In Great Waves
Michael Lopez, 63, was an award-winning journalist for 17 years before changing careers to become an architectural historian who is intricately involved in the development and reuse of historic buildings. In the past year, his art career has taken hold, and his work has been shown in 10 in-person and online exhibits.
While drawing and writing since childhood, Michael’s artistic ability became front and center during his master’s degree training in historic preservation, which required the drawing of buildings and building components.
He is a mixed media artist, whether it be incorporating stained glass pieces into his work or painting watercolors. His work has sharply shifted into the Abstract, which allows him to more deeply explore color and shape and the communication between artist and viewer.
Michael considers himself an emerging artist who has had recent success exhibiting in regional galleries, including Valley Artisans Market in Cambridge, NY; the Arts League of Lowell, MA; and the 44th Annual Adirondacks National Exhibition of American Watercolor, at the View Arts Center in Old Forge, NY. His work was also displayed late last year in the Saratoga Springs train station as part of the Saratoga Arts Public Places Program. He has participated in two group online exhibits sponsored by the HMVC Gallery of New York City, which also displayed the shows on a Jumbotron in Times Square. Most recently, his work was included in an online, end-of-year exhibit sponsored by Domio Gallery, partly staffed in London. He has been included in Domio’s most recent show, “Unrestricted.” He is also featured, along with hundreds of Abstract artists worldwide, in the debut issue of the Abstractics art journal.
He is a native of Central New York and lives in New York’s Capital Region.
I am as enthralled by painting a humble water pitcher as I am by painting newborn stars.
At age 63, I am an emerging artist.
Art whispered in my ear when I long ago decided my favorite color – it’s maroon — or drew houses and ships as a kid, or, kneeling in church, studied the orange flames of hell, the white dove of the Holy Spirit, and the sorrowful faces of saints in the stained glass.
And then life went on. I became a journalist, which is a craft but not an art, so, later, poems began to pour out. After 17 years as a reporter, I switched careers, studying historic preservation in courses that forced me to draw a single brick and taught me how to handle charcoal.
I also drew the human form and came to realize that knowing how to draw classically was necessary before I could lay claim to my own artistic hand. I explored, painting on bits of vintage stained glass, sketching weeds and herbs, and flowers, testing watercolor and pencil.
One large body of work uses watercolor to explore “star nurseries,” nebulae in which stars are born. These breathtaking events, where light, gas, and dust work out masterpieces, are happening far above our heads, out of sight. Most recently, his Abstract work has become an artistic lifeline, allowing him a voice in a turbulent world.
I’d like people to understand that if I am painting a glimpse of a galaxy, or pressing moss into a painting of a tree stump, or hand-decorating an ordinary object, I am curating my life. I would like you to attend my show.
In Motion
Joke Minnaar, painter.
I was born in Vlissingen (1951), the Netherlands.
Vlissingen is a port town on the North Sea coast. That’s where my love for the sea comes from.
The beach, the sea, and the blue skies have a big influence on my work.
I was 17 years old, and I passed my high school exams.
Then I realized that I would no longer be taking drawing lessons and that I would miss it very much.
But I had no choice, I entered a new phase of life.
Not long after that, I heard an inner voice saying: “One day you will paint with oil paint”.
I have never thought about it again until, 20 years later, to my own surprise, I went to buy oil paint.
The day before I returned from a winter holiday in Austria: white mountains, blue skies.
Here at home, the day was gray and wet. It made me sad.
On a whim, I thought: I’m going to buy oil paint now. So I did.
In the beginning, I didn’t really know what to paint. My first efforts to create a flower still life and a portrait didn’t give me pleasure, and I realized that I did not enjoy painting from reality.
On an evening, I intuitively get started painting colors and forms. That is how my first abstract work arose, and my painting career began.
From that moment, I continued to paint without interruption.
I make abstract oil paintings with bright colors and clear shapes, always with oil paint on canvas.
Core themes are the beauty I see in the world around me and the connection between visible reality and a reality that transcends it.
The inspiration for my paintings comes from something I have seen, heard, or read, and what won’t let me go.
I call it the inspiration of the soul.
I have to wait for that inspiration before I can start a painting.
Then an image emerges that I start working with.
I start with a design, and gradually the painting takes shape and color.
This process repeats itself with every work.
So there is a great interaction between what lives inside me and the world outside me.
In my work, that becomes a whole.
Gradually, I discover what the painting really means to me. The titles refer to it.
I have always gone my own way in painting.
Over the years, my work has continued to develop.
