The Greatest Show On Earth
Born in 1965 in Beacon, NY, Mark is an artist based in Las Vegas known for his impressionist paintings that capture people, places, and all the events in his life. Timeless and tasteful, or modern and messy, images in his life demand to be examined. Mark mainly uses acrylic paint to create highly textured, three-dimensional works on canvas. A graduate of San Jose State’s art program, Mark’s first influence was his great uncle Alfred Pizzarelli, an artist from New York City in the 1950s-60s. He used to look at all Alfred’s wonderful paintings and wonder, “Who are these people?” and think they were trying to speak just to him by way of expressions and surrounding colors. Mark’s paintings are meant to burst with energy, life, and texture, hoping that they might speak to the viewer in some way. You can catch Mark’s artwork around Las Vegas in casinos, restaurants, wineries, and local/regional galleries.
In my paintings, I find connecting threads throughout the world and infuse humor into everyday scenarios. Sparked by personal experiences and the observation of my surroundings, I seek resonance in our shared thoughts, dreams, and idiosyncrasies, weaving them into the tapestry of my artwork. I use a bright, luminous palette to inject humor and color into the dull or to show a different side of the expected. My paintings blend humor, rich color, and texture, encouraging viewers to find beauty in the unexpected. With a focus on human experiences, I use color as a universal language to evoke emotion and reflection. If a viewer stops for a moment to reflect on my work—feeling something, whether it’s emotion, curiosity, or a memory—then I’ve succeeded.
The Green Fairy
Ric is a New York-based international award-winning expressionist artist; creating paintings that reflect relevant social issues. to increase awareness and understanding.
He has been featured in articles in several newspapers, and magazines in the United States and Europe, including “Art Tour International Magazine”, “Art in America’s Issue” on galleries and artists in America, Toscana Cultura Magazine in Italy, and interviewed on podcasts, on television, both local and network.
Ric has been named “Master of Contemporary Art 2020, 2022, 2023”, Artist of the Decade 2010-2020, “Artivist (artist/activist) of the Year 2019 and 2020 and Emerald Artivist 2021 and 2022” Artist of the Future, Power of Creativity and Collector’s Vision International Art Awards Ric have also been inducted into Who’s Who in America and received the “Distinguished Humanitarian Award”.
My work is concerned not with objective reality but rather the emotions that objects and events arouse within a person, reactions—positive or negative—especially the understanding of the self within the viewer. I deal with relevant social issues, equality, empowerment, and psychological conditions. Distortion, exaggeration, and fantasy are the filters through which I paint the modern world.
I believe in equality and I want my work to reflect that. My work is different—it is not conventional, academic, or even the new modernism. I am creating a new avant-garde. I am an internationally known award-winning expressionist artist; inspired mostly by Toulouse-Lautrec, Edvard Munch, Picasso, Matisse, and the German Expressionists.
The Happy Heart
Kat Kleinman is a photo collage artist from the Sacramento, California area. She began her career as an artist in 2016, after she retired as a psychotherapist, working with homeless people for 20 years. Her past work is referenced because it does inform her current work with a focus on positivity and making people feel better with each new work.
Kat began by specializing in floral collages because the individual flowers combine to create a new and cohesive form, reflective of the healing process. She takes her own photographs, which is important to Kat unless a photo is donated by a personal friend. Each image is hand cut, a process she calls meditative, and a single photo collage may require dozens of flowers, succulents, and/or leaves.
Kat is enthusiastic about the potential for color to positively influence emotions, ultimately leading to better relationships between people.
Art allows me an avenue to express my hope for the world. I am a photographer and collage artist, focusing on unique floral and succulent compositions, because they symbolize my enthusiasm for using color to bring about positive changes, starting from within.
My work intends to make people feel better, even for a moment. I often use dozens of flowers in a single collage, a process that is both meditative and inspirational.
