Artists Describing Their Art:
Dana Zivanovits - Dana Zivanovits was born in 1958 in Columbus, Ohio and received his art training from the Columbus College of Art and Design (1978 to 1982). After art school, he went abroad for a year and studied the art of the old masters in London, Paris, Madrid, Rome and Venice. Returning to his studio in Columbus to develop these influences into a new body of work, he then traveled to Mexico and studied the sculpture and painting of that country for an extended period. The unique and vivid colors of Palenque and Vera Cruz intensified his palette. After a period in Ohio, he then moved to Venice Beach, California where the brilliant light of the region reinforced his desire to capture effects of sunlight and atmosphere. Returning to Ohio in 1995, he has continued to paint themes deriving inspiration form sources such as world mythology, classic and B-grade cinema, literature and dreams. However his primary inspiration is direct observation from nature, versus an approach based in art theories or cultural critique. Dana has been widely represented by galleries and exhibition projects including Julie Rico and Mega Boom in Los Angeles, the Venice Art Detour, Around the Coyote Festival in Chicago ...
Jack Mccarthy - I am basically a story-teller who uses prints as my vocabulary. My approach to printmaking is eclectic. On one hand, I use traditional relief printing methods either a baren or a 1947 Vandercook Press, named Ursula. On the other hand, I experiment using brayers, stencils, natural and found objects, anything that has texture. My work is influenced by life experience and, most importantly, my constant amazement of what human beings believe in and how they choose to live their lives! Many of my prints are allegorical in nature and almost all are visual stories. I am presently working on a variety of projects: One is a series of relief prints based on medieval stories, both secular and religious. One edition is comprised of prints depicting religious beliefs and stories of 8th to 14th century Europe, what is normally but erroneously called "The Dark Ages" and/or the Gothic Period. The stories are delightful and, at times, gruesome. Many are Christian stories based on non-Christian (pagan) myths. The second project is a small edition of handmade books with original prints based on the Old Testament. The third is a book which will be a pictorial depiction of the life ...
Armando Bettencourt - Armando A. Bettencourt a Musician, Song Writer, Graphic Designer and Fine Artist. Born in the Azores Portugal and moved to Massachusetts at the age of 2. He is a graduate of The New England School of Art & Design (at Suffolk University). He has been a Graphic Designer/Art Director all of his working career and now just recently decided to pursue his dream of integrating visual arts with original music. In his search for life-truth, he combines spiritual-theological, conscious and subconscious themes into surreal visual imagery. In his recent series "The 7 Ages", oil paintings are accompanied each with an original song from his latest CD album also called "The 7 Ages". Through his passions of visual art, song and poetry, he exposes hidden societal elitist spins that have been subconsciously dead and buried to enslaved sheepled masses. Then through a spiritual rebirth made alive to conscious truth. A unique renaissance original in a troubled modern end of days. He's soon to begin 2 new series of paintings that will accompany themes from his CD albums, "Charlie's Parade" and "World Crying". ...Stay Tuned Folks....
Randi Waxman - Randi's artwork, is due, she believes, to the simple beauty of the Hebrew Letters. The plain yet detailed movement in each creation, the choice of colors, moved by the particular need of the subject, support her sense of purposefulness in creating, purposefulness of creating art and communicating ideas, ancient and modern. Her English word art is also beautiful in a'shallower' fun sense, yet the combination or suggestion of colors and the simple patterns reflect the devotion of each gift from the giver. Each phrase adds an important sense of meaning to the viewer to soak in, enjoy, ponder, feel proud of, or forget and move on....
Rebecca Merry - Rebecca takes her inspiration from images of sacred art: primarily Islamic geometry, Christian Orthodox Icons, Indian and Western miniatures and illuminations, and early Italian Renaissance painting. More recently she has been drawing inspiration from Russian folk art, and Art Nouveau. She works primarily in egg tempera and is a member of the Society of Tempera Painters. Tempera is a traditional paint medium still used by the Orthodox Church which combines egg yolk and pigments to make a bright durable paint which is painted on gesso panels. She also makes her own gouache paint from pigments for her works on paper, as used in Indian miniature painting, and some collage work and etchings. The work itself is colourful, intense and with a strong narrative content. All of it depicts an archetypal, symbolic world where the ideals of things exist. To this end, all the pictures are based on geometric patterns that give them their innate harmonious quality. The colours too are carefully chosen, to give a sense of musical composition, an idea drawn from Indian miniature painting, where images are often painted as a mirror of a musical mode. ...