The paintings became calmer, and the representations increasingly abstract.
The latest development is that the abstract forms come loose; they move freely within the space of the painting. They become independent, as it were, and enter into a relationship with each other.
What has remained constant are the bright colors and the pursuit of a balanced image.
I have been lucky enough to be able to create my paintings in complete freedom.
As much as possible, I am working in my atelier in the garden at my house.
Painting is my life’s work.
In Pieces And Pain
Tina Ybarra lives a mixed-media life. Born in the urban city of Lynwood, CA, Ybarra attended Cal State Univ., Long Beach off and on (mostly off) for several years, eventually earning a degree in General Art. Currently residing in South Gate, CA, Ybarra is a veteran elementary school teacher, a reluctantly-retired softball junkie, a former high school coach (softball, basketball, and volleyball), and a weekend/spare-time/summer-break artist.
Raised on Motown and Santana, Ybarra is just as likely to glean inspiration from Hip Hop, Rock, or Mozart. She is mesmerized by the TV, fascinated by movies, fanatical about books, and enchanted with theatre.
For the most part, Ybarra’s work deals with issues that are personally relevant such as the hypocrisy of religions, the brutal realities of inner-city education, the relentless despair of poverty, and the inequalities of gender and race.
In Ybarra’s current work, there is a tendency towards mixed media and an attempt to bring dimension by cutting into and/or attaching objects to the canvas. Still, on occasion, Ybarra will return to basics; to something straightforward and traditional; to something as comfortable and familiar as the velveteen texture of charcoal on paper.
Although I think of my art as extremely personal, I believe the themes are somewhat universal. The subject matter will likely include inequalities pertaining to gender or social status; the state of education; the failings of organized religion, faith, and spirituality versus religion; or anything that catches my eye and sparks an idea.
I think art should change the world. With each new canvas or page, I endeavor to change my small part of the world for the better. With each new idea or concept, I hope to send an ever-increasing ripple effect that could someday wash away the recurring atrocities and injustices that tend to plague humankind.
I am often inspired by things I see on TV or hear on the radio. However, more often than not, my own reality becomes the subject of my work–expelling my darkest fears, revealing pent-up frustrations, or releasing my deepest hopes.
In Scarlet Radiance In Bloom
Nicole Martinelli is an international award-winning Artist and photographer who has been featured in prominent galleries throughout the United States and Europe. The Artist and Photographer, Nicole Martinelli, is originally from the western suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. She now resides in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, area, where she finds inspiration in the surrounding mountains and rural areas for her latest artworks and photographs. Nicole Martinelli’s Photography and Hand-Painted Paintings have been featured in numerous prestigious In Gallery Juried group exhibitions at galleries throughout the US and Europe, Galleries including yet not limited to: The Marblehead Arts Association Gallery in Massachusetts, Mosaic Arts Gallery, Mosaic arts district Fairfax Virginia, BWAC Gallery in Brooklyn New York, San Diego Museum of Art Artist Guild and CORE Art Space in Colorado. The Artist and photographer has gained both National and International success and received awards in multiple international exhibitions based in Geneva, Switzerland.
The artist was accepted and exhibited in a prestigious five-month international juried exhibition held in the Bernese Oberland Region of the Swiss Alps, and one of the most renowned breathtaking locations in the world, Gstaad, Switzerland. The International Gallery Exhibition showcased juried artists selected from around the world. The International Gallery Exhibition featured forty artworks by artists from various countries, including but not limited to Switzerland, France, Italy, Malta, the United Kingdom, Poland, and Greece.
The Artist recently this Spring exhibited her Artworks, alongside 19 artists from around the world in “The Woman Art Power 2023, Primo Piano Gallery Weaving Dreams Living Time”. The International Gallery Exhibition was held in Lecce, Italy. The Artist is additionally in preparation for her solo exhibition at Artifact Gallery in Manhattan, New York.
Nature has always inspired me with its natural beauty and the solace and peace it provides us all. As both an artist and a photographer, I feel it is my responsibility to encapsulate, capture, and create beauty while also honoring nature and the natural world, offering the therapeutic power, peace, and solace that nature provides us all. My photography and artworks prompt us to value nature, our environment, and to conserve and cherish, and utilize our natural resources as nature naturally intended, while exploring the deeper underlying connections between nature and humanity.
