Cartier Bresson Inspired
Karen Safer is a photographic artist, documentarian, published writer, and poet with a musical bent. As a fifth-generation native Angelino, she was given a camera and crayons at 3 and exposed to dominant California motifs: light, palm trees, the ocean, music, and vernacular architecture that helped define and influence her left-handed aesthetic. She was influenced by her dad (educator and calligrapher) who developed black & white photos in their back washroom/turned darkroom and by her mother’s thirst for knowledge and travel.
She was fortunate to begin a life of travel as a pre-teen which shaped her love of the exotic paired with an eye for the formal, accidental, and unusual while subliminally seeking the “beautiful” that jiggles the lens/frame of her eye. From the onset, she documented her surroundings and family and friends’ events. During COVID she photographed from her balcony and was dubbed the “Monet of Playa del Rey.”
She has been in over 12 solo shows and 220+ juried and group exhibitions in London, Rome, Glasgow, Zurich, Budapest, Barcelona, Athens, Prague, Paris, Amsterdam, Belgium, Hawaii, Canada and from California to New York and from Minnesota to Santa Fe, to Florida, winning 190+ Talent, Merit, Honorable Mention and Special Recognition Awards. She has traveled and photographed in over 230 countries (and territories). She is a member of many art organizations.
Initially, she began painting and printmaking alongside art and architectural history before wholly embracing photography with influences from Mesopotamia to Vermeer/Matisse and Atget to Cindy Sherman. She is a self-described “romantic soul” with intellectual cravings.
She received a bachelor’s and master’s degree with honors in art from UCLA and CSULB. Her career includes work in design and architecture firms and principal of ArtFocus International.
A photographer has the whole world – big or small – to capture. kjs
Influences: I am a student of art, architecture, history, literature, film, and music. I have been heavily influenced by so many sources but here I’ve chosen to highlight art and photography influences from Hopper to Cartier-Bresson and from Atget to Cindy Sherman. So many influences on life from cities to nature to music and art. The Cartier-Bresson piece shows the influence of staircases and repetitive motifs have been so influential along with Atget’s famous scenes of Paris. William Hopper gave us light and shape and color to peer into windows of contemporary life. I embrace all the many influences that have touched me deeply.
Catch Of The Day
I am an emerging artist, working primarily in photography. I currently live and work in Eugene, Oregon. I grew up in the small town of Sweet Home, Oregon. I loved living out in the country. That is where my love of animals and beautiful landscapes started. During COVID I was wanting to find something that I could do at home that would be creative and make me feel happy. I started really wanting to get into photography and that is when my husband bought me a camera for our anniversary. I wanted a camera that could take great pictures of birds, have a good built-in zoom lens, and also be able to capture pictures of the moon. So, my husband surprised me with a Nikon P950 camera last summer. That is when I discovered my passion for photography. I love taking photographs of animals and scenery. I want my photographs to evoke the same sense of joy and happiness in those who view them as they do me. Being able to share my art and love for nature is a dream come true.
I love taking photographs of nature especially birds and other animals. Most of my photographs are taken of birds in my backyard or in parks in my community. Being able to capture photographs of these beautiful creatures truly brings me great joy and happiness.
Cathedral 2
Edwin Carter Weitz (b. 1963) has been making pictures and traversing visual concepts for nearly four decades. He has created an oeuvre that contains a remarkably broad array of modes and motifs.
Midway through a successful career in advertising he began to explore the world of fine art and quickly transitioned into it. He has brought to the canvas his years of experience creating impactful and memorable imagery within the arena of commercial art, photography, and design for many of America’s most influential brands. Painting has now become his go-to source for visual expression. No other genre displays his pictorial and exceptional range more vividly and convincingly.
His paintings are sought after by private collectors and are maintained within the walls of many prominent corporations.
Cathedral Series
Patches of vivid color float amid a black framework and loosely interact with each other like puzzle pieces not yet joined. There is a sensuality of light that comes through in the abstract assemblage of colored forms that at times feel very primitive. The pictures are intimate and intense. The series got its name because the basic structure of these oil paintings is reminiscent of light streaming through stained glass windows.
Caught In Between
Erin Mahoney is a Virginia-based photographer and high school art teacher. Her artistic passion lies in the darkroom.
I have shifted the focus of my current practice from straight film photography to the use of layered and manipulated images. I utilize the imagery of cemeteries and gravestones in much of my work. I believe that while these images are universal, they can evoke different responses from viewers based on the layered imagery as well as the viewers’ personal relationship with death and burial. To me, there is a dark and mesmerizing beauty found in cemeteries, which are a lasting resting place but can often be left untouched by the living. All of my images are created from scanned 35mm and 120 film negatives.