The beauty of a floral collage represents healing because fractions of color combine to create a new cohesive form. I am dedicated to creating art inspired by compassion, meditation, and the right action.
The Hut On Fowl’s Legs
Leah graduated from the University of Indianapolis in 2021 with a BFA in Studio Art with a concentration in Painting. Her artwork consists mainly of fantastical and dream/nightmare-inspired oil paintings and mixed media. Leah has worked as a gallery co-curator, custom framer, photo editor, and artist and has shown in galleries in Indiana and New York.
My artist name, “Studio Phantasmic,” comes from the place where I get most of my inspiration: my dreams. The word, “phantasmic”, can describe a ghost, which fits in with my love of the supernatural. However, it can also mean a figment of the imagination, which alludes to the stories in my dreams. My goal is to bring to life these things that are not yet truly alive.
Young adult novels have made an impression in my dreams and everyday thoughts since I was a fifth-grade child. The magical and creative universes portrayed in these novels pull me in like a spell. My artwork, inspired by these novels, creates miniature worlds encased in boxes that tell a story. Creatures and potions, science and exploration, gears and clocks, and whimsical and multidimensional realms fuel my imagination and are prominent subjects in my work.
I capture a specific moment in time for the scenes I create. Often I explore what world I would like to be a part of and how I can configure a narrative that gives me a chance to become a part of that world. I make my figures, props, and accessories from polymer clay and found objects, which are painted, sewn, and configured into active environments. I enhance these environments with painted canvases in the background.
Tension is something I love to represent in my art, whether it is subtle or extremely visible. Books inspire me to envision words as tangible scenes and influence my art to merge the two-dimensional and three-dimensional and represent the process of pulling images from the mind into existence. With my work, I wish to show others a glimpse of the creative world I live in. My work allows for fear and curiosity, for exploration and creativity of the mind to place oneself into a world and finish the narrative, each entirely different from the next.
The Hygienists Nightmare
Michael lives in a world of color, passion, and creativity. This started at the age of 1 when his family moved from England to Nigeria in West Africa. In those formative years, he was surrounded by the vivid colors, sounds, and music of local Nigerian tribes, some of whom had never seen white men before. How could this not be infused into his very being from such an early age?
His little friends would get a small piece of cowhide parchment and show him how to use burnt charcoal from sticks and natural plant dyes to create a picture. But for many years after his family had moved back to the UK, although he worked in creative industries, actual painting didn’t begin until he ventured into a DIY store and bought a cheap brush, 2 palette knives, and 4 school acrylic paint tubes, purely on a whim.
His journey into art began with a simple still-life painting of a vase and flowers. He loved it. His friends loved it. And so he found himself falling head over heels into the world of art. He is very prolific and can lose himself in time, creating what he calls ‘magic’. When questioned about this, he simply says, “I have a blank canvas; I choose my subject and create something from nothing; surely that is magic?”
As a best-selling author, his attitude is the same for his art as well as his writing. He will maintain that he paints for himself; the fact that others like what he creates, and his work may hang on the wall of a home or gallery wall, is a bonus!
When I began my journey into the world of art, I was very shy. I certainly wasn’t young and had lots of confidence in other areas of my life as an author, actor, and screenwriter. I didn’t have the courage in those early days to even show my family. I simply thought I wasn’t good enough. Then one day, I accidentally left a painting out on my kitchen table and welcomed some friends who all noticed the painting. I had forgotten I had left it out on the show. Their reaction was priceless. At first, they simply didn’t believe I had painted it! That’s how it really started for me. I was very prolific, preferring to use only acrylic paints.
I discovered all sorts of techniques; some worked, some didn’t. And I certainly didn’t want to be bogged down with trying to find my ‘style’. That eventually came through, without warning, almost sneaking up behind me. It took me by surprise. I first realized that I had brought together a number of techniques, some known and some I developed, like my ‘Rectangular Blocking’ (R&B) and my ‘Acrylosculpt’ techniques. This meant some of my paintings were tactile, and those with sight difficulties could feel my paintings, which added to their appreciation of art.
