitions.
Artist about her work: "As a figurative artist focused on the female form, my work is centered on the exploration and celebration of women through a contemporary lens. I am particularly drawn to confident figures that convey emotion in subtle ways, and my art is an attempt to capture and express this through a pared-back style and a minimalist technique.
I strive to create pieces that are both aesthetically pleasing and emotionally evocative through the elements of line, shape, and colour. I often keep some details back so that the viewer needs to add them in for themselves, thus inserting themselves into the narrative to discover the meaning according to their own memories and experience.
My work often challenges traditional beauty standards and encourages viewers to consider the complexity and individuality of today's women, attempting to reimagine the female gaze in new and exciting ways. Through my art, I hope to not only create striking pieces, but also to inspire others to embrace their own unique beauty and strength through the simplicity and purity of the female form."
Nick Munier was born in 1967 in England. He resides in both France and the UK.
As a Masterchef judge and manager in the Hell's Kitchen TV series for nearly 30 years, in addition to working on several independent productions, Nick decided to leave the restaurant industry in 2020 to focus on his true artistic passion.
Nick's work has already achieved enormous success. You can find his art hanging in homes, apartments, hotels, and offices All around the UK and Ireland. His stunningly bold and vibrant artwork has the ability to capture the audience's attention.
His art is a colourful abstract expression that can easily catch the viewer's attention. He has been able to disconnect from the outside world through painting and express himself on canvas. He draws inspiration from everyday objects, colours, sounds, locations, and people's attire. Sam Francis, Yves Saint Laurent, and Basquiat have all influenced him. He finds abstract art particularly appealing because the final product is never predetermined during the creative process.
Marek Neumann is an award-winning London based photographer and a retoucher. He specializes in interior and architectural photography.
He is very passionate about the geometry of the design, the character of form and the symmetry of the structure.
His photographs were published in various national and international magazines, newspapers and books such as The Journal of the American Institute of Architects, Laif, Advanced Photographer, London Informer, Square Mile, Ealing Gazette, ELGazette, AP magazine, Talusalema along with fashion magazines Oyster, Dilemmas, Practical Guide to Sustainable Fashion as well as in Grazia Magazine France and The Rough Guide and Vintage London. He cooperated and worked with well-established corporations such as Thompson Yates, Borchard Lines, Serrano Evans Architects, RLG designed by Zaha Hadid, Google and the organisers of London Fashion Week, just to name a few.
Neumann is a graduate of Wroclaw University, a Faculty of Law and Administration. Whilst studying, he became a proud owner of 35mm Practica and that’s how his exciting photographic journey began.
Anna Novakov is a Serbian-American artist, writer and curator whose practice focuses on the transitory modalities of the textiles and olfactory arts. As an artist and certified perfumer, Novakov to is able unpack events through a multisensory artistic lens by examining seemingly inconsequential things, such as the smells of outdoor markets and historic recipes.
While her creative practice focuses on intricate hand needlework and conceptual perfumery she is also invested in the role of scent and touch in the construction of personal and collective memories, fragrance as an aspect of Utopian societies and cooking as a socio-political act. The author of dozens of books, articles and exhibition catalogues, Novakov focuses on emerging technologies and their impact on sensory perception. She has curated numerous group and individual exhibitions across the United States and Europe.
Artist about her work: "Private Diaspora is an ongoing series of hand needlework pieces that tap into my own identity as a Serbian-American artist. Born in Belgrade, (then Yugoslavia) and moving to California as a child, I carry the memories and sensory heritage of my homeland. This diasporic displacement is the main inspiration for my creative practice."
Self-taught figurative painter Modupe Odusote is originally from Nigeria. She was raised in Lagos and is a Southern Nigerian Yoruba ethnic tribe native to Nigeria.
She has been a resident of the United States since 2008, and in that time, as a professional in human capital and organisation development, she has had the chance to live and work in other countries such as South Africa and Ghana. She is also actively involved in non-profit work that promotes the empowerment of women throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on those living with HIV and encouraging good mental health habits. She frequently engages with issues regarding representation, human aspirations, self-identity and actualization, internal growth struggles and equity.
Ann Palmer lives in Rochester, Kent. After a long and successful career as a Public Health Doctor, Ann took up drawing and painting in 2007.
Ann spends her holidays in the Loire Valley in France, or in Cornwall where she enjoys the landscape of West Penwith, the rugged coastline and the sandy beaches.
