Pickers (Nr.1)
James Long, b.1953, Cape Verdean-American, after receiving a degree from Rhode Island School of Design, he moved to New York City where he lives, and works. With an extensive background in lighting design, as an educator, he taught architectural lighting for the better part of two decades. His work in lighting design helped to establish studio projects that included site-specific installations ‘Skew’ Neon Pendant Light, ‘Profound Feelings of Disquiet’ InLight Richmond, VA, ‘Light | Shadow | Dream’ Illumination Gesu Façade, Montreal, and ‘Tendril’ Lamp Lighting Solutions Barcelona, which garnered awards of excellence from juried competitions in the United States, Canada, and Spain. Additionally selected group exhibitions included award-winning digital media and photography exhibited throughout the US.
While shopping in an Indian-owned spice market, I was unnerved by the display of canned French ‘Madagascar Green Peppercorns’ its label artwork of black field hands, no hats, no shirts, no shoes, hard to believe it exists in 2022. With recent controversy depicting inappropriate images in product packaging featuring BIPOC ie; ‘Aunt Jemima’, ‘Uncle Ben’, and ‘Rastus’ the ‘Cream of Wheat man. The fact remains, this type of imagery is offensive to BIPOC. This label artwork represents visual injustice and societal acceptance of negative imagery I am bringing attention to this label artwork in the hope it will resonate with viewers to affect change.
Picking Flowers
I am currently a student in the UC Berkeley Postbaccalaureate program in Studio Arts and on track to graduate in the fall of 2023. I received a certificate of completion for Fine Arts from UC San Diego Extension in 2022. My work has been featured in the Tijuana Estuary Nature Center in Imperial Beach since March 2023. My portraits and wildlife paintings were accepted in the Del Mar Fair 2023 fine art exhibition and “Going on a Grand Adventure” received second place for acrylic portraits. “Beach Day” received third place in the Imperial Beach Art Exhibition for Spring/Summer in 2023. My portraits of people and pets are part of a number of private collections.
As a primary caregiver to four children, my work explores the connection between the environment and children. Using photographic references, I depict my personal experience of watching and guiding my children through the world during their lives. My purpose is to highlight the reciprocal process of the parent-child relationship and show it as never static, but changing over time. The combination of gestural and realistic rendering creates a sense of movement in my paintings. I like to show children engaging with nature, such as climbing trees or observing nature, as well as interacting with each other through imaginative play. Above all, I want to emphasize the importance of physical touch which connects us to each other. We are all seeking connection, between parent and child and also between strangers and friends. We all desire to be seen, heard and felt in some tangible way and my artistic practice makes that possible.
Picking Hope
Maude Gorman is an advocate-turned-designer, who uses art to express the human experience. As a youth survivor of sexual violence, Gorman has used her experiences in life to advocate for change in her community. She’s worked with the United Nations, U.S. Congress, and the U.S. military on sexual violence prevention. Her work in design focuses on creating unique spaces tailored to her clients’ design goals. Her artwork is a reflection of overcoming adversity and features topics ranging from climate change, grief and loss, and expressions of the human experience.
This piece, titled “Picking Hope”, is an artistic interpretation of the magic of choosing to hope for a better tomorrow. In times of trial and tribulation, through loss and grief, picking hope isn’t always as easy as picking flowers. However, there is still magic that exists in those moments – in choosing to believe that tomorrow will bring a better day, in choosing to pick hope despite the despair we may feel. This piece represents the beauty in the heartache and the triumph of the human experience while faced with overcoming adversity.
Pile Valley Walk
Robyn was born in Sydney NSW Australia and now resides on the Gold Coast, Queensland Australia. She comes from a long line of painters in her family so it’s in her DNA to be creative. Robyn is a self-taught artist and her love of the arts continues to evolve over the years. She has dabbled in many different art forms and is currently exploring and enjoying the many different facets and techniques of fluid art – a form of contemporary abstract art.
