★★ Calm Journey ★★
Elizabeth Moscoso is an artist who does not limit herself to one medium. She started her career as a fine artist and has also worked as a graphic designer. Whether she is drawing or painting she exudes her love of life passionately into her art!
She is a native South American from Bogota, Colombia, and started drawing at age seven! Her curiosity for art began with drawing cartoon characters, which initiated her natural illustration ability. These characters paved the way for creating more life-like images developing her realism style of painting. She loves mixing different artistic mediums and feels her technical skills facilitate her creativity and fuel her passion.
Elizabeth was presented with an Honorable Mention Award, in the Animal category, at Teravarna Gallery’s 2023 International Juried Art Competition, in Los Angeles, CA. She was also presented with a second Honorable Mention Award, in the Portrait category, at Gallery 4 Percent’s 2023 1st Faces & Features International Juried Art Competition, in San Francisco, CA.
“I believe in working at something you love and are passionate about. I’m very blessed to be able to do that. Art, in all forms, is what drives me and is what I’m about. My work embodies a higher purpose, it translates my intention, reflecting that which I am feeling. My goals and motivations are many, but there is only one intention – the truth that lives inside of me. By living it, this truth is embedded in my work. If my work doesn’t represent who I am and what I’m living, how can the viewer feel anything else? For this reason, I delve into my work, so I can create an extraordinary piece of art, out of the most ordinary moment.”
★★ Catania Fish Market ★★
Even at an early age, Marissa has shown an enthusiasm for illustration. She can recall spending hours creating and illustrating stories inspired by the many books her parents shared with her. That inspiration has led her to some of her greatest artistic passions, including children’s book illustration and portraiture.
Marissa earned her BFA in Illustration at the Hartford Art School in Connecticut, where she found new inspiration in her professors. While there, she received many distinctions for her work, including the best portfolio in each of her departmental portfolio reviews. She has also had the honor of having her work featured in numerous exhibitions, including the Society of Illustrators Annual Student Scholarship Competition in New York City.
Since graduating from Hartford Art School, Marissa has continued to follow her passion as a freelance illustrator and portrait artist. After completing her first children’s book illustration project, she went on to be featured in numerous publications and television appearances. Her projects have included collaborations with ESPN, as well as creating illustrations for Hartford Symphony Orchestra’s yearly concert production “Tales of Halloween”.
My artwork is very much inspired by visual storytelling. The thing I love most is capturing my subject’s likeness through vitalizing details – both on the surface of the artwork, as well as the narrative behind it.
I often use a mixed media approach combining acrylic and colored pencils. Working this way combines the freedom of laying bold washes with the tight control of drawing. As the piece is built up in many thin layers, I can carefully explore all the details. Quilting these details together as a visual story is where I find my greatest artistic passion.
★★ Clownin’ Around ★★
Born and raised in a diverse cultural environment, Mills developed a keen eye for capturing the subtle nuances of human expression and the hidden beauty in everyday objects from an early age. Her family’s creative background and encouragement significantly influenced her artistic perspective, allowing her to see the world through a unique lens.
Mills’ journey as a photographer began with a Canon EOS Rebel G film camera, a teacher who understood her, and a deep fascination for fleeting moments and undercurrents that often go unnoticed or are purposely overlooked and hidden in our everyday lives. Her education in visual arts, combined with her natural talent for observation, has shaped her into a thoughtful and precise image-maker. She fancies herself a life-long learner and continuously hones her skills, exploring new artistic paths through workshops and classes with renowned photographers and visual artists.
Mills draws inspiration from the contrasts in her surroundings and human nature. Her work seamlessly blends elements of documentary-style photography with conceptual storytelling, creating images grounded in reality and imbued with a sense of the extraordinary.
From intimate portraits to studies of overlooked objects, she often explores themes of introspection, transience, and the poetry of the mundane.
Ultimately, I aim to create images that pique the viewer’s curiosity and encourage them to form their own interpretations and connections. Having primarily created in black-and-white for much of my journey in photography, I believe my ability to see in black-and-white led to a better understanding of the depths of color contrast and their impact on creating an image.
In my portraiture, I strive to capture genuine emotion and candid-like moments, even in staged settings. My approach is characterized by a deep respect for my subjects, allowing their true selves to be seen, understood, and welcomed.
A deliberate concept credited to the models, Clownin’ Around captures a brief moment in an authentic friendship dripping in color and movement.