Ann looks to the coasts and landscape of Kent and Cornwall for inspiration, often painting standing on the pebbly beach of Whitstable, watching the tide ebb and flow, the morning mist across the water, the light on the horizon, the clouds coming in from the west over London, and the light out to sea to the north and east. The low tide exposes sandbanks, pebbles, and seafood for the gulls to seek. Her work is inspired by her experience standing in the landscape, on the seashore and Plein air painting, immersing herself in the environment, getting to know the landscape, the colours and the essential mood. When she is in the studio her memories play an important part in working up a painting; the palette knife takes over, carefully placing the colours juxtaposed with each other resulting in a more abstract form of the seascape and not representative of any particular shoreline.
Ann works in OILS, using both brush and palette knife often producing highly textural, layered work. Her subject is principally land, sky and seascapes, often working directly out of doors in front of the scene. Her larger paintings are developed n in the studio from her experiences en Plein air, sketches and photographs. Her work is influenced by such artists as Kurt Jackson and Joan Eardley. Ann is currently working on a series of landscape paintings inspired by the contours of the North Kent Downs and the colours of the harvest.
Parjam Parsi was born in 1988 in Tehran. He currently resides in Yerevan , Armenia. He works in a variety of media. He is also a multi-instrumentalist, producer, audio engineer, and composer who is renowned for his mastery of several instruments and creative control.
Ha has created numerous abstract works using acrylic, mixed media, and ink drawings. He appreciates physically involving the viewer and holds fast to the belief that function comes before form in a work of art in order to address a variety of themes in a multi-layered manner. In his works, reality and fiction intersect, well-known analogies diverge, meanings change, and the past and present converge. Memory and time are always crucial. Using a lyrical and usually metaphorical vocabulary, he frequently creates several works that are practically identical and allow for the expression of opinions. By developing compositions or settings that produce serene poetic images that leave traces and balance on the edge of recognition and alienation, Parsi uses a conceptual approach to heighten the spectator's surprise.
Irina Pashina is an upcycling artist who creates expressive, three-dimensional works of art out of recycled materials such as textile, cardboard, cellophane, and plastic bags. She is an advocate for waste recycling, consumption restraint, and environmental protection. She was born in 1976 In Russia's Voronezh. In 2022, she moved to Turkey, where she currently resides.
Irina just had the chance to basically start over in her life after migrating to Turkey and defying all prejudices. She understood that she could start painting and realize her long-cherished ambition. Her early paintings were surrealistically inspired abstractions, which made it possible to decipher the concealed feelings and messages. The artist became convinced that she could and should do more for herself, for every person, and for the earth as a whole as she was discovering who she was.
"Are aliens already here?" she wondered after reading a scholarly article about an enormous patch of trash drifting in the ocean where "aliens" — living microorganisms that shouldn't be there — have already manifested. Several areas of our globe, including the oceans and outer space, are already inundated with tonnes of trash. This is how the "Ocean" series, the first collection of recycled art pieces, came to be. In her work, the artist has incorporated objects like cartons, cellophane, fabric, and other extraneous materials. Despite include "trash" in the composition, she intends to use abstraction and texture in this series of paintings to capture the beauty of the ocean. The artist creates his three-dimensional, one-of-a-kind paintings using a hybrid combinatorial process.
In 2023, Irina won “ALL Abstraction” competition in the MIXED MEDIA AND THREE DIMENSIONAL category organized by Contemporary Art Gallery Online. She has had several exhibitions in Turkey and USA and her works are in private collections worldwide.
Artist about her work: “I want people to reflect about the future of our shared home and be inspired to consume much less by combining the entrancing vivid beauty of water with incompatible "rubbish" in my paintings of this series. Every admirer of beauty who purchases one of my creations is already doing their part to keep the earth as pristine as possible for as long as feasible.”
Maria Petroff is a self-taught figurative artist living between two countries: Russia and Canada. Originally from Moscow, Maria moved to Canada in 2009 to study Business Administration at the University of Quebec in Montreal. The artistic flair of the «North American Montmartre» inspired the future artist to get back to her childhood passion - painting. Shortly after finishing her studies, Maria decided to pursue a career in art.
Maria defines her artistic style as critical realism. She likes to paint people who marked our history whether they are politicians, scientists, artists, philosophers or fictional characters. The artist gets inspired by today’s world events, trying to thoroughly study the other non-official side of the story. Digging deep into history makes her come up with the subjects for paintings that depict long forgotten historical events and draw parallel with the present. Spiced up with light humor her works are addressing contemporary social and political issues.
Maria takes an active part in international art contests and exhibitions. The artist created book covers for a renowned author and economist, V. Katasonov. Recently one of her paintings was featured in the Swiss weekly magazine Die Weltwoche.