Chris Mckinney - My best work is completely improvisational. It comes from outside my self, from a place unknown to my self, where the art takes on a life of it's own and creates it's self. I try very hard not to categorize my work, or create any boundaries for it. If I find myself thinking to much about it, that's when I loose my creative flow. Each piece must be allowed to take on that life of it's own and show me where to put that next brush stroke. This approach has become almost meditative, zen like for me. It is at these times when I reach this place that the gift that is given to all us artists rears its head and gives the world one more thing of beauty. ...
Donald Davenport - An Artist /Educator/Publisher/Producer/Artificer Born in a northern suburb of Detroit, Michigan. The mechanical, artistic and creative ability of Donald J. Davenport was first recognized at the age of five. By the age of 13 he received a "Silver" award at the Tennessee Tech College annual arts exhibit in 1960. By the age of 20 he was already an accomplished commercial and fine artist. Davenport is listed in four separate categories in the Millennium Edition of Marquis Who's Who in America for his diverse achievements in Video & Film Producing, Publishing, Inventing and Educating. Through his mid twenties and early thirties, he worked in several diverse fields producing commercial, graphic and fine art for international corporations. His abilities include experimental developing and designing new concept devices, producing instructional visual technical trade curriculum programs for Video Educational Art Services in the visual arts. Davenport founded The Gemini School of Art and Design in 1981. His multiple careers continued to develop with publishing technical trade manuals for instruction in the visual arts and producing visual art programs by which he received an International "SILVER" award from among 27 competing countries at the Television International Film Festivals, New York, 1994 for ...
Shmuela Padnos - ARE YA READY TA GET THE BIG LEG BLUES FROM THE GAS MAN AS THE SPECIAL RIDER MAKES YOU MISSISSIPPI MOAN? ARE YA GONNA RIDE THE NEW HAMHOUND CRAVES A BLACK SNAKE MOAN WITH THE LITTLE LEG OUTSIDE WOMAN BLUES? WELL TAKE A LITTLE WALK WITH ME AS i TELL YOU ABOUT THAT CHERRY WOMAN ARTIST SHMUEL A PADNOS. AS THE DEVIL SENT THE RAIN TA N'AWLINS SHMUEL A WAS CONCEIVED DURING MARTI GRAS FUN OF LE BON TON ROULET. 9 MONTHS LATER IN THE FOOT HILLS OF NORTH CAROLINA, LAND OF RATTLE SNAKIN DADDY& STEP IT UP & GO, SHMUEL A WAS BORN. ALTHOUGH EXPOSED TO THE EAST COAST PICKIN OF BLIND BOOY FULLER, BUDDY MOSS& JOSH WHITE BY HER GRANDPARENTS, SHMUELA WAS ALWAYS FOUND WITH A PAINTBRUSH IN HER HAND INSTEAD OF A GUITAR. SHE FOUND THE MOVING OF THE BRUSH CREATED ITS OWN FUNKY SOUND&RHYTHM....
Chris Wyvill - Chris Wyvill is from Owen Sound, Ontario, Canada. Chris is an Advanced Fine Arts graduate. He studied fine art at Georgian College in Barrie Ontario. Chris's artwork explores hallucinogenic spiritual imagery. Chris's medium of choice is oil paintings. Upon graduation from Georgian College, Chris entered work into the Tom Thompson Memorial Art Gallery's annual juried show "convergence" where he won the Caron Cooper award for his paintings "Meat Tree" and "Buck in a tree". Currently Chris is residing in Toronto Ontario. You can see a larger selection of artwork at www.chriswyvill.com...