As a photographer, I am capturing the beauty of nature that surrounds us all. Each of my photographs encapsulates and embodies both the emotions and beauty that I experience while within that specific moment of Time, of the initial capture. Through my lens, I am able to capture and preserve the beauty of the natural scenery through my eyes, for all to appreciate and experience! Allowing the viewers the opportunity to stay within the particular moment in time, for as long as they may wish!- Photographer, Artist Nicole Martinelli
During these ever-changing times we are living in, there is one thing that never changes, the solitude, beauty, peace, and comfort nature provides us all! Nature never falters and is always there for you! There is always an ocean or stream to catch your tears and a sunset to brighten your life. If I can inspire, awaken, make the viewer feel, think, and bring solace, happiness, and peace to others as I have found myself while creating, then I have achieved my artistic goal. – Artist, Photographer Nicole Martinelli.
In Search Of My Scars
Julien Cardinal Romero was born on July 26, 1976, in Matanzas, Cuba. He fled to Panama City at the age of 35, fleeing the dictatorship that had oppressed his country for more than 60 years. He sought refuge in Panama City, where he spent ten years.
In Panama, Julien participated in a variety of artistic events, winning third place in its national salon in the painting category in 2019. He has always dedicated himself to art. He enrolled in his city’s Higher Pedagogical Institute in 1994 and graduated in 1999 with a Bachelor of Plastic Education. In 2001, Julien enrolled in his city’s Roberto Diago professional art school and graduated in 2004 as a Professional Technician in Plastic Arts.
During his student years, Julien was able to meet people from various generations. He uses a variety of techniques such as oil paints, acrylics, and pastel pens. Influences in his work include modern painting, the Cuban cinema poster artist, African art, expressionism, and surrealism.
My name is Julien Cardenal Romero. I am a Cuban artist. My work is a personal journey where the answers sometimes come before the questions in the form of art. Through my work, I study myself, my conflicts, and my internal struggle, and I employ art as a tool, as well as its history and influences. I use modern art, expressionism, surrealism, African art, Cuban movie posters, Ukiyo-e, and abstract expressionism as tools.
In Seine Love
Karen Safer, a native California photographer, artist, writer, and poet with a musical bent, was exposed to California motifs: light, palm trees, the sea, music, and vernacular architecture that defined and influenced her left-handed aesthetic. An early life of travel shaped her love of the exotic paired with an eye for the accidental, unusual, “formal” and “the beautiful” that jiggled the lens/frame of her eye. She received a master’s degree in art, worked in design and architecture firms, and photographed in over 230 countries (and territories). Influenced by Atget to Cindy Sherman, she has won many awards in numerous national and international competitions and exhibitions and is included in private collections.
I got a camera and some crayons as a kid,
journeyed along a path in life – far from what I’d expected,
moved from youth to middle age,
did some work, had some fun, got high, got low,
and just continue doing it – never tiring of the next visual surprise.
– Life is still a mystery, after all.
In The Crosshairs
Born in Canton, Ohio, I started drawing competitively at an early age. My cousin and I would compete to see who best-replicated cartoon characters and famous personalities. At seven, my second-grade teacher gifted me a set of oils and taught me how to stretch a canvas. That first painting, a mare, and her foul could not be found the day after school was out for the summer. Though disappointed, my positive thought was, it must have been good. No more paint-by-number sets.
During my senior year of high school, I departed from rendering photo-like images. Being “creative” took precedence. Fast forward to UC Santa Barbara and my introduction to cubism and multiple mediums, I felt my art was valid. Abstract expressionism was emerging.
Art imitates life and as an artist, I like to engage viewers to see my representation of life, be it a simple still-life, a figurative piece, or a socio-political statement, in the creative way that I do and not as if looking through a camera lens.
Picasso once stated every child is an artist, the problem is remaining so as an adult. Child-like inhibition is the epitome of creativity. When I decided to abandon drawing with the intent of creating photo-perfect images, it was with trepidation. However, my introduction to cubism let me know that I could continue creating in a more abstract manner. I like to let the process dictate the result of my inspiration. One gesture predicates the next. Mistakes, if you will, are a challenge to make work as part of the creative process.
“In The Crosshairs” exemplifies that process. My initial intent was to recreate a mask motif previously painted on a wooden cheese box. The creative process juxtaposed the figure and crossing planes indicative of a gun scope.
2020 was a time when being “in the crosshairs” got global attention and the BLM movement ensued. Art imitates life.
In The Ether
Commitment keen interest and openness not only to painting but also to the unknown within me, which inspires constant renewal. I can’t wait to see what creative expression comes through me. I like perfect details, but I can’t resist sloppy, unpredictable movements either. With these interesting abstract motifs, I dissolve the regular lines of oil paint. I bring change to my work with different structures. I break the rule of giving way to something new.