Diane Ponder is an American painter, digital photographer, sculptor, and videographer. She was born in Virginia and spent her early years in Missouri canoeing, hiking, cliff climbing, and swimming. She started reading early and read a lot. She has travelled much and lived in many other countries as well as states including Maine, Pennsylvania, and California. She currently has a live/work space in Evanston and a studio in Chicago. Additionally, she has had exhibitions of her work all around the world, and some of the most notable collections she is a part of include an Irish castle.
Diane has participated in numerous shows with the gallery in New York and Los Angeles as well as at the Gabriel Fine Arts Gallery in London. She additionally took part in the Hyperkewl collaborative initiative at the international MDW and Axis fairs. She participated in group exhibitions at the La Mama Gallery in New York and the JMC Gallery in Hells Kitchen in October and November 2021, respectively. She was a featured artist in the drive-through Eco Art presentation at Gateway Technical College in Racine, Wisconsin. She also participated in the 100th-anniversary members' show of the Oak Park Art League.
Locally, her work has been shown at Navy Pier, Grant Park, and Oak Park; globally, it has been shown at Vinalhaven and The Rockford Gallery in Rockford, Maine. She exhibited her work in the New York Art Expo, the Art Center in Orinda, California, and internationally at the first abstract art exhibition in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where she was the sole female artist. Her most notable exhibitions were Aqua Art Miami, Art Expo NYC, Chicago, Hong Kong, Singapore, Korea, and Singapore; Art on Paper; Chicago New Materials Art Fair; Verge Art Fair in Miami, Florida; and New York; as well as at the Hyde Park Art Center, Not Just Another Pretty Face; the 47th Ward Alderman's Office, which also hosted the 2014 1+1 show; Chicago multiples; and the Chicago Art Department.
Articles regarding Diane's work have appeared in the Oak Park Wednesday Journal, NBC, and the Chicago Tribune. The Living Room Gallery was an interdisciplinary art venue run by Diane. She collaborated with the artist collective Art House, and one of her pieces was featured in a PBS documentary about an art show that benefitted the women's shelter Sarah's Inn. Diane exhibited the Mark di Suervo sculpture "The Peace Tower" at both the Lincoln Park Art Fair and the Chicago Cultural Center. She also created a Peace Tower, which was used at numerous events to exhibit children's artwork. In addition, she supported an eco-art group by taking part in the Chicago Creative Expo at the Cultural Center. The Clio art fair, Blue Gallery, and Art St. Gallery all showcased her in September 2022.
Chris Riggs for Mayor is contemporary NewYork City artist, whose art works are based on a unique combination of cubism, abstract, surrealism, minimalism, pop and street art has made him a leading artist of his generation. His paintings and sculptures are in museums, galleries, and private collections in over 50 countries.
Beata Maria is a visual artist and art curator residing in London. She completed an MA in Image and Communication from Goldsmiths, University of London, under the mentorship of Nigel Perkins. Her research connects the arts, science and philosophy through a series of projects. She enjoys exploring light and colour theories, visual perception, art symbolism and cultural studies as part of her independent research.
Artist about her work: “Art, and especially visual art, is always depended upon the act of seeing. Artists throughout the ages have always been passionately interested in visual perception in all its forms and optics. My experimentation with painting within still and moving image is constantly inspired by the nature of light, time and motion. I perceive light as a living substance, eternal and ever-changing. My work can be very experimental, however, I constantly research the history of arts and photography through the ages. “
Born in 1965, Konstantin S is a visual artist, writer and director. He has a degree in Fine Arts and he has been participating in art exhibitions since 1995. His latest series of paintings are focused on robotization and artificial intelligence.
Artist about his work: "The main subject that interests me as an artist is the relationship between man and society with the technologies of the future. On one hand, as a painter, I am attracted by the aesthetics of the world of machines and robots. On the other hand, as a writer and director, I am interested in the process of the relationship between robots and humanity. For me, the most important thing is to formulate questions, open new topics for discussion, encourage the viewer to think. I spend a lot of time working on a sketch of each painting. In The 3D program, I find the right angle, I can change the lighting and achieve the perfect composition. Only when the sketch is completely ready do I move on to painting. The main technique of my works is a classical oil painting on canvas. The traditional format of genre painting seems to be the most suitable for storytelling in the form of pictures. The main task is to create such a work where there would be no artist's dictatorship in colour, rhythm, and plot. It is much more interesting for me to create an environment for the viewer, a situation, a reason for thought with the help of a picture. The subjects of my paintings were invented by me or borrowed from famous artists of the past. This is how I build one big project that includes many different aspects of our life."