Of course, during all those formative years in West Africa, the influence of strong, vibrant colors and images came to the fore in lots of my paintings to create an ‘African Influence.’
The Irony
Garegin Protopopov was born in 1979 in Moscow, in a family of hereditary artists and architects. He studied to become a jeweler at the Carl Faberge Lyceum of Decorative and Applied Arts, Moscow, Russia.
In 2002 he graduated from the Moscow State University of Fine Arts named after S.G. Stroganov, where he studied Art History and Art Theory. For several years Garegin worked in Alexander Popov`s and Vladimir Mikhailov`s stained-glass studio and took part in the restoration of stained-glass windows of the Novoslobodskaya metro station in Moscow, Russia.
The artist was also engaged in mosaic production. Namely, he participated in the restoration of mosaics of most pavilions of the VDNKh Expo Center in Moscow, Russia, and created mosaic decorations for the St. Sava Cathedral in Belgrade, Serbia. Garegin is the Co-founder of gold and colored smalt production “Goldsmalt” goldsmalt.ru. Since 2023 he decided to devote himself to painting and creativity, where he connects his love for color and beauty with all the experience accumulated over the years of working with noble metals, stone, and colored glass.
As an artist, he reinvents his world.
Black color does not exist. It neither exists in the shadows, nor at night. In my personal philosophy, this world is “woven” of different colors and of the gold of the Sun. My way of being an artist is the one of a philosopher and an explorer: It is self-discovery through connection with the beauty of this World. My art is born where my feelings reach their highest point, and therefore it is as honest as possible. Landscapes and their fragments, caught at the point of revealing their beauty, details, the essence of things, their design, fractal structure, and the logic of lines reveal to me the world of perfect proportions, integrity, and infinite harmony. It is a true state of rapture that I want to capture and a lofty sentiment that I want to share.
Inspired by the colors and spirituality of Nicholas Roerich’s works, I connect my art to the main aspects of the Russian cosmism philosophy. Freedom and spiritual space resonate strongly with me, which is why I feel drawn to large canvases: it is in them that I can convey a wide range of forms, shades, depth of space, and impressions, as well as lay down the cosmic scale and mysterious grandeur of nature. The images seem to exist out of time, have no shadows, and float in weightlessness, having no connection to the earthly.
My paintings seek to affect the senses of the viewer: the vision and color sense of peace, freedom, and cosmos carry the life-affirming idea of renewal. Thus, I seek to transform the World, and the follower of my philosophy, the adept of my art will be able to find and discover its beauty in it.
The Jack Of Diamonds
John Goodwin studied graphic design at Louisiana Tech University before specializing in limited edition fine art reproductions at a printing company and becoming a full-time artist himself. His “Fun Art” focuses on culture and musical themes and has been featured in many group exhibitions around Arkansas as well as internationally. John’s Blues-related images can be found on Beale Street, at the Delta Blues and Delta Cultural Center Museums, and also at the King Biscuit Blues Festival, where he was chosen as the official poster artist for three years in a row.
I consider my artwork “Fun Art”, meant to convey a sense of wonder and whimsy, and my influences come mostly from pop culture. I grew up with Marvel comics, Big Daddy Roth, and Peter Max, so my work is very illustrative, and the graphic elements found in those can also be found easily in my paintings.
A lot of my art is inspired by music – all kinds of music –, and I like to visualize it in bright colors and moving shapes, while also paying due respect to the musicians themselves. I’m partial to the blues and love the deep connection to the soul that music has, so a lot of my work features scenes from the Arkansas/Mississippi delta. I’m also fascinated with cultural symbols of all sorts and am attracted to bright, pure colors, extreme detail, and unconventional but familiar subject matter such as food.
These are the things that interest me, and I try to interpret them all in a colorful graphic fashion that will hopefully make people smile.