The change in my life is most evident in my work. What cannot be said in words appears in the paintings. Each image is synonymous with a reformulated confession, a lived life situation, a captured moment, or a missed opportunity. Transfiguration of sincerity in colors and abstract forms. I create dynamic abstract paintings that are kinetic and luminous.
Painting for me is like life and death: we get the raw material from which we create challenging complications and finally ecstasy. Consciously or not, but as we react to life, we create ourselves every day. I want everyone to realize this ability within themselves because by changing ourselves, we can bring change to the world. Art and creation begin here for me.
My style of painting is constantly changing as I have learned painting, like many other things in life, in a self-taught way. I have a number of features to help with this process: Commitment and a keen interest and openness not only in painting but also to the unknown within me, which encourages continuous renewal. I can’t wait – as I work hard – to see what creative expression is born through me. I love the perfect details, but I can’t resist sloppy, unpredictable movements either. With these interesting abstract motifs, I dissolve the regular lines of oil paint. I bring change to my work with different structures. I break the rule to give way to something new. With my abstract paintings, my goal is to show the door behind which the invisible, the always and everywhere, becomes apparent.
With my published paintings, I provide visual nourishment for the viewer. That’s why I think it’s important to convey beauty and harmony with my creations and to keep my expression simple and obvious. I am fascinated by the
miracle of creation, the invisible, volatile matter of man who is able to feel, think, and create.
In The Light Of The Summer Wind
At 65, after decades of not creating art, Lisa Joy Newcomb reinvented herself as an artist.
Ms Newcomb has been honored with one best of show, five first-place awards in photography, a second-place award in abstract photography, a third-place award, and a collaborative cross-disciplinary award. She has had three one-woman shows. One through HMVC Gallery New York, one through Artel Gallery in Pensacola, FL, and one through the University of Delaware. Her work has been seen from coast to coast, including several times through the HMVC Gallery in New York and the Las LaGuna Gallery in California. Pictorem, based out of Montreal, Canada, has Lisa as a featured artist. Ms. Newcomb’s work has been seen in public arenas including New York’s Times Square electronic billboards, Montgomery International Airport, the Regions Bank Corporate Gallery in Montgomery, Alabama, the Sanger Theater in Pensacola, Florida, and the Hilton Pensacola Beach, Florida. Three books have also been presented, Ms. Newcomb. They are: “Nobis II, 2023,” and the “Emerald Coast Review,” 2023, and 2025. “Emerald Coast Review 2025” uses Ms Newcomb’s photograph as its cover image.
The photographs she creates are abstractions in fluidity, rich in joy and filled with color, pattern, curiosity, and a gentle message. The dance of light that for most of her life she sought in the ocean, she is now looking for in the melding of glass and fabric with occasional surprise elements. Lisa’s work is usually printed on aluminum.
Ms Newcomb’s highest degree is a master’s in social work. Professionally, she worked as a social worker and as a realtor. She was raised in the Mid Atlantic, experienced her young adulthood in New England and the Midwest, and for the last 30 years, the Deep South has been home with her husband. It was in the Deep South that she raised an interesting, dynamic, kind-hearted daughter. Lisa was a docent at the Pensacola Museum of Art and the Montgomery Museum of Art for over 17 years. She is currently a national member of Pen Women.
Drawing upon different objects, I explore melding them into a unified whole. Part of my process is setting up compositions and visually weaving together beautiful glass and flowing fabric with vibrant colors and patterns into integrated fluid formations, seeking to reshape light, pattern, and color into a visual oasis. I then tightly crop and photograph. My intent is to transcend and transform objects into images that visually excite while calming the soul, often with a gentle message.
This sunlit piece reflects the ecosystem of a coastal summer. ‘Summer Wind’ mimics the movement of air currents dancing over sunbaked shores. The fluidity of color and movement echoes the memory of a sea of kites fluttering above. The selected intertwined colors of pinks, yellows, greens, blues, lavenders, and warm oranges represent the intense biodiversity and joy of seasonal flora. This image invites viewers to appreciate the power, beauty, and sensory richness of the natural world around us and our opportunity to celebrate and appreciate our playful relationships, both past and with care into the future.
My work can be purchased and brought home today or ordered in a size and frame that works best for you. I like to print on high-definition aluminum as it enhances the color and the spirit of the glass. Unframed, my high definition aluminum images can also be used on a covered porch.