Sangie is a French artist based in Aix-en-Provence, South France. She works in acrylic, charcoal and Indian ink on canvas. The ideas of internal and external change lie at the heart of her work. She believes that in order to inspire a better society, we should concentrate our attention and energy on our own values and richness rather than trying to influence factors that are out of our control. She uses layers of colour to enhance emotions and carry us to various levels of reality, deriving inspiration from the feelings she has when performing modern dance. Years have passed while she has worked tirelessly to understand how abstraction and the forces it contains enable one to innately transcend the confines of the physical world.
Sangie grew up with a painter grandfather who gave her an appreciation for still life and oil landscapes. She later discovered how easy it was to dry acrylics when living in Australia, which gave her work a new direction towards abstract expressionism as she participated in the arts and helped to promote other creatives. One of her most notable accomplishments at the time was serving as the first president of a local art association for four years, where she strove to advance the use of art in business. In addition, she collaborated with artists in the creative collective Arty4Aix, along with the sculptor Adeline Weber-Guibal.
In 2015, after working for a while in corporate settings, she made some significant decisions and decided to focus on her two passions: art and personal growth. Since then she participated in exhibitions in Lisbon and London before travelling to exhibit in Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. She also began her professional career as a CEO coach to help CEOs find balance in their lives and enhance their creativity.
Sangie has held numerous exhibitions in France and internationally and she is currently represented in the UK and in France. Her works are in private collections worldwide.
Artist about her work:
" According to Leonardo da Vinci: "Movement is the principle of all life.”.
I have focused my artistic research to suggest plastically, dynamism, speed, energy, and gravity... I try to capture this moment in action in space, in a perfect balance of shapes and colours.
My canvases are prepared with vibrations of acrylic materials and colours that reflect the emotions felt during the choreography, the lightness of the gestural trace in ink and paint is superimposed like a suspended moment captured in space.
Passionate about dance and in search of ephemeral permanence, I explore through gesture and painting the movement of the body in space. Means of expression revolve around painting, ink on large format paper, collage and calligraphy.
The body writes a message, and the result in my work is a danced calligraphy that represents what speech cannot express. There is no more gravity; the sky and the earth share the canvas like Yin & Yang, for balance and a lightness of being.".
Maya was born in 1973 in Sylhet, just after Bangladesh's civil war. She moved to the UK with her family in 1977 and she has been a resident ever since. Being a self-taught artist, she portrays the essence of cultures in her work, highlighting the beauty in our differences and the connections we all share.
Maya became passionate about painting at a very young age, and she now uses art as a form of self-expression. At the age of seven, she was encouraged to enter the national UK painting competition conducted to commemorate Prince Charles and Lady Diana's royal wedding, and as a result, she won the competition, which was judged by Her Majesty the late Queen. It is important to mention that Maya's father, an immigrant who founded his own business, had a significant impact on her and greatly encouraged her to achieve success. Many of her father's restaurants had her debut artwork on display and thanks to this she then attracted commissions from other businesses to create paintings for their restaurants and started selling her art.
Maya’s journey from a young immigrant to a successful artist, TV presenter, and tech leader has been shaped by her passion for art, resilience, and determination. Despite facing personal challenges, she has consistently pursued her artistic endeavours, leaving a mark in various industries including Design, Media, Fashion, Finance and IT. Unfortunately, in 2022, Maya lost her close friend who had been struggling with her mental health for years under extremely tragic circumstances. This caused her to reevaluate her life, and she took the decision to pursue her passion for art in honour of her close friend, who was the largest supporter of her work. Since then Maya has chosen to participate in the Weybridge Visual Arts Festival, where her artwork was displayed in several Weybridge locations, including the famed Oatlands Park Hotel. After being chosen for the Surrey Moving Arts Festival, a producer hired Maya to create a drawing for the director Steve McQueen, the actors Paul Weller and Saoirse Ronan, and the film Blitz. Presently, Maya's artwork may be seen in the prominent Edward Alexander Group-affiliated Collier Webb showrooms on Pimlico Road and Chelsea Design Centre. She has also held her first successful solo exhibition at Walton-on-the-Thames' Robert Phillips Gallery, which honoured her dear friend who passed away after years of mental health struggles.
Maya's artwork is visually engaging and carries a powerful message of empowerment for women. Her paintings are a testament to the strength, resilience, and beauty of women all over the world. As an artist, Maya recognizes that art is subjective; that is why she works in a collaborative and engaging process with clients when working on bespoke pieces of work. Maya wants people to enjoy and connect with the art. It allows her to take people on her journey, so they are part of creating art that is truly personal, meaningful and something they can treasure forever.
