Artists Describing Their Art:
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 ...
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!...
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, ...
Sarah Longlands - I trained at Bristol and Manchester, where I gained a BA hons and completed my post-graduate studies at University College London Slade School of Art. In the words of one of my collectors Ostensibly realistic, her work goes beyond this to explore the nature of reality, and of time and space. The artworks are refined, emphasizing her knowledge and meticulousness in the chosen medium. But her art is not just representational it also has a rare imaginative flair. The objects are changed into something which is beyond the original and which creates a kind of parallel ideal artistic reality. If this sounds a little like surrealism, then maybe that is not so far from the truth, but the work is subtler than that. Having previously exhibited in many exhibitions in both the United Kingdom and France, Gold Fish Galleries in Sarasota, Florida then in the Lincoln Centre in New York and done many commissions for people both in London, the provinces but also in The United States, I finished a commission from Cunard Line in 2003, through the art consultants Onderneming Kunst to do six oil paintings for the penthouses on board the new Queen Mary 2, launched in ...
Shelly Leitheiser - Art comes from my head and my heart. I care deeply about the environment and often do artwork expressing my interest in environmental topics. I also use my art work to tell stories and uncover truths. Water and paint are sometimes used but often I will use photography and digital painting programs to get the images I envision. I am a formally trained artist in fine art, and have recently left the world of painting realism as my interest in photography grows. Why should art and photography look the same? Now I do more impressionist art and also abstracts, many of them inspired by other worlds. The realistic painting I do these days is very contemporary. Art is a lot of work but it's also very rewarding for me when someone inquires further into the meaning of my art....
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...
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 ...
C. Mari Pack - I paint with the conviction that color can manipulate the mind; it can make the heart beat faster, whet the appetite, or spark a memory. Much of our reaction to color is subliminal, and we are generally unaware of its pervasive and seductive effects. The colors we see are invariably influenced by what we feel; therefore, we can never really separate what we see from what we know. Contrast and color are essential in my process. I start by selecting two or three colors; I work the canvas from all angles discovering new forms of composition through the use of movement and gravity. I push the paint to its chemical limit allowing it to mutate and evolve. My work is based on the fact that we have become imprinted with a reaction to colors, shapes, and patterns. Through the use of both color psychology and geology, and executed through chemistry I have created visual colorscapes that engage both the conscious and subconscious, provoking the audience to find imagery through movement. Everyone sees something different! What do you see?...
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 ...
Rhoda Taylor - Every day I work in my studio and every day I look forward to creating artwork. Painting is my passion.... I wouldn't know what to do without it. The studio that I work in is situated on the grounds of our house in beautiful Southern Ireland, surrounding me are the mountains with their soft mists, the rolling hills and ancient coastline, it all fills me with happiness and inspiration, I can gaze from my window at the amazing views, the Atlantic ocean, fields, cattle, birds and trees, this truly is a mystical and magical place. Over the years I have worked with various mediums, glass painting, silk screen, oils, pen and ink, gouache and watercolour, but my ultimate choice is my pen and ink work which I truly adore, I know I can put into the paintings a tremendous amount of detail that would be almost impossible using another medium. I am fortunate to of had a lot of my work purchased and exhibited worldwide, England, Ireland, France, Germany, Malta, Hong Kong, Vienna, Japan, and America, with works including Portraiture, Design and Illustration, not to mention the countless private commission requests ranging from transforming memorable photographs into paintings for ...
