Miami Beach

Stanislav “Standa” Riha
Visual artist, photographer, and writer
Member of CARFAC

Born in 1952 in Prague, former Czechoslovakia. He grew up in Lesser Town (Malá Strana), surrounded by great medieval and modern art and artists that caused his desire to create. From early childhood, he enjoyed drawing and later painting; as a young man, he focused mainly on surrealism. His artistic attitude was shaped by many art courses in childhood, followed by art training by MgA Milos Saska and work in the set production of the Realistic Theatre.

In 1980, he lived for a year in Grinzing, Vienna, Austria, and then moved to Vancouver, BC, Canada. Enchanted with the natural beauty of British Columbia, he dedicated the first few years to realistic nature themes and then switched to Surreal and later Surreal-abstract creative work.

In the last three decades, I have been creating wall-mounted, cast resin, and aluminum sculptures combined with canvas and gold leaf, and exploring the computer as an art tool for creating digital artwork.

All my life, I have loved to create art full of emotions and feelings, “soul,” with the satisfaction of fun. I am interested in the balance and composition of colors and objects rather than the reality of the items.

The direction of the last two decades has been aimed at understanding and, through artwork, expressing the human struggle of emotions and adaptations. For the past ten years, I have been polishing my creative work in the Surreal-abstract style.

The main motto of my artwork is: Just as in a good story, the readers have space to create their image; in a good picture, the viewers can form their own account.

Miami Beach Vibes

Stephanie Bing studied painting in the master class of internationally renowned art professor Klaus Jürgen-Fischer at the Academy of Fine Arts in Mainz and photography in the master class of Professor Dr. Vladimir Spacek from Prague. Born in 1967 in Mannheim, Germany, Bing graduated with distinction from high school in Offenburg. Subsequently, she studied fine arts, painting, photography, art history, German, and literature at Johannes Gutenberg University and the Academy of Fine Arts in Mainz, again graduating with distinction.

Following her education, she worked as an associate professor for the Bavarian Ministry of Culture in cooperation with the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and the Bavarian Chamber of Architects until 2002.

Bing focused on design, architecture, aesthetic perception, and digital media to promote visual literacy.

Since 1991, her work has been shown in national and international exhibitions.

I compose bright, surprising settings like a luxury jewel box and assimilate my interiors to unknown sanctuaries with high vibes. Everything in my paintings is playful, ambiguous, and multi-layered. I love variations within a theme and image quotations. My artwork is more than an assemblage of colors and patterns to please the eye. I build new environments that relate to nothing seen before. My pure aesthetic energy flows out of my artwork and brightens the viewer’s mind with pure buzz and excitement. I love to break the traditional methods of spatial visualization and the three-dimensional physical illusions of a room to make the viewer’s perception of reality absurd. I want to allow my audience to look behind the bare, well-known pictorial sphere by leaving behind the classically taught composition and inventing more layers within the two-dimensional canvas. By breaking the classical view, I can generate a new experience for my audience, pointing them to emotional reality. I turn my motives into bright, cheering works of art, like an explosion of colors and organic shapes. Creating is like breathing. Painting is surviving. The painting process itself is of the utmost importance in my daily life. I like to plunge into my painting process as others fall into a pool. Creating a new image is an effort to balance between visualizing and reflecting on my surroundings and emotions. The subjects of my work reflect a myriad of daily impressions from traveling and being in motion. While painting, I get an extraordinary sense of personal and creative freedom. I capture detailed and precise moments that bring a fresh and intriguing perspective to the world’s reality. As the viewer sees now existing in a different light, context, or resolution, familiar objects appear as something new.

Michiana Dream 3

Jane Cowley is an award-winning artist residing in Michigan City, Indiana, where her studio is also located.

She was born in Chicago, Illinois, and attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Drisi Academy of Fine Art located in Glenwood, Illinois.
Jane works primarily in oils and pastels, mediums that enhance her love of portraits and land, water, and cityscapes.

She has exhibited in Illinois, New York, Michigan, and Indiana. Her work has been published in The Society of Illustrators, NY, Chicago Magazine, The French Reader, and The Stanford University Medical Journal. Jane also published a children’s book, “Jack” in 2010.

From 2006 to 2014, Jane represented over 100 regional artists at Cowley Fine Art Gallery located in New Buffalo, St. Joseph, and South Haven, Michigan.
Teaching is also a passion. Jane has taught and is currently teaching beginner and intermediate drawing and painting, both individual and group lessons.

I approach my work with a sense of responsibility to the viewer and myself. I strive for excellence by combining technique and subject matter to form hopefully, unique and provocative works that evidence both thought and quality of expression.

Michiana Dream 4

Jane Cowley is an award-winning artist residing in Michigan City, Indiana, where her studio is also located.
She was born in Chicago, Illinois, and attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Drisi Academy of Fine Art located in Glenwood, Illinois.

Jane works primarily in oils and pastels, mediums that enhance her love of portraits and land, water, and cityscapes.

From 2006 to 2014, Jane represented over 100 regional artists at Cowley Fine Art Gallery located in New Buffalo, St. Joseph, and South Haven, Michigan.