Artist about her work:
“My latest work explores the potential of layering in mixed media to build depth of colour, texture and story. I love experimenting and creating something unique. I am fascinated with the power of colour and how it can evoke emotions. This leads to bold, vibrant pieces to fill any space with joy and wonder!”
Brigitte Schweitzer is a French, London based contemporary artist whose work incorporates abstract expressionism and figuration. She graduated from the Chelsea College of Art in 2001 with a BA in Fine Art in Painting. Her paintings are about energy, vibration, visual meditation and harmony. In a world of military conflicts, health challenges and climate change her work speaks to our human inner strength. She believes that the beauty of colour and nature can helps through these unprecedented challenging times. Her style combines acrylic, oil, and inks with a really distinctive expressive approach. She held exhibitions in 2003 and 2004 in Sungard's offices in London, in her Acava Studio in London in 2002, and in the homes of French private collectors. The Andersen modern collection purchased her artwork in 2001. She maintained her secrecy for a while, continuing her solitary labour while being inspired by the stunning colours of the Mediterranean Sea. To advance her painting, she returned to London in 2020 with a vengeance, and she has many shows planned for both London and France.
She was influenced in her childhood by the great masters, such as Vermeer and Turner, as well as the Provence Impressionists of the 20th century. She was particularly drawn to the abstract expressionism of Rothko and Jackson Pollock, as well as Gerhard Richter's innovative use of photography in his paintings. She creates her own art based on her ongoing spiritual and meditational explorations, as well as her BA thesis topic of childhood memory. One of her visual references is Zao wou-Ki. Nature, the sea, and music are her main sources of inspiration. She paints while listening to music and adores original pieces of music, regardless of genre, like Pink Floyd, Genesis, Jean Michel Jarre, and Vangelis. She also enjoys Rimsky- Korsakoff. She constantly alternates in her method between abstract painting and figurative allusions to nature, control and unplanned pouring painting.
John currently lives and works in the West Midlands, UK. He trained as a graphic designer at St Martin’s School of Art, London before going on to establish his own successful design and print business. In 2000, having achieved the goals he had set himself in business, he set off on a new career path, establishing himself as a fine artist and going on to successfully exhibit and sell his work nationally.
He is inspired by the challenges faced by the natural world and strives to produce creative work that has honesty and originality at its heart and in its execution. Skilled in a wide range of media, he endeavours to take a fresh approach to produce highly original works that incorporate such diverse materials as Polyfilla, powder paint, ash, oil on glass or recycled melamine in his paintings and recycled cardboard and papier-mache in his 3D sculptural work.
In this curated series of his work, he aims to provoke the observer into seeing beyond the initial colourful, surreal urban jungle imagery and to question our responses to the challenges facing our world.
Cecilia Sjölund studied architecture at Stockholm's KTH Royal Institute of Technology and has worked as an architect and project manager in urban development for many years. She now lives in Stockholm, Sweden, and works fulltime
as a painter.
She employs organised pictures as source imagery and works with oil painting in a realistic traditional manner. Her work has been accepted into the Nordic Portrait Now 2021 competition in Denmark, as well as the London Art Biennale 2021. She has been shortlisted for Visual Art Open UK 2021 and her painting "A shadow of my former self" was featured at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2022.
Dalia Slep was born in Lithuania and raised there. For a while, she experimented with pouring techniques and sketching realistic artworks. She's discovered that abstract art allows her to express herself and her emotions. She became immersed in abstract painting.
Dalia Slep is a current Morley College London student. Alicante, Fuerteventura, Genoa, Milan, Madrid, Monaco, Venice, and London have all hosted exhibitions of her work. Dark Yellow Dot, an artist-run site, has been chosen an artist of the month. In addition, one of her paintings has been selected for the London Art Biennale 2021.
Kurt Stimmeder was born in Bad Leonfelden, Austria, in 1972. He lives and works in Linz Autodidact. He completed his schooling and apprenticeship as an electrician and began playing the double bass at 16. As a musician and sommelier, he conducted more than one thousand wine tastings. He became a professional Artist in 2008. His obsession with painting helps him overcome every crisis of meaning and existence. Such a crisis brought Stimmeder to paint in the first place: "I came to a point in my life where I asked myself: 'What do I want to do with my life? I thought I was now at an age where I should be true to myself. And I always wanted to paint representational art in the style of old masters' paintings." So, he decided to leave music behind and occupied himself with studying the history of an old master painting. He went to museums, studied paintings, learned by looking at them for hours and taught himself the techniques. In addition, he researched, devoured books and soon realized that there was much in them that he had already come to; he had already discovered himself through his studies. His role models are the old masters, especially the painters of the 14th to 19th centuries. His works have been featured in international exhibitions and are in private collections worldwide. He previously exhibited during the London Biennale and Red Dot Miami in 2021, and his upcoming shows include prestigious events such as Biennale Chianciano 2022, the 7th edition of the Italian Biennale.