Claudia Nierman - Some words about my work: The images I produce are deliberately enigmatic and multi-layered. They invite the viewer to engage in the process of storytelling whereby dreaming and living are woven together as a tapestry. I find the sources for my work in the urban environment: window displays, torn posters, graffiti, broken architecture. In short, the remains of man. These objects and situations are eventually transformed by rain, sun, reflections, and shadows, as well as additions made by the passerby. Shaped by the forces of chance, these ephemeral visions are captured on film (and now also in bits and bites) and used as raw material that merge one into another forming a new identity. The result? On one hand, a strange amalgam of my preoccupation with time and memory, and on the other, the way in which the deliberate manipulaton through photographic images can give us insight into our personal and collective struggles. Technical information: I usually work in three different formats: 25 cm x 30 cm and 32 cm x 45 cm printed on cibachrome paper; and a large format of 57 cm x 80 cm, digitilizing the final image and printing it on canvas. (Since this latter ...
Tom Lund-Lack - I am an experienced artist whose work uses the power of imagination to find find the essence of the subject.A It is grounded in the need to celebrate life, and to portray the subject through the transforming power of colour and light. Arrangements of shape, line, pattern and colour are brilliant at conjuringA up powerful expressions, sometimes these can be dreamlike and at peace sometimes exciting and dramatic. My work does not always represent an actual moment, place or object in time, but they areA the result of a process of reflection, recollection and reinvention, a distillation of experience. Art is a very small word having the widest possible meaning appreciation is a subjective judgement and no artist or workA can please everyone.A My aim is to please at least some of you and I am very confident that this aspiration is achievable ...
Walter King - I am Professor Emeritus retired from The Columbus College of Art and Design CCAD. Ive lived and made my art here for 35 years beginning as a student at CCAD and returning after accomplishing my MFA from Boston University. Im now retired and living in Virginia. Ive taught drawing, color, design and painting techniques in the illustration area since 1985. Ive exhibited in Columbus regularly, written up in the Dispatch and in Dialogue Magazine, extended my exhibitions spiraling out from Columbus to various galleries in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky then Maryland, New York, Oklahoma and Washington State Hiroshima Japan, Washington DC, then to Budapest Hungary, Dresden Germany, Zagreb Croatia, Buenos Aires and Cordoba Argentina Early in my life I worked as an IllustratorDesigner after high school and while putting myself through art school later. I worked on projects for Apple computers, OETA PBS and Oprah Magazine. My work is all over the world owned by people like the former Director of the National Archives in Zagreb Croatia, a Bank President in Holland, The Greater Columbus Arts Council, OSU Newark and there are works in collections in Washington DC, New York, Texas, Ohio, Oklahoma, California, Chicago, Buenos Aires, Cyprus. A peace ...
William Christopherson - The viewer sees a finished canvas. The artist relishes its journey of creation. A thought, a feeling, an experience, a place. These are the most essential of supplies as the artist tasks to expand, explore, and evolve along the path. All are welcome here, to view, appreciate contemplate, and possess the journeys I have made, and the journeys yet to come. Over the past several years I have explored the oil medium, borrowing technique from both historical and present day impressionism. Its a medium I love to work in, even though my wardrobe and studio surfaces have suffered immensely. Much of my work now reflects the pallet knife, and explores a prolific use of heavy colorful brush stroke. Everything continues to evolve, and thats a good thing Enjoy. William Christopherson, 2017 ...
Geo Sipp - Geo Sipp Artist Statement: The primary emphasis of my images is to reflect our experiences as consumers of the media in the aftermath of September Eleventh. As we go about our lives the media constantly reminds us of our exposure and vulnerability. The visual perception that is promoted is of our being continuous observers of the human condition. A sense of being under threat heightens our awareness and is implicit in our roles as parents, friends and guardians. The media trivializes threats by distilling them into short, dramatic events. Meaning and emotion become codified. I create images as responses to social and political situations, but no attempt is made to editorialize the content. The work is intended to reevaluate the visual narrative to which we've become conditioned. A variety of media is used to create my work. The decision to create a drawing or a painting or a print is primarily intuitive. Yet, because they are multiples, prints reference the mass marketing of published imagery in a news cycle. The Algeria Series references the Iraq War and Middle East instability. The fact that the images are multiples printed from several plates alludes to the tradition of photojournalism and role...