★★ Colorful Celebration ★★
Joy Saha is a Bangladeshi photographer who focuses on human stories. His work has been featured in over 100 leading international publications, including The Guardian, National Geographic, and TIME. Being a photo enthusiast, he has been traveling near and far to depict interesting human stories for the last few years. His passion is to explore the different aspects of human life and document them. Capturing the human element is the key to his photography. Through his photos, he wants to share his unique perspective and experience with all.
Happiness, to me, is found in the vibrant moments that bring people together. In my photo, I captured young girls joyfully playing with colors during the Spring Festival in Bangladesh—a celebration of renewal, hope, and togetherness. The blazing yellow hues, traditional attire, and festive spirit reflect the pure joy of welcoming a new season. Through this image, I want to share how happiness transcends boundaries and finds its voice in culture and nature. It’s a reminder that joy is often found in the simplest, most colorful expressions of life.
★★ Easter Prayer ★★
As an elementary art teacher, Alston has been grounded and blessed by the vastness of art that “bubbled up” from young students. “It was like being a Rock Star teaching art alongside little people. They opened my artist’s eyes like no other life experience”
It is now, Alston’s opportunity to give back this spark that students gave to her. Weaving a lifelong passion for painting, Alston Beckman has planted roots in her native South Carolina heritage with renewed energy in depicting a generational icon: Quilts. Having always loved painting textiles, connectivity in 2022 with a crafting Prayer Quilt ministry helped to marry these two gifts.
These Pawleys Island artisans have given Alston a new mission. Capturing stitches, patterns, and color in watercolor and colored pencil, Alston is hopeful in documenting the soul and warmth in quilt portraits.
The collection, The Ties that Bind Us is an ongoing body of “peace work”, with reinvestment back into random acts of kindness.
My watercolor and pencil series is a journey, a mission really, that was born out of a need for connectivity in 2022. A lifelong artist, and elementary art teacher, a soulful discovery of local SC prayer quilters spoke to my heart. A spark to capture unique portraits of these textile treasures was divine intervention. In making a quilt, now painting them, I am privy to a history of connectivity that highlights milestones and family, uplifting in spirit, with a purpose of comfort. I have been humbled and energized by the opportunity to capture these heirlooms as they pass from person to person. Giving away time and talent in stitches, now in an opportunity to spotlight these stitches that bind so many of us.
★★ Flow ★★
Yuliya is an abstract artist who was born in Kazakhstan. She spent her college years in Beijing, China. During her time in Beijing, she had the opportunity to explore Asia and was particularly fascinated by the spiritually charged places she visited, such as the Angkor Watt in Cambodia, temples of Siam Reap, Laos, Kuala Lumpur, monasteries and temples in China.
In 2013, Yuliya relocated to the United States where she started her own business running a personal shopping agency and launched a lingerie brand. At the same time, she pursued a Master’s degree in Expressive Arts Therapy. It was during this time that Yuliya discovered the power of colors and shapes in affecting the mood of the viewer, even having a healing effect. She incorporates these techniques in her art to create pieces that deeply connect with the viewer.
Yuliya’s art is a unique combination of kineticism and color therapy, abstraction, and spirituality. Her pieces are infused with a deep sense of spirituality, taking inspiration from philosophy, nature, music, sacred geometry, and quantum physics. Yuliya’s work has been recognized for its interdisciplinary nature, engaging various academic disciplines, including philosophy, mathematics, and the natural and social sciences.
Yuliya’s passion for art has taken her on a journey of self-discovery and personal growth, and she hopes that her artwork will inspire others to find their own path toward inner peace. Her pieces are infused with a deep sense of connection to the world around her, drawing inspiration from philosophy, nature, music, sacred geometry, and quantum physics. Yuliya’s work has been exhibited in various galleries across the United States and has received critical acclaim for its beauty, depth, and resonance with the human experience. Her art invites viewers to contemplate the mysteries of the universe and engage with something larger than themselves.
As a modern artist, I strive to create artwork that transcends the physical boundaries of the canvas and connects with the viewer on a deeper level. My artwork is a fusion of kineticism and color therapy, abstraction, and spirituality, where each element is intertwined, creating pieces that evoke emotions and stimulate the senses.