Arron Sturgeon is an artist and musician living and working in San Diego, California. Born in Saigon, Vietnam and raised in Southern California, Arron draws inspiration from both Western and Eastern traditions of art from calligraphy and scroll landscape painting to abstract expressionism and conceptual art. Arron creates “conceptual abstract paintings”. Every series of paintings explore a specific idea and theme but all within a non-representational visual language.
In the “Form Follows Force” series, a design principle where form follows the flow of forces, rather than function, layers of semi-dry encaustic paint are violently scraped from the surface using large paint removing devices (the force). The remnants serve as the underlying structure which is then reworked and reconstructed into unexpected and dynamic compositions. The “form” articulates the “force” of the destructive act and is a metaphor for the destructive/creative force of nature and evolution.
In the “Geometric Theurgy” series, monist metaphysics is expressed through the process of hypostasis from the “one” to the “many” through a symbolic geometric system based on the principles of the golden ratio and music theory. Inspired by the mysticism of the Pythagoreans and Neoplatonists, compositional dice rolling games of Mozart and the “Le modulor final” of Le Corbusier, this geometric system also uses chance, color, ratio and patterning to code colour and generate unique musical compositions in Sonata form. These paintings are “musical paintings” and can be both seen and heard.
Oscar is a self-taught travel and landscape photographer living in Devon. Over the past decade, he spent much of his time travelling, working and living in Asia, during which time he became increasingly interested in capturing his experiences through photography. He has had pictures published in publications and contests, including the UK-based Travel Photographer of the Year contest. He is also the author of an online photography guide to Shanghai and a contributor to a range of stock agencies, including Getty Images and 4CornersImages.
“I enjoy the more meditative aspects of photography - the moments I’m able to slow down, be fully present and aware of my surroundings. The challenge of capturing a good image is the best way I can think of to explore new places, or even enjoy locations that are more familiar."
Kathlene Tracy's artwork is a culmination of an in-depth understanding of human behaviour and interest in art as a medium for expression that is able to transcend many of the barriers of other forms of communication. She began art classes at the same time as beginning school winning National Juried Competitions at very young ages and also pursued higher education for understanding human behavior holding faculty appointments at Yale University, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and other prestigious academic institutions while sustaining dual careers in psychology and the visual arts fields. Within New York City she has participated in multiple solo and group exhibitions of her work and is now exhibiting in London. In addition, her work is included in both public and private collections.
Renalli is a highly accomplished Filipina Abstract Expressionist Artist and Entrepreneur from Manila, Philippines. Born in 1992, she discovered her profound passion for the arts at the tender age of five, exploring the realm of creativity through the use of pens, paints, and brushes. Her unwavering dedication to the field of arts and design led her to successfully complete her studies in Multimedia Arts at the esteemed De La Salle College of St. Benilde in Manila.
Following her academic pursuits, Renalli embarked on a professional journey, securing employment and eventually establishing her Creative and Marketing agency, Artzap Studio. However, amidst her entrepreneurial endeavors, she realized an inherent yearning to immerse herself in the hands-on process of transforming her ideas into tangible artwork. Thus, she embarked on a new chapter in her career, dedicating herself to painting. Through her artwork, Renalli achieved a harmonious balance between her work and personal life and found a medium to express her profound life experiences, travels, and emotions.
Renalli's artistic style is characterized by the intricate use of heavy textures in her acrylic paintings, which allows her to delve deeper into the realm of shadows, light, space, and form. This technique bestows a heightened perspective, enabling her to symbolize natural elements such as water, sky, sand, rocks, and other subjects that draw inspiration from her journey and worldly encounters. Despite the abstract nature of her work, viewers often find themselves resonating with the overall emotional resonance evoked by her paintings.
Renalli's artistic talent has been recognized through numerous exhibitions in prominent cities within Metro Manila, Philippines. Additionally, she was privileged to showcase selected artworks in New York City, USA, in May 2023. Renalli's artwork is highly sought after by private and corporate collectors who appreciate the enriching aesthetic her pieces bring to their homes and commercial spaces. Notably, she has actively participated in charitable initiatives such as the Manila Art For A Cause, wherein she generously donated three paintings for auction, with proceeds benefiting the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) during the peak of the 2020 pandemic.