She received an award in the 2011 Art on Loftus exhibition in Sydney Australia and has been a finalist in a number of recent Australian Art Prizes including the:
• Hornsby Art Prize in 2011 and 2012
• Doyle Art Prize (2022 and 2023)
• Ipswich Art Awards (2023)
• Nimbin Art Fair (2023)
• Brisbane Rotary Art Show (2023)
She has recently been a Staff Pick and a Featured Artist on the Bluethumb Australia On Line Gallery (July 2023), a Featured Artist in the July 2023 edition of the Artistcloseup Magazine, a Finalist in the Grey Cube Gallery online art platform (July 2023) and a Finalist in the HMVC Gallery NY Freestyle Art Competition (August 2023).
She has successfully sold works entered into a number of these events, as well as through the Mistletoe Winery Art Gallery in the Hunter Valley NSW and other Australian venues.
My artworks are influenced by my love of nature and the environment in all its forms and beauty. My abstract fluid art pieces throb with vitality, with vivid hues ensnaring the soles of our world’s many different landscapes. The interaction of the color palette when manipulated over the canvas creates cells and lacing to generate texture, shape, depth, and movement.
I believe we are connected to the earth and this art form embodies not just beauty but the invisible energy that binds us to the land. To you the viewer the artwork could deliver a different kind of energy based on how you interpret it.
In my mind, I see my artwork not just as art but as a journey to self-discovery through the freedom this art form allows. A mosaic palette of rich, earthy, organic, vibrant, and authentic colors has been applied to create depth, textures, form, and movement in the painting to evoke a sense of belonging and connection. By embracing this art form, you step into a tale of cosmic harmony, journeying towards self-revelation through color and form.
This art form is unique and can never be replicated.
Pinegrenade
Debórah Anne Kaufman, a native of the Southern California Coastline, has demonstrated her exuberant, passionate creativity through writing, song, music, dance, and fine art, from the age of five. At the age of ten, she began her formal education in technical drawing, painting, and sculpture, especially focused on life drawing under the mentorship of Founder/Director, Ed Buttwinck of the Brentwood Art Center.
Inspired by the Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance, Michelangelo Buonarroti, Debórah emphasizes the beauty, grace, and strength she sees in the human figure through realism. Honing her technical skills, she produces large vibrant, colorful pieces in acrylic paint and chalk pastel of the human figure and its interaction with nature.
Debórah received her BFA in Live Action and Computer Animation at the California Institute of the Arts. Her thesis, an educational film on child abuse, Into Your Heart, was premiered by the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, archived in the National Library Clearinghouse of Information in Washington D.C., and distributed by AIMS Media.
Working in the entertainment industry, her work developed from realism to super-realism and surrealism through works including a children’s story, Roots ’N’ Wings by British musician and music video director Lol Creme, and Parasite Eve, a role-playing video game developed by Square, a sequel to the novel written by Hideaki Sena.
Debórah received a Master’s in Clinical Psychology, with a specialization in Trauma and Co-Occurring Disorders, and an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy at Phillips Graduate Institute in 1991. She utilized realism, super-realism, and surrealism to explore and delve into the depths of the subconscious through Art Therapy.
Debórah explores the connection between people, animals, and the natural world, exploring our integration and virtues with nature versus our separation, sins, disconnection, and extinction.
From an early age, I recognize I have special gifts in the creative arts from writing to music, song, and dance, to drawing, painting, and sculpting, which I utilize to express and share my thoughts, feelings, and beliefs with others – Heart, Mind, Body, and Soul!
The moment I put pencil to paper, paintbrush to canvas, or hands to clay; time and space disappear as I immerse myself into the process. My conscious mind, free from judgment, I feel fully at peace with an exhilarating connection to nature and life around me within the Astral Universe.
As I strive to master the use of color, design, composition, perspective and perception, positive and negative space, human anatomy, and technical illustration; my work exemplifies realism, super-realism, surrealism, the subconscious and non-conscious mind.
I enjoy the challenge of double entendre, innuendo, puns, and play on words to explore and share my unique perspective, use of humor, and thought-provoking concepts and ideas beyond the mundane to expand individual, community, and global perceptions.
