Artists Describing Their Art:
Jose Freitascruz - Borneo > 2003 The tropical rainforest and tales of maritime exploration continue to be reflected in my work. Indeed, travel and displacement condition my work - the many places I lived in throughout my childhood and those others my chronic wanderlust has led me to since then have always had an impact on the choices and directions I have taken. The knowledge that a new perspective can be acquired over things we believe to be "fixed" triggers curiosity and fosters a certain degree of unconformity. The need to find and learn new ways to depict whatever it is I wish to depict keeps me on my toes and doesn't allow me to settle with the tools or the style I am already familiar with - I am constantly "on the move" and my painting is meant to be a record of the path I move along. Perceived from a distance my approach tends to be cyclic, each cycle divided into series. Progression occurs from the outside in aEUR" from the surface to the core, from a certain degree of figuration to abstraction. Upon tackling each new theme I will be struck by the outward aspect of things and charged with a strong desire ...
Wayne Quilliam - Adjunct Professor Wayne Quilliam is a professional Australian Aboriginal Photographic artist/film maker/cultural advisor working on the international stage. With more than 20 years experience working in all areas of photography including social documentary, sport, tourism, fashion,weddings, movies, event documentation and exhibitions, Wayne is recognised as a leading contemporary in his field. His work is a fusion of traditional spirituality and contemporary photographic processes,each image represents an interpretation of culture in the modern world. His dream is to work with all races of the world and conduct exhibitions in every country....
Azhar Shemdin - I am interested in experimenting with liquid acrylic, using resist material which is anything that is placed on the surface of the painting that impedes the flow of liquid paint. When the resist is lifted, an unexpected outcome is revealed. Sometimes the outcome is not what I wanted, and I cover the surface with paint and go for a second, third or even a fourth try, until I am completely satisfied with the outcome. The end result is a wonderous world that comes from somewhere and is revealed on a canvas surface!...
Grace Auyeung - Landscape painting is my artistic gravity, and I mainly use Chinese ink, colour and Xuan paper as media. I like to explore various techniques and styles, but I place strong emphasis on the use of lines to express my feelings and thoughts about the landscape I try to recreate. I see my art as a vision of my inner self and my spiritual self as well....
Isaac Brown - ISAAC S. BROWN As his day job Isaac is president and CEO of Baltic Street AEH Inc. A non-for profit agency that helps people coping with mental health issues deal with advocacy, employment and housing based in New York city. Mr. Brown has been painting for over 35 years. This self-taught artist has been previously employed in a variety of jobs including lumberjack, diamond cutter, welder and sergeant in the Israeli Defense Forces. It was during his time in the IDF as a young sergeant during periods of down time that he first picked up a brush and paints to begin to express his artistic creativity. Later in between maneuvers, during his time in the first Lebanese War, he began experimenting with whatever materials were available to a young soldier, creating sculptures and roadside art along the way from one camp to another as a release from the daily pressures and responsibly of caring for his fellow soldiers. After leaving the army he traveled the world extensively continuing painting and sculpting along the way. He spent a considerable time amount living in Europe and thus bringing to his art a unique worldwide perspective. His artwork reflects the passion...
John Sims - Following some thirty years working as a graphic designer and illustrator I began stone carving in 2000 and in 2002 I returned to college at Christ Church Canterbury in England to study BA Fine Art. In 2007 I went to the Cyprus College of Art to study for a Post Grad Diploma in Fine Art under the great Cypriot artist, Stass Paraskos. At the end of the course I was asked to stay on and run the Summer Schools and to be tutor on the Post Grad course. An incredible experience and an enormous influence on my work. My work now involves less stone carving more often found timber or kebab sticks My drawing in some respects has turned a full circle in the sense that prior to sculpture my illustration work was colourful but painstakingly detailed and stylised. At college I concentrated on measured observational life drawing in pencil which fed into the simple lines of my mainly figuratively based stone carvings. Whilst in Cyprus I re-discovered colour in both my drawing and sculpture. Dreams and mythology filled my waking and sleeping hours. Oil pastel and oil sticks became my favourite mediums to quickly capture these glimpses of ...
Lora Vannoord - I am a Florida Artist originally from a small town in Michigan, now painting in Florida. My works are original oil paintings inspired by Mother Nature. I want to communicate my love of nature to help others see and appreciate the natural environment around them. My goal is to give others a calming and imaginative experience in their homes when they contemplate my oil paintings. I enjoy the creative composing of my landscapes using my store of images and my imagination. I combine my sketchbook images and photos to form my imaginary landscape. I then feel excited and fulfilled when my work goes well. Even as a child my happiest times were when I was creating art or attending art activities and museums. I am a member of the Tarpon Springs Art Association and NOAPS. I have been chosen to show my original oil paintings in many of their juried exhibits. I have had solo exhibits in Grand Rapids MI, Dunedin FL, Oldsmar FL and Tarpon Springs FL. I have shown oil paintings in group exhibits in Clearwater FL, Crystal Beach FL, Tarpon Springs FL, Oldsmar FL, Dunedin FL, Sarasota FL, Safety Harbor FL, Tampa FL Art Museum, Miami FL...
Nicholas Down - During the past few years I have had the privilege of visiting some of the most beautiful landscapes on earth including California's Sequoia National Forest, Yosemite and Joshua Tree National Parks, the red rocks of Sedona Arizona, the tough deserts of Canyonlands and Arches in Utah, Monument Valley in Navajo Nation, and of course the Grand Canyon. I was awestruck with the beauty and silences of these places and deeply inspired to create a number of new paintings and films which attempt to capture the essence of what I felt both as an artist and as a human being. I am increasingly aware of the threats to these landscapes, not just in the short term, but in the future, as the effects of climate change begin to alter rain patterns, glaciers and local ecologies in ways we are only just beginning to comprehend. My paintings are part of my extended homage to nature and are my abstract impressions of colour, mystery, and the spirit of place. My recent paintings have been hugely influenced by the winter here in New York State... frozen waterfalls, ice, snow drifts and landscapes blazing in winter hues. Technical Notes I continue to use the ...
Tom Irizarry Studio - Oil painter with broad knowledge of historic methods and historic colors. My studio is my laboratory. I make all my paint. My work focuses on elements of the earth air and land. What I observe is beyond a pretty sky or nice landscape. It is the notion that our earth and the universe, are imbued with a specific energy. Historically, this energy was described by the Victorian poet Gerard Manley Hopkins as Instress and Inscape, derived from ideas of the medieval philosopher, Duns Scotus. Scotus argued that there is some matter entirely devoid of form. Paintings can vary from 9 x 12 inches to 6 x 8 feet. Viewers describe a profound feeling from the paintings, regardless of the size. Specialties Historic processes for paint making, mediums, grounds, oils, mineral pigments, oil mediums, tempera mediums, non-silver processes cyanotypes and archival digital pigment prints....
Jim Lively - Whether portrayed in the abstract, realism, or somewhere in between, I am most influenced by both the beautiful and unattractive components of contemporary urban culture. Many times, one painting will reflect both components. My art tends to focus upon interesting juxtapositions of close-up images of human faces. Often, the larger images border upon realism and are caught expressing a panoply of emotions usually directed at the other images that share the canvas. Several of my recent works such as the tongue in cheek entitled "Lenin and Things" contain unlikely combinations of images such as a statue of Lenin which is dwarfed by a billboard size fashion model displaying a vacuous stare. A number of works contain both large images and interrelated small images. For example in the painting "Staring at Natalie", all the smaller images are a depiction of a collective group of voyeurs staring at a larger image of a posed fashion model. I want those viewing the painting to be the ultimate voyeur. The viewer is not only drawn initially to the larger image in its own right but also cannot help but then notice the relationship of the smaller images to the large image. Works displayed ...
Jim Lively -
Harry Weisburd - Harry Weisburd is an Internationally Represented Artist, including, USA, Expressions Gallery, Berkeley, California,
Luiz Henrique Azevedo - Luiz Henrique da Rocha Azevedo born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1955 living in Petropolis city their youth; soon developed their fondness for drawing, sustained mainly by comics illustrated by Alex Raymond, Harold (Hal) Foster and Ray Moore. During the year of 1975 this fondness goes to the oil painting where their first works occurred oriented by a lovely old madam, Dona Marina, how he called her in the afternoon of their youth, among occasional colleagues. There will born their figurative painting. But their painting lost its space to professional career for more than 23 years until return to its place. Emerge the necessity to take the old painting case and just work where he feels better. Attended the course of realistic painters (Jose Geraldo Fajardo and Renato Ferrari) where learn and mature their technical skill associated, initially, to Rembrandt and Ruisdaels Flemish school, to Spanish painter Melendez and impressionist esteem . He chase for technical expertise and also for thematic identification that gives to him at the same time a private and plural sense to their works. Isn't an easy task but, in this process, retracting to a state that feels better to him: worried with lines, shadows, ...