Renalli stands as one of the rising stars among abstract artists in the Philippines, with ambitions that extend beyond Asia's borders. Her unwavering determination propels her to continuously strive for greater accomplishments on a global scale with each passing year.
Artist Olga Vishnevetskaya specialises in digital art, soft sculpture, and painting. She was raised in Tomsk, Western Siberia, by a family of scientists after being born in the Russian city of Ukhta in the Komi Republic. She first attended a children's art school before continuing her education in an adult art school. She earned her degree in 1989 from the Faculty of Philology at Tomsk State University with a major in Russian language and literature and a concentration in modern play.
Following graduation, she spent five years designing sets for a children's theatre company. She was tasked with making sketches for the scenography and costumes as well as designing the visual idea for the productions. She later performed design work as a layout designer for a company that produces POS materials. She earned her second degree from Tomsk State University in 2003. This time, she majored in public relations with a focus on corporate image from the Faculty of Psychology. She competed in a student PR competition called "Crystal Orange" while she was a student and won the regional round.
She spent the following 10 years working for two different trading companies, first as the director of development for a trading firm and then as the head of the educational and methodological department of an insurance company. She also worked at this period as a freelance business consultant, managing projects to develop corporate identities for numerous businesses.
Olga has been refining her artistic skills since 2013, initially in the field of soft sculpture, and more recently in painting and digital collage. She has taken part in both regional and international exhibitions throughout her artistic career.
Artist about her work: “As an artist, I developed my skills from a very early age, easily transitioning between the real world and the world of fantasies. The boundaries were blurred, and characters and events from these two worlds merged. Later, as I grew up and began to read, I learned that this was called imagination.
The strength of my imagination distorts the perception of reality, and this became my creative foundation. I am not interested in imitating reality or reproducing familiar objects and phenomena, so I have no landscapes, portraits, or historical connotations in my work. On the other hand, my works are not symbols or metaphors - they are simply worlds. I do not claim that they are grand or significant, I am simply interested in exploring them.
Recently and currently, I have been influenced by images of the North, perhaps generously supplied to my imagination by my ancestors - the Pomors. I use painting and even begin to see a certain totemism of objects on the canvas as an unconscious desire to give as much significance as possible to the treasure that is starting to elude us.
I work in the genres of painting and soft sculpture. In sculpture, I am interested in the magic of the emergence of a volumetric object from a flat material. In painting, the inspiring moment becomes the ability to manipulate colour freely. I find it fascinating that no matter what medium I use, I observe moments of demonstrative accentuation in my works, apparently to attract the viewer like a flower attracts a bee and multiply the meanings created in them.”
Sculptor Maritta Winter was born in South Germany, close to Freiburg. She is of dual nationality, German and Swiss. She lived in Germany and France for a while before relocating to Switzerland in 2011 and is now residing not far from Lake Zurich. She attended various art, sculpture, and design schools in France, Germany, and Switzerland. Maritta Winters' body of work consists of sculptures, photography, screen printing, mesh relief, and, beginning in 2022, colourful 3-dimensional coloured vibrating wall objects.
Maritta Winter finds inspiration in her instinctive sense of movement, architecture, and form. The joining of two volumes and the expanding movement that appears to swing into the space are reoccurring themes in her collection of work. She says her intuition comes to her in shapes. This has to do with feeling—intuitively recognising volumes, edges, and shape transitions. Identifying the precise location where the shape's outline reaches perfection is likewise a visual process.
Her sculptures are known for their blend of movement and architectural forms, which has resulted in many of them being exhibited in public spaces and structures. While Rendez-vous (2006) soars out into the landscape like a bird in front of the Grand Ballon hotel in France's Vosges mountains, and Zen (2009) creates a meditative oasis in the stairwell of the Finnova AG building in Lenzburg, Switzerland, the soft curves of the work Skydream (2011) contrast with the austere, functional architecture of the lobby of the Prime Tower in Zurich. Every sculpture is obviously massive. They are expressive beings that occupy their own area and blend in with the natural environment and surrounding architecture.
For Maritta Winter, dynamics are just as inspiring as nature. She once said: “If I hadn’t become a sculptor, I would have been a dancer.” Even for someone who is uninformed of her dancing training and current practice, the relevance of motion and music in her sculptures is obvious. A piece of her art swings into the room with perfect balance, arms lifted, like a dancer whirling on the spot. In a strict sense, the significance of movement is derived from nature just as much as the shape of a plant seed or a person's body. Maritta Winter's works are carried by the fundamental human expression of dance, which she views as a hidden force that drives her creative process.