I seek to convey my concerns about being human at a crossroads, in which we must choose a path of positive virtues and a return to nature to gain insight, clarity, efficacy, empowerment, and enlightenment, to attain the 12 Laws of the Universe: divine oneness, vibration, attraction, correspondence, action, cause and effect, compensation, perpetual transmutation of energy, relativity, polarity, rhythm, and gender and the 12 Laws of Karma: The great law, creation, humility, growth, responsibility, connection, focus, giving and hospitality, here and now, change, patience and reward, and significance and inspiration; versus the negative path of immorality and the 12 Deadly Sins: pride, envy, greed, lust, gluttony, wrath, sloth, hypocrisy, ignorance, denial, tribalism, and Gnosticism, in which money, power, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose to extinction.
Pink
J. Vadala is a self-taught mixed media artist whose art reflects themes of survival, transformation, and emotional release. Following a life-altering accident in 2017, she was forced to confront the strength between breaking and becoming. Inspired by her daughter, she turned to painting to process what words could not express, marking this the beginning of her journey to reclaim herself.
While her work is rooted in instinct, Vadala uses music as a driving force in her creative process. Rhythm shapes the atmosphere of her studio as she moves with the sound, waiting for the right moment of release, and then the first mark is made. Her work carries raw, unfiltered energy, layering tension and vulnerability to reveal an unapologetic honesty.
Unpolishing the true version of resilience, she embraces a version that is full of contradiction. Through this lens, she transforms suffering into clarity, using abstraction as a language of endurance.
Vadala invites viewers into a space of personal interpretation, one that encourages reflection, healing, and growth. Balancing restraint and release, chaos and control, her work is grounded in a philosophy of acceptance and self-revelation.
She creates with the belief that authenticity is power and embodies her guiding philosophy: Unfiltered. Unbound. Free.
From the boldest cries to the softest melodies, each piece I create is an expression of emotion. Music is just one part of the process that defines my creative identity. Painting became an essential way for me to cope with physical and emotional pain after a life-changing accident. Inspired by my daughters’ pride, my art reflects the transformative power of self-expression. I have learned to move pain, sorrow, and struggle toward moments of peace, clarity, and insight.
I begin with instinct, not formula, as the canvas becomes a place of confrontation and release. The grief, anger, and healing are not softened, but made visible. I am drawn to the space between rupture and renewal, moments when we bend but do not break, when darkness does not vanish, but changes form. Each piece acknowledges part of that space, areas beyond my control, while honoring the beauty that can emerge from the battle.
Working in both intimate and large-scale formats, I use texture and contrast to explore dualities: strength and weakness, chaos and control, concealment and exposure. Each painting is deeply personal yet universal enough to invite viewers to find their own threshold within. My intention is simple but demanding: to make what is felt unmistakably visible. Unfiltered. Unbound. Free. This is not just a philosophy – this is my method.
Pink exists as a feeling more than a color. It is not a new obsession – it is a familiar place buried deep within the heart, where softness and warmth coexist with complexity, secrets, and shadows. Worry passes through this space, but loneliness never stays.
Pink Blossom
Taskin Butt has been drawing and painting since she can remember. She works across various mediums such as oils, acrylic, and mixed media and has worked with pen/ink. Her landscapes are a reflection of her external worldly experiences while her abstract works are a reflection of her inner intuitive experiences. She derives her inspiration to paint from everyday life and the beauty and grace of nature around her. She particularly enjoys working with those natural subjects that play with light for example water, sky, and flowers.
Her emotions and feelings dictate which colours and shapes are brought onto canvas resulting in multi-layered abstract and figurative images. Such experiences as walking along a beach and hearing the crashing waves against the shoreline or the fresh breeze on a peaceful day or even the excitement of seeing a flower blossom are moments that she feels art allows her to capture and share with others.