I believe that art has the power to heal and transform, and my work reflects this philosophy. Through the use of color and movement, I aim to create a harmonious balance between the visual and emotional elements, allowing the viewer to experience a sense of tranquility and inner peace.
My creative process involves allowing myself to be guided by intuition, allowing the colors and forms to take shape organically. Each piece is a unique expression of my innermost thoughts and emotions, as well as a reflection of the beauty and complexity of the world around us.
Ultimately, my goal as an artist is to create artwork that connects with the viewer, allowing them to experience the beauty and wonder of the world in a new and profound way.
★★ Just Jump ★★
Rylee Breese (b. 2002) is an American contemporary painter from Covington, Georgia. Her work explores the tension between adulthood and childhood by depicting grown bodies interacting with nostalgic, childlike objects. Rendered in an intentionally oversaturated palette, her paintings blur the line between memory and reality through distorted forms and expressive compositions.
Guided early on by her grandmother, a painter and photographer, Rylee developed a deep appreciation for experimentation and material play. Nostalgia serves as a driving force in her practice, allowing her to revisit personal history while questioning its permanence.
Experience is a virtue, but our childhood daydreams never really leave us. They quietly tag along, shaping who we are, how we see the world, and even the choices we make as adults. My work exists at the intersection of memory, movement, and identity, where the adult body interacts sometimes awkwardly, sometimes playfully, with the nostalgic objects and sensory triggers of its past.
Using vibrant colors and dreamlike palettes, I create sculptural and mixed-media pieces that investigate how childhood nostalgia transforms the way we inhabit our adult selves. My practice has expanded to include food, household items, and other sensory cues from youth, such as candy wrappers, cereal, pool floats, and stuffed animals. These details are more than just visual; they carry stories, comfort, and emotional weight.
I’m drawn to the strange, often surreal relationship between physical form and emotional memory, how a cartoon-branded snack or brightly colored toy can become a portal to a different time. My art plays with scale, distortion, and setting to evoke a world where these familiar artifacts aren’t just relics, they’re part of an ongoing, lived experience. In some pieces, the body becomes exaggerated or fragmented, echoing the disjointed way memories morph over time. In others, the interaction between figure and object becomes almost performative, reenacting moments we didn’t even know shaped us.
At its core, my practice is about the emotional residue of play and comfort, how simple things from our past continue to ripple through our present. I explore how nostalgia can soothe, confront, and even reshape our sense of self. Through it all, I aim to hold space for reflection and joy and to remind myself (and others) to enjoy the now. Even as we revisit the past, there’s magic in being fully present in the moment.
★★ Look For The Rainbow ★★
Natalia was born in Europe and drew pictures from her childhood. She has started to paint in oil on canvas since 1990. In 2005 she moved to the USA for a better life and has started to display her Art in local Art Galleries in North Carolina since 2016.
Natalia’s artwork has been shown in her solo exhibition at Mooresville Art Gallery, Yadkinville, and Morganton North Carolina. She is the award winner of several local art contests and shows. In December 2018 Natalia Leigh received President’s Choice award for outstanding work in the visual arts from Rowan-Cabarrus Community College. Presently Natalia works as a nurse and paints pictures in her spare time in her own studio in Kannapolis NC.
My paintings are oil on black canvas, sizes 18×24, 22×28, 24×36, 24×30, and 36×48. The black canvas is like a beginning in life: plant a seed in the soil where it is dark and black. The seed will grow out turning into colors with sunshine, as goes the painting when I begin on the black canvas. The colors on the canvas begin to emerge and grow into the picture of whatever is in my heart. I am studying the symbols of nature, and symbols of subjects that surround us. I use those symbols to tell the story of everyday life.
★★ Negative 01 ★★
A dedicated photographer, inspired by the masters of painting, is committed to creating extensive series documenting American life and abstract work. Diverse landscapes and intricate cityscapes are captured on film and with pixels. Inanimate objects are personified. Human presence may be absent, but natural marks and human traces provide a backdrop. Overcast light is optimal, as it enhances color richness. Minimalistic abstractions are created through the lens and without a camera, filling the frame with balance, color, and asymmetrical and symmetrical energy.
Film as a medium deserves a new birth. Its aesthetic qualities and characteristics have been neglected. Its authenticity inspired this series, where the camera was abandoned, creating nonrepresentational paintings of light in photographic color. It is a study that uses varying temperatures of light, exploring its sensitivity and unpredictability. It’s a series of candor.