Carol Tippit Woolworth, a Santa Barbara native, earned a bachelor's degree in studio art from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1977, where she studied under Priscilla Bender Shore and Irma Cava. She came to New York City in 1983 and founded Tippit Woolworth Design, a graphic design business with her husband, where she served as creative director while keeping an art studio practise. She began teaching painting privately after moving to Connecticut and subsequently Wilmington, Delaware. She also led painting workships to the South of France for several years and illustrated her husband's books about corgis. She and her husband, Olle, currently reside in Santa Fe.
Carol's art has been influenced by the Bay Area Abstract Figurative painters as well as Nicolas de Stal, a French mid-century painter. Carol's painting quest has been to layer, scrape, and scumble her oils, oil sticks, and cold wax to reach primordial, universal truths. She works with linen, wood panels, metal, and occasionally Arche oil paper. She is enthralled by the concept of pentimento and now paints an underpainting first, which is then repainted, allowing fragments of the underpainting to seep into the entire piece, resulting in an archaeology of concepts.
Carol has received various awards and grants, and in 2016 she was appointed as a guest curator at the Delaware Art Museum. She's also taught several seminars at the Howard Pyle Art Group in Wilmington, DE, and spent years at the Delaware College of Art and Design teaching Graphic Design and Painting (CE). She's been featured in Visual Magazine, American Art Collector Magazine, and Southwest Art, as well as advertised in American Art Collector, Western Art Collector, and Southwest Art.
Her work can be found in collections in Europe (Paris, Geneva, Germany, and the United Kingdom), the United States (New York, La Jolla CA, Santa Fe NM, Santa Barbara CA, Key West FL, Wilmington DE; Chadds Ford PA, among others), and Mexico.
Bernadette Youngquist is a mixed-media abstract painter located lakeside in northern Colorado. Prior to pursuing surface pattern creation, she successfully finished core undergraduate courses in drawing and design. The most recent rigorous three-month painting workshop Bernadette took was with San Francisco artist Nicholas Wilton. After earning degrees in Psychology and Sociology she chose a self-guided arts education so that she could honour her individual creative process.
She discovered surface pattern design to be educational but constrictive and discovered abstract painting provided the expressive freedom she was looking for. Her favourite aesthetic experience is in nature and she combines expressionist methods with rigid compositions because she believes they work well together and appear balanced. She believes that it is crucial to follow her intuition, take chances, and push the envelope because "That is what breathes life into a painting." Acrylic paint's immediate application allows for continual layering, sanding back of previous layers, and repetition of the process to create the work's rich textures and depth. Baltic birch panels offer a sturdy foundation for a painting's first construction. Additionally used to create marks, oil pastels are suspended and sealed in layers of acrylic media.
Her work is currently represented by several galleries and art consultants. She has exhibited in local, national and international juried shows and exhibits. Her most notable juried shows were "On Point," curated by Gwen Chanzit of the Denver Art Museum, and the "NonObjective Abstract" exhibition, organised by Lisa Hatchadoorian of the Fort Collins Museum of Art. Additionally, she recently participated in an exhibition with the National Association of Women Artists and the Colorado Women's Caucus for the Arts, where she also spoke on a panel. She will be exhibiting at Art Santa Fe in July 2023 with the Redwood Art Group. Her work is in private collections and has already received two honourable mentions. In addition to being now represented by the International Galerie Azur, she has recently formed connections with private galleries and commercial art consultants in Colorado.
Artist about her work:
“My paintings are the language of collective expression. I believe all people are connected and when we quiet our minds we can tap into a place that unites all living things. As an artist, I
ask you to contemplate the subtleties of life and want to leave you with a message of hope. My work is guided by truth, beauty, love, and the belief that all people have the freedom to express themselves authentically. My hope is that through her art people will connect with themselves and others in a meaningful way.”
Cheng Zhang is an artist from Beijing, China. Since 2018, he has lived, studied, and worked in London, UK. He attended University of the Arts London, where he graduated with a BA and an MA.
Cheng's art practise focuses on the urban scene; the subjects of his works span from minutely rendered street corners to expansive metropolis skylines. Impressionism, Cubism, Abstract Expressionism, and Constructivism all had an impact on Cheng's artistic approach. He has expertise in both realistic and non-realistic methodologies. Acrylic, gouache, and watercolour paints are the primary mediums he uses to create his works of art.
One of his most notable exhibitions was 'I Have Never Been to Beijing', a solo show in Beijing, China. As an artist, Cheng believes that expression is what he does from perception and how he is best at it.
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