Artists Describing Their Art:
Bessie Papazafiriou - Through my work I'm able to express reality in my own way. With a brush in hand suddenly horses can fly, the sky is ablaze, myths become reality and the world is transformed. To me, this is freedom. There is an unequaled sense of joy and satisfaction that comes from being able to express my vision and share it with others. I love it when a stranger views my work and feels a connection...suddenly we're no longer strangers. A new line of communication is open, one that transcends language....
Hans-Ruedi Kammermann - Painting for me is passion, a fascinating process of seeing that alters the vision of things. The everyday becomes special, unique, unknown. What is seen, is never what is painted, yet the painting becomes a new reality. I don't invent abstract images but the act of accumulating material on the canvas creates form and color - being materialistic in order to transform matter into imagination and perception. In the process of painting I find new images, something appears, stimulates vision, projects lost or remembered entities, becomes alive and finally communicates. ...
Franziska Turek - This painting is individual, without any compromise, it combinates the occurence with intuition. The pictures are intrinsic of a special magic, which is not intended or planned, its resulting out of the painting process. The organic impressioned spaces and worlds of this pictures lead to associations and they will contemplate the art of painting themselves, they open a fascinating spectrum of color, area, line, which combines to mythical compactness. ...
Emilio Merlina - I was born in 1950 in the North East of Italy from a polish mother and a sicilian father. I toured the world until I was 35, then I returned to Italy and picked up again my old passion painting and sculpture. As for myself, I can only say thoughts and paintings, paintings and thoughts. Everything maybe useless, however everything is life. i?1/2The human being leaves its signs, graffiti, indian dreams and imagination. Now I only have left a few more possibilities to express the colors which are not. Only the sign, scratched, angry or brushed is the witness. The sign has passed from there and there it has lived.i?1/2 Emilio Merlina Some hear if a door opens Others hear a latch which opens or closes Others more they hear the Angel when he turns over a page of the Great Book From the novel Missa Sine Nomine By Ernst Wiechert I have words which relegate my hunger And the hunger which owns my body but which do not confine them I have words which are both my confined hunger and body By the Italian poetess Paola Lovisolo ...
Noel Stavropoulos - There is great power being an artist. They have influenced and recorded every culture's histories. Much of our knowledge of ancient and modern history today is taken from artifacts (art-i-facts). To have the ability to translate the growth of our civilization today is a gift. I want to give future generations tangible evidence from their history to contemplate and compare to the world we built for them, all the good times as well as the bad. They may learn from our mistakes and take the human race another step in the eternal journey of progression toward "Unity." I seek exhibitions in different countries and cities around the world. This allows me to see how wide, or limited my visual vocabulary really is. Not just from one cultural point of view, but from the masses of the Earth, the people. I then learn from the "Earth's Public" what ideas to expand or abandon. However, in the end, I am still the one who decides the direction of my works. When I create works I am conscious of the world around, so political and social undertone is imminent. I don't think about this while I'm working...
Stephen Mead - In the early 1990's Stephen Mead's poems began appearing in such journals as Onionhead, Bellowing Ark, and Invert, but upon moving to Provincetown, Mass., Stephen decided to concentrate more on visual work. It was in the year 2000, after moving back to NY, that Stephen started seeking publication again for both his writing and his art combined. Since, then, thanks to the wonders of the World Wide Web, his work has appeared internationally both in cyberspace, hard copy, and physical Gallery Space. Often the writing has appeared along side his paintings, and at other times with the text superimposed. In 2004 Stephen began experimenting even more with these poetry/art hybrids creating a series of e books, including the award winning "We Are More Than Our Wounds". From there Stephen began experimenting with his art and poems as films, at first creating slideshows with captions, and then doing his own soundtracks and voice overdubs. These DVDs are available through Indieflix.com In 2006 Stephen put this technology to use releasing a CD of poems set to music "Safe & Other Love Poems" (CDBaby.com), as well as two print editions of his image/art hybrids, "Selected Works" and "Tree ...
Philip Hallawell - I work in various media: oil, watercolor, dry pastels, pen and ink and mixed media. My work is a result of a fragmented view of the world, which gives it a surreal quality. However, my process is not surreal, because I start with a definite theme that I wish to investigate. My main area of interest is people and the human form and I am constantly investigating the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual aspects of Man. Over the years I have developed various series, which I revisit periodocally, investigating different aspects. In purely visual terms, what fascinates me is light and form and how I can use diverse visual elements in a complementary way, opposing, for instance, line and form, or rough and smooth textures. The use of diferent materials to achieve diverse expressions, either alone or as mixed media, along with alternating between a graphic representation and a painterly one, or mixing the two, is a very important aspect of the way I materialize my thinking into images. Equally important is the transition from very realistic images to a totally abstract means of expression and alternating between control and expressiveness....
Rosalyn M. Gaier - Beauty. Meditative thought. Nuance. These are subjects of my collagraphs. They take on important implications when examined in light of today's American instant gratification culture. While convenience, speed and availability have become hallmarks of our American way of life and our society's progress, there remains a need for something more meaningful. That something is beauty. From my frame of personal artistic reference, "beauty" involves the viewer by initiating the response of taking pause, suddenly, unawares. Arousing the response from deep within, beauty disarms and fulfills at one and the same time. This elusive beauty is vital nourishment for mind and soul. Does today's American art disarm and fulfill? How well are our minds and souls being nourished? Unfortunately, Americans' appreciation and awareness of beauty are partially numbed by their frenzy experience of instant gratification. Beauty falls prey to the mindset of fast food, "Shop till you drop" and instant access to just about everything. We sacrifice refined taste, uniqueness and rewarded perseverance for what often is ephemeral and not quite satisfying. What this means for artists is that their best pieces can be easily overlooked. Unless relevance and nuance of an artwork can be realized immediately, instant ...
Rosalyn M. Gaier -
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....
Eric Jacobson - My work is influenced by a variety of sources from mandalas to contructivism "drawing in space" and nature: artists like David Smith, Mark Di Suvero, Miro, Picasso, etc. My current work incorporates brass tubing with mobiles and water. Some of these create sound as well. I have also created steel "frames", often octagonal that enclose a series of elements floating within this environment. I have been exploring the use of depth(perspective), color and balance in my work. I am very interested in the "layers" that make up each person's life history and mind, and therefore create layers in my sculpture to symbolize this. I often see things in the world as having an" inner and an outer", sometimes revealed to the world at large and sometimes hidden. This includes the human mind. People often keep parts of themselves hidden or protected even sometimes from themselves. Sometimes thes things are revealed in artwork. My sculptures also involve the relationship of the natural and man-made environments and the balance or imbalance between them....
Rita Levinsohn - Welcome to my world of Other Realities. I am a painter of mystical figurative paintings and abstractions composed of acrylic paint and found objects. My concern is for the future of our planet. The animate and inanimate objects within the paintings reflect many incarnations. The message being that it is possible to create rather than destroy....