Childhood Creation
Karen Sachs has been transforming her art into