Pamela Flynn - My work has always been grounded in issues from living the day to day. I see the visual world as a mirror of human priorities and in much of my work I use digital images from self taken photographs as a starting point. My work is process intense and is meant to initiate an examination of the inherent responsibility that goes with living. My work explores many different issues. Among which are: the use of technology to generate the work, the ability of art to quietly evoke visual memories, the juxtaposition of the uncontrolled and the controlled in living, the blurring of the boundaries between the serious and the trite, the questionable truth of the photo image. ...
Jo Mari Montesa - Of all the gifts God gave to man the finest is his free will. Second to life itself. It is the essence of man. It is what separates man from all the other creatures of God. By ones choice or action he is judged if he is worthy to be called the man created by God. The child of free will is art. It is man's self-expression. It is synonymous to freedom of expression. Every art is unique since every man is unique. How man perceives art is also unique as how man perceives beauty. As how man perceive life. Art is like life. It all depends to the person's perception. Truly beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. The gauge of how beautiful life is, depends uniquely to every man. A professor of mine once walked in the streets of Manila during summer. It is very hot, humid and dusty. He noticed a very old beggar asking for coins to the passers while bathing to the heat of the sun all day. Beside the beggar was a newspaper stand. One tabloid headline reads'Young Matinee Idol Commits Suicide." My professor stops for awhile and asks ...
Carol Griffith - My oil paintings are meditations triggered by places or situations in my memory, arrived at through a sort of daydreaming state of mind. I attempt to evoke that mood in the handling of the formal elements of the painting, especially the color and the perspectival point of view. I wish to create both a believable place and the sense of something more significant behind it. The viewer, in contact with the painting and their own memories, may then project into the space and experience the significance that I sensed. This approach has led me to an interest in souvenirs. I see them as an attempt to capture a special place or experience in concrete or symbolic form. By doing paintings of my own remembered places and experiences, I have been following a parallel path. I like the comparison with one purpose of art. I use borders in some of the paintings to function simultaneously as framing devices and as an arena in which to create a dialogue with the internal painting. The borders also extend the meaning of the internal subject. Memories often consist of simultaneous kaleidoscopic vignettes that, in combination, embody the whole, original experience. Each vignette is also ...
Michael Leyton - In his MIT Press book, Symmetry, Causality, Mind (630pages) and his book in Springer-Verlag, A Generative Theory of Shape (550pages), Michael Leyton has elaborated an extensive theory of why art has such a powerful impact on the human mind. This results in an ability to intensify the content of artworks through an increased understanding of compositional organization, that Leyton has provided in his scientific work, which includes his mathematical foundations for geometry. For example, theorems of his, such as the Symmetry-Curvature Duality Theorem, which are now used in over 40 disciplines including many branches of medicine and engineering, also explain the human perceptual response to art-works. Not only has he demonstrated this in his lengthy published analyses of classical and modern artists, but he has also demonstrated that it is possible to surpass the intensity of these artists. This he has done by using the theory developed in his books in the creation of his own artworks - his paintings, his published architectural designs, and the published scores of his musical compositions. The portfolio at the present site is currently under construction. While this is in progress, the reader can gain an extensive introduction to Leyton's artistic ...
Patrick Sean Kelley - Behind the Art There is nothing more intimidating than standing in front of a blank canvas and wondering what it will become. There is also nothing more exhilarating. As I begin to apply paint to canvas I find my work seems to be in continuous motion. Always changing. Always progressing. Much like the oil paints that actually embody my visions. I am influenced by many places, things, people and of course, many artists. My latest work is changing yet again. The palette has become softer more jewel toned and the subjects more somber. They speak to me as I paint each stroke awaiting life on the canvas. I am clearly influenced by some of the more modern masters like, Klimpt, Kandinsky, Mirot, Caldwell and as always, Picasso. The art is Inspired by the subject. By a woman's beauty as it is seen and felt both internally and externally. The images in my vision actually seem to mask their true identities as they glance out at the viewer exuding an air of aloofness and mystique. Each stroke is painstakingly smoothed and controlled to create subtle dimensions and color that create the mysterious creatures that appear to come to life on ...