The Kitchen Window
Wendy Liz is a versatile artist who loves to paint. She was inspired by her sister, who was an artist and had her own gallery in Nashville, TN. Wendy resides in Sarasota, FL. She enjoys painting realism, abstracts, and other types of art; however, she is especially fond of painting fun and expressive animals, which she calls Krazy Kolorful Kreatures.
Wendy studied art at the Ringling College of Art and Design. She also studied painting with Lois Carson at Suncoast Technical College (formerly Sarasota County Technical Institute), and later with Sarasota artist and teacher, Bill Jerdon. She began working in acrylic but soon developed a love for oil, which became her favorite medium.
Wendy has painted various commissioned works that are exhibited in homes around the country. She welcomes commissions, which have included realistic portraits as well as large abstracts that cover entire walls. Her original art is available; however, giclee and prints are also available as a more affordable option. Giclees are fine art prints on canvas, and prints are fine art prints on high-quality paper—both using the latest technology printing techniques.
Wendy’s creative ideas for art are based on her experiences with the people and places she encounters throughout her life including children, grandchildren, family, and friends, as well as destinations and new adventures.
When I began painting, I looked at the world in a different context. I studied faces, children, animals, trees, grass, flowers, and even water differently than I once did. Being able to communicate on canvas, as I do, is a wonderful creative outlet. There are so many beautiful things around me in everyday life to portray to the world as I see them. Whether it’s a portrait, realism, animals, or an abstract, I strive to express my feelings, energy, and emotions.
The Lady And The Elephant
Judy M. King was born in West Palm Beach, Florida, USA. She is the only child of her maître d’hôtel/father Eric and her museum artist/mother Helga. Helga transmitted her love of visual art to Judy, laying the foundation for the artist she would become. Regrettably, a busy high-tech career left little time for Judy to create art.
Judy’s memorial website for Helga’s extensive multimedia art culminated in a major purchase by and 2021-2022 exhibition at Yad Vashem: The World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem, Israel. Together Judy and Jack Wild, founders of the photography program at the Boca Raton Museum of Art, created a highly successful and growing online and offline community of fine-art photographers. Judy’s work appears on JudyMKing.com, in group and solo exhibitions, in international photography books and magazines, and garners recognition in international photography competitions. Judy is available for presentations, workshops, critiques, and curation.
Aesthetic, eclectic, clever, and sometimes quirky describe Judy M. King’s art and the photographer. Judy embraces clean design, high impact, and novelty in many of her photos. She creates images that challenge perceptions and pose further questions by immortalizing the eye-catching and seldom-seen over the traditional and recognizable. Some of Judy’s joys include making unconventional cropping decisions and capturing movement, glorious color, and costumed people. Noteworthy are her multi-panel images. Judy often includes wordplay and cultural references in her titles. Influences include God and a long list of photographers, digital artists, architects, fashion designers, painters, poets, and comedians.
The circus has always filled me with wonder. Entertainers thrill with dazzling costumes, strength, bravery, and grace. My Under the Big Top portfolio presents circus stars in black and white on black backgrounds. The use of monochrome directs focus to the performers. It unifies and simplifies the images. It is more dramatic and less expected than retaining the colorful outfits and lighting.
Many of my images have symbolism, a psychological or spiritual component, or make a sometimes subtle social comment. Ideally, viewers decode these messages alone or have their own interpretations.
On the surface, these digital images portray circus troupes as glamorous, athletic, and cooperative. Further thought reveals deeper truths, such as commitment to disciplined practice produces impressive results, not to mention spandex-worthy physiques. Performing pairs illustrate the yin and yang of strength and agility, stable support, and trusting a partner with their lives. Acrobats teach the virtue of flexibility. Aerialists model heroism and demonstrate how time consciousness and rhythmic responses lead to lyrical flow.
Come to the circus with me! Grab some popcorn! Look, learn, and enjoy!