When she paints, she follows her inner voice, her intuition flows, playful soulful landscapes merge with multi-meaning abstract. She loves variety and does not follow any specific trend but has created her own distinctive style. As she follows her intuition the painting almost paints itself, and her trust in the painting process creates momentum that sustains the entire painting journey. Her work reflects her free spirit evoking a sense of serenity and spirituality, influencing the viewer in a positive and healing way as some themes she expresses include freedom, hope, renewal and connection.
Many times she has surprised herself once the painting takes shape. Her recent work is based on the concept of the multiverse and its connection with endless possibilities. She has exhibited globally and locally in her home country Kenya. Taskin currently works from her own studio in Kileleshwa, Nairobi Kenya.
Art expresses the depth of my inner emotions and feelings that cannot be explained with words. I identify myself as an artist of abstract landscape art, trying to attain the illusion of motion to stationary objects, made into dynamic shapes. By using acrylics and oil paints, I am able to achieve my desired result of blending abstract forms with realistic landscapes.
I love to use vibrant colors, adding impasto and textured effects using the palette knife to create depth. I chose to combine my vision of the outer world with my inner experiences, culminating in paintings that portray my vision of a better world. I enjoy the process of transformation of every piece to the point the idea comes to life. Originally I am from Nairobi Kenya, but it was in Brighton England where my real passion for Visual art started as a way to express my true self. This road evolved to immersing me in painting classes with Artists Network Inc and global professional Artists. I have a degree in Business that I now combine with my passion for art in my own art business – Brush and Strokes Art Studio based in Nairobi Kenya.
I particularly like working with oils and considering the slow-drying nature of oils gives me the flexibility to develop my subjects and apply new techniques more easily. I am currently represented by Monteoliveto Gallery in France and Rossacinabro Gallery in Italy. My ultimate aim is to have my art shared and understood and make someone smile or moved emotionally through my work.
Pink Illumination
Brigitte currently lives in Switzerland. She is a self-taught photographer inspired by her grandfather as a child; thus, she chose to bear his name as an artist to honour him. Travelling the globe with an analog camera in her twenties, she gained experience in landscape, travel, and street life photography. Nowadays, she is also experimenting with other approaches, like abstract and macro, and is shooting digital. Her work has been published in several art magazines. Two of which are special editions about her artwork at Docu Magazine. Her photography was exhibited physically and virtually in the UK, the USA, Italy, Greece, Spain, Switzerland, Canada, and the West Indies. One of her main exhibitions was at Artexpo New York in April 2025 and at ArtBasel in June.
Her photography has been distinguished with several mentions and a first prize from HMVC Gallery.
She is also working on three projects, which will take several years. The aim is to publish a book.
My favourite photographic approaches are landscape, street life, and abstract photography. Landscape and Abstract as moments of peace of mind, my eyes are amazed by the beauty of nature. Soothing my soul. Street life was moments of exhilaration, being ready at any minute to shoot a scene that caught my eye. A scene of life, of youth, of the ordinary, of joy (of despair sometimes). A scene I am drawn to by my emotions, thus mostly candid. My photographs tell a story; the point is to share it with the viewer.
For Whispers of October, I chose to submit landscape photographs taken in my hometown. October shows us amazing colours by the waters of the lake, surrounded by the mountains. The skies are spectacular, illuminated by the warmth of the light in this season.
Pink Mist
Rich Wagner grew up with art – his mother was a professional artist and his father was an amateur artist. Thus, his initial artistic training was in their atelier. Following 250 credit hours of formal study, Rich was elected a member of the Art Students League. He has also studied painting and drawing at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in London. In addition, he has studied art history, most recently at the Courtauld Institute, the University of Oxford, and the National Gallery of Ireland.
Examples of his work are included in private collections and in the Law Library at Pace University. He often participates in exhibitions both in galleries and online.
Born in Manhattan, Rich has also lived in England and in upstate New York.
I see art as a means of expression. In my works, I am very concerned with the feelings and atmosphere conveyed by the subject rather than a literal depiction. Often this involves strong use of color but I have also found that works involving the absence of color can be quite powerful.