Teaching is also a passion. Jane has taught and is currently teaching beginner and intermediate drawing and painting, both individual and group lessons.

I approach my work with a sense of responsibility to the viewer and myself.

I strive for excellence by combining technique and subject matter to form hopefully, unique and provocative works that evidence both thought and quality of expression.

Mid Mod Cat On Pink

I’ve been making art most of my life. When I was a kid, I even won some blue ribbons for my own artwork. Clay was my medium of choice for a long while and I was an avid potter and ceramics artist. I belonged to The Clayhouse in Santa Monica and the senior members were generous about sharing their knowledge and skills. But my left shoulder started complaining about the big lumps of clay spinning on the wheel and, frankly, I was getting bored with the bland color palate of high-fire clay. A couple of trips to Paris and the vibrant colors of “flat art” (as I call it) in museums and galleries brought me back to drawing and painting. On and off, I have been painting in my studio and screwing around with spray paint creations in the garage. It is my nature to have several projects going at once. So now I find myself with hundreds of paintings in my basement from those decades of work and my paintings want to get out into the world. They want to be set free!

“I am not the water. I am just the fountain.”

For me, the process of making art is a wrestling match between the image or idea that wants to flow through me and my ego. When I am grooving in the present moment, moving color around on a surface, and dancing to rock ‘n roll, I am in the right place. The Dancing Me seeks creative expansion and expression.

But the ego judges. To my ego, the work is never right. The Ego Me seeks perfection.

I try to remember that I am not the water. I am just the fountain. When I paint, I look for the feeling of surrender and flow. The Dancing Me just puts pink where pink belongs. The Dancing Me knows where the blue goes.

I want to think about things that lighten my own heart or make me laugh, so I paint people, places, and things that I enjoy.
I feel responsible for the ideas as they want to flow through my fingers, and I want to fulfill them in service to the power that gave them. My job now is to listen and enjoy the journey to what comes n

Mid Summer Country Life

I am a Native Texan who has had a chance to see the world. I am fascinated by nature, color, texture, and shape. Lately, I have begun to see light in the world of Black and White as well as Infrared. My style is eclectic. I let the subject matter take me where it wants to go.

I was educated to be a scientist with a Ph.D in Physics, but after finishing post-doctoral work at Los Alamos, New Mexico, I took a position in the research department of a Multi-National Oil company where I did fundamental research to image the interior of the earth. It was here that I learned the fundamentals of signal processing that I now use for photography. I spent a career with this company performing both research and operational oil exploration. It was a great opportunity to travel and see the world. I live in a world of visual pollution, but I know worlds of Physical and Spiritual beauty exist. I am constantly on the lookout for small enclaves of beauty, but they keep getting harder to find. So I try looking in different ways. I try looking with different types of light … soft light, strong light, light disturbed by strong weather, and the invisible light of infrared light. I try looking at complexity from new perspectives, and see nature the way other creatures see it.

I can find beauty in symmetry, asymmetry. and chaos. I find beauty in nature as well as architecture. I find beauty in life and in the day-to-day struggle to survive. I find beauty in simplicity and in complexity. Beauty is everywhere if you look the right way.

I live in a world of visual pollution, but I know worlds of Physical and Spiritual beauty exist. I am constantly on the lookout for small enclaves of beauty, but they keep getting harder to find. So I try looking in different ways. I try looking with different types of light … soft light, strong light, light disturbed by strong weather, and the invisible light of infrared light. I try looking at complexity from new perspectives, and see nature the way other creatures see it.

Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil

Scotti Taylor is an Oceanside, California-based painter who reconceives the balance of beauty and pain in compelling abstracts. Coalescing figuration and abstraction, the colorful works of art invite individuals to contemplate the tragedy and perseverance that often goes overlooked but inevitably makes each of us stronger and more exquisite.

Throughout Taylor’s life, art has remained a constant passion. Starting young by working closely with public school art teachers, then studying Studio Art at the University of Texas at Austin, she eventually immersed herself in the field of Graphic Design with The Art Institute of San Diego. Scotti channeled her skills into careers that allowed her to explore the intersections of her creativity, including her time as the Art Director for the Scripps Institution of Oceanography where she specialized in Scientific Illustration and won National Awards for the monthly member’s magazine she designed for the Birch Aquarium at Scripps.

Now, after two decades of dedicating herself to her family, Scotti has returned to the studio. Taylor’s artistic practice shares her story as a survivor of trauma and substance abuse, her role as a wife and mother, devoted caregiver to her adult disabled daughter, and as a woman navigating the physical and social inaccessibilities of today’s society in a way that evokes empathy and compassion.

Through vivid color and movement, I reveal unseen and internalized truths. As a visual artist bringing together the figurative, the abstract, and the autobiographical, I share the struggles of womanhood and contemporary life. Within my paintings, I dissect childhood traumas, mental wellness, fluctuations of faith, disparities in accessible care, and the stigmas that keep so many women silenced. I coalesce the sentiments from a lifetime of experiences to tell the stories of women, the battles they face, and the resilience they demonstrate.

Mine is a process of experimentation, translating the personal into evocative works of our collective human experiences. Spontaneous abstract mark-making and intricate details add layers to each story. My subjects, symbolism, and radiating spirit manifest through a vibrant palette of color that juxtaposes the tumultuous topics I address. Much like the masks we wear to protect ourselves, the traumas, anxieties, and hidden truths are disguised beneath the entrancing kaleidoscopic colors.

In my abstraction, a language of textures emerges as I allow each medium, material, and technique to flow to allow its own story to unfold intuitively. The work pulls from inspirations across time, from cave paintings to modern graffiti, the scientific illustrations of my former career, the art of tattoos, and even the whimsical nature of children’s art, culminating in otherworldly environments bursting with magic. I allow my life’s journey to be imbued within my brushstrokes and the grief and pain to infuse my work with resonating human connectivity.

Reimagining the depths of our realities, I look to forge pathways of connection based on love, empathy, and compassion. They are a reminder that no one’s story is simple. No one is alone in their struggles. The inherent complexities that challenge us also unveil new beauty.

Midsummer Orbit

Grace Mrsich is a second-year BA student at Westfield State University, specializing in illustration. Her colorful, bright digital paintings and drawings draw inspiration from graphic novels and experimentation with light. Mrsich has been featured in WSU’s student art showcases, as well as having her work place third in the Milford Art Gallery’s The Process exhibition in 2025.

I decided to take the title of the exhibition and mold it into the piece literally. At heart, this work is about the fun of community and building joy in small spaces. Midsummer Orbit depicts two cosmic creatures in the middle of a dance, with a backing band and a stage, in the last hours of the day. Maybe the dance is for an audience, and maybe it isn’t. The moon and sun will repeat their journeys elsewhere soon, but for now, they get to spend time together. The yellow and blue of the sun and moon are the main focal points of the piece, as well as their shared connection.

Bright pinks, blues, and greens were priority flanking choices for me as they went hand-in-hand with the fuzzy, dreamlike state of the piece. There are no flashy or bold elements. This is also the reason why I chose lineless shapes and soft shadows.

This dance is in progress— not at the beginning or the end— and that moment is bright and colorful. Making this piece helped me to realize that living six years in the future all of the time is not viable. The present is beautiful and important, and if skipped over, can no longer build any future joy. Many moments, especially small ones, deserve to be put on a pedestal and celebrated instead of glossed over. The process of having fun may be forgotten, but the glow of the day will linger in memory forever.

Migrant

Deborah Perlman was born in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, and is currently based in South Florida. She is a graduate of Boston University (BFA, sculpture), Boston, MA, and Cranbrook Academy of Art (MFA, sculpture), Bloomfield Hills, MI. After graduate school, Perlman opted for a career in communications, enabling her to travel and use her art training in the corporate world.

Since she returned to making fine art full-time, she has exhibited her work throughout Florida and the U.S. Perlman has won several awards and appeared in art publications as a featured artist. In 2023, her work was juried into a New York gallery exhibit by a curator from the Museum of Modern Art, NY and she was selected for a solo exhibit at the Morean Arts Center in St. Petersburg, FL.

Influenced by her training, Perlman creates abstract, mixed-media wall-mounted sculptures interpreting the dynamics of three-dimensional form and space. Her ‘almost but not quite real’ world lands somewhere between authentic and imagined, sliding in and out of reality. She invites the viewer into the scene to discover where they find themselves.

Perlman uses a variety of materials, including paper, plastic, wood, metals, and photographs. After constructing three-dimensional forms, she adheres them to the base, juxtaposing them to highlight their points of contact and the shadows they cast.

Perlman’s influences include 19th and 20th-century African sculpture; the Constructivism, Geometric Abstraction, and Cubism (Picasso, Braque, Lipschitz) art movements; Giorgio de Chirico’s and M.C. Escher’s ‘illogical perspective’ works; Louise Nevelson’s bas relief works; Joseph Cornell’s shadow boxes; and Frank Stella’s metal reliefs, among others.

ENTER A WORLD SOMEWHERE BETWEEN REAL AND IMAGINED

Depicting an ‘almost-but-not-quite-real’ world somewhere between authentic and imagined, my art celebrates ambiguity, sliding in and out of reality, and compelling me to challenge previous ideas and established thoughts.

I find excitement and mystery in three-dimensional forms and spaces. Creating wall-mounted sculptures draws me in, challenging me to go beyond what I know and uncover what I don’t. It’s thrilling yet at times unsettling, continually bringing me new awareness and understanding. Simply put, the work frees my spirit.

My goal is to create spaces that challenge the senses, evoke emotion, and ask you to consider:
• What is it?
• Where is it?
• What do you see and feel?
• Do you find yourself in it, or not?

Inspiration has come from many personal experiences throughout the years. Recently, global issues such as climate change, prejudice, and divisiveness are finding their way into my work.

I’m currently working with paper, photographs, wire mesh, flat aluminum wire, wood, plastic, and adhesives, and continually looking for new materials to integrate into each piece. Building three-dimensional forms, I adhere each element to the base, then juxtapose them to highlight their points of contact and the shadows they cast.

I invite you to glimpse into my interpreted world and find your place within it.