Caught In Gridlock
Yangjingyi Liu (b. 2003) is an artist from Chengdu, Sichuan, China, recognized for a distinct sensitivity to color and composition. Exploring art since childhood, Yangjingyi has received multiple awards in China for science fiction drawings. Their education across Melbourne, Montreux, and San Francisco has deeply influenced their artistic perspective, enriching their work with cultural nuance. Notably, Yangjingyi’s creative video was showcased at San Francisco’s Sales Force Tower. Awarded the All College Honor, they continue to explore visual art’s emotional impact, resonating with global audiences.
As an oil painter, my work explores the emotional impacts of rapid societal and technological change on marginalized groups. Shaped by my experiences in cities like Chengdu, Melbourne, Montreux, and San Francisco, my art reflects the tension, anxiety, and dislocation felt in fast-paced urban life. Through bold, saturated colors, I channel feelings of loneliness, pain, and intimacy to create authentic connections with viewers, capturing the intensity of my inner world amid the pressures of modern society.
Celebration
Miri Baruch is an artist born in Argentina and based in Israel whose paintings have been exhibited in Israel, Italy, New York, and next in Madrid.
Miri is a professional painting artist since 2016. Before then she worked as an engineer for Intel for over 25 years. Miri is mostly an autodidact artist, who got her basic painting skills by attending drawing classes and painting workshops.
Miri is an intuitive abstract painter who expresses her emotions through painting. Her works are divided into abstraction and figuration. Her distinctive figurative compositions are imbued with romance and sensuality, whereas her abstractions are bold expressions of color and shapes.
Miri was featured in the special edition of the Gold list of top contemporary artists of today published by the Art Market Magazine in 2022. She has also received the Gold List international award, a certificate of excellence for unique artistic style and high-technique achievements in the contemporary art world (2022). Miri was also featured in the Capsules Book, a premium boutique publication based in Melbourne, Australia, named: Curatorial Volume.3, Leaders in Contemporary Art, 2021
My art is divided into abstract and figurative paintings.
When working on an abstract painting, I intuitively express my emotions through the process. I start with random strokes and throughout the process, I get inspired about how to proceed next. I play with colors and textures. At first, the shapes seem random, but layer by layer they start to connect and make sense, and the outcome is emotional and captivating paintings.
My figurative compositions are imbued with romance and sensuality, I start with a realistic figure and incorporate abstract elements into the painting. Sometimes the abstract parts are minimal, and sometimes they are more pronounced, depending on the specific piece I am working on
Celebration Of Fire #3
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.
Photography is about reality!
Artists may paint or draw worlds that do not exist, but photographers capture the existing world from their point of view.
In 2017 over 1.2 trillion photographs were taken of the existing world, and it is hard to find a place or thing that has not been photographed.
Therefore, I find myself drawn to the “Edge of Reality”. I enjoy abstract and macro photography, and I have fallen in love with infrared photography. Seeing in my mind, Light that cannot be seen with the human eye.
Celestial Sky
I am Danette Moran, The Determined One. I am a self-taught abstract painter who has finally found that I can mix my knowledge of photography, gardening, cooking, writing, and my love for the outdoors. It comes alive and breathes as I use mixes of inks and paints on canvas. I see my soul in the raw and undiluted as my hands and tools play like I’m the conductor of a symphony! When I am not painting, I am at the beach, traveling, or visiting family and friends. If you would like to see more of my work, check out my Instagram or website.
What do I want my art to say to you? Since I resonate with the Earth and the colors of nature, I want the viewer to feel peaceful, intrigued, captivated, or moved in some way. I am going to tap into a place in your soul, and I won’t ever know what my art will say to you. My goal is to continue to make art that can get deep inside your internal vision and create something for you that makes you want to return to that place over and over again.
Cell Service
Cell Service is about the disconnect between people absorbed in our mutual addiction to cell phones. These people of various ages, races, and walks of life are packed together in close proximity but are intent only on what’s happening on their screens. They are connected by their dependency on their cell service, but so absorbed as to be unaware and disconnected to what’s going on around them. The title Cell Service is meant to refer not only to the literal meaning of the phrase but also to the religious sense of a service, where people gather to pay homage to their god.
Bonnie Sheckter is an award-winning Canadian artist who has been creating drawings with colored pencils for 25 years. A former printmaker, Bonnie switched to colored pencil because of health issues and fell in love with this medium’s wonderful capabilities for capturing subtle nuances, luminous build-up of color, and a liberating sense of spontaneity. Portraiture holds a world of fascination for her and she strives to capture unique, candid moments that give voice to our emotional complexity and humanity. In a world that pushes toward efficiency, she sees the value in slowing down, marveling at detail, and taking time to consider the inner lives of people. Plagued by recent vision issues, Bonnie re-examined her priorities and has since devoted herself full-time to drawing, remaining undeterred in her conviction of the life-giving power of art to uplift.