Artists Describing Their Art:
Michael Garr - I have been drawing and painting since Junior High. I enjoy quick art, impressionistic yet realistic, and minimal. There are interesting subjects all around us. My inspirations are architecture, people, light and shadow, the sea and boats, imagination... and the old masters. Get out and enjoy your surroundings. All my works are available as signed and numbered prints. I also do commission works, some examples of which are in the portfolio. I donate all proceeds to charity, and have recently teamed with SAVE THE BAY, a local Rhode Island eco-advocate organization, which receives 30 PER CENT of my proceeds. My opportunities for artistic expression have included drawing on napkins during airplane rides and waiting during my sons music lessons. In 2012 I took up oil painting for the first time, and my mentor is Lorena Pugh of North Kingstown. Ive done both Plein air and studio work in her presence, and am benefitting from the association. We have an informal group who meet and paint in Lorenas studio on Monday nights throughout the indoor season. I will continue to pursue art on a daily basis, and post the finished works here and on facebook for any and all to ...
Brita Ferm - I have been an enthusiastic collector of art since my late adolescence. Then I slowly lost most of my central vision during the 1980aEURtms and 90aEURtms, eventually becoming legally blind. I could no longer enjoy the art IaEURtmd collected. Inspired by a TV demonstration, I searched the internet for bold, high-contrast works that I could see. The paintings of Romero Britto captured my sight and my heart, and I copied two of his images onto my ratty-looking kitchen cupboard doors. Then, mimicking BritoaEURtms style, I looked out my kitchen window and tried to paint what I sawimagined of the flower boxes on my deck on two more doors. From the year 2000 on, IaEURtmve been making art I can see, trying to capture the little moments in the lives of people and their animals from my rather skewed perspective. My work has sold to private collectors in the US and in Europe. A frequent comment about my work is, aEURoeThis is happy artaEUR I couldnaEURtmt be more pleased. ...
Krisztina Lantos - Krisztina Lantos of Budapest has lived in Italy, Ottawa, Montreal, Munich in Germany, Mississauga and, for the last 22 years in Oakville. She began painting in her late teens in Hungary and painted with a group of young artists for ten years before she came to Canada. For about the last 25 years, she has begun to experiment with her work more by emphasizing, and exaggerating colours and simplifying shapes to help express her ideas and intentions. I see everything so colourfully. I need colours to be strong because that is what expresses me. The things around us are all moving the trees, the bridges, the houses and the rocks are living creatures, not lifeless pictures. They speak to us. The house is a wise old man and the trees are dancing. Over the past decades, her work has been exhibited in various locations, including the Mississauga Central Library, Praxis Gallery in Toronto, with solo shows at the Oakville Town Hall, Julia Restaurant, Glen Abbey Library Gallery and Tuebingen, Germany. ...
Ben Hotchkiss - My name is Ben Hotchkiss. I am 75 years old and have been painting abstract paintings for over 40 years. My interest in art germinated in my fathers studio when I was very young. I used to watch him paint. Often, while watching him paint I would thumb thru his bools on earlier painters of the 20th Century. I especially liked those of the Expressionists,Imressionists,Cubists and Abstract Painters. I was expecially intrigued by the color plates of abstract artists. They did not depect anythingwhat did they mean. But I didnt really begin painting for another 20 years when I was down and out in a rooming house in San Francisco. I actually started doing abstract water colors . In 1980 I moved to Northampton, Ma. and discovered an Art Supply store near by. At this point I had an inspiration to switch from water colors to oils. i started on a shoe string with canvas boards, Duro oil paints and small brushes. I am still painting to this day but on masonite now. I have always been a student of visual expression. I especially like compositions of thingsi.e. many visual en entities working together to create a composite ...
Donna Gallant - Art is a daily routine in my life. I see, hear, taste, feel and smell the life that surrounds me and I am inspired by the simplest aspects of this world. Whether it be the way the light hits an object or the way objects or forms move in space. I find it all so fascinating and alive. I try to portray these experiences and expressions through my art making....
Valda Fitzpatrick - In earlier years, my dream was to become a doctor, or an artist, unfortunately I was unable to tolerate the site of blood. In order to save the patents , I made a wise decision to study art . I love every aspect of art and explore with all medias. my favorite is the French artist Monet, who was my inspiration with his incredible impressionistic style which I love to paint with oils. For a change , designing contemporary art with paper, ,interesting found objects to let my imagination go. When I am in my large studio I am in heaven. When I was still a student , I went to many art shows and did commissions. Which I financed 1 000 percent of my college expenses, and my own studios , which my husband build through the sale of my art work, a career experience that demonstrates the great practical worth of art studies and education. EDUCATION The Ohio State University , master of Arts, Supervision and Education Administration, December 1986 . The Ohio State University, Bachelor of art Education , August 1980 . The Ohio State University, Bachelor of Fine Arts, Painting And Drawing, June 1978. I further followed up my education at the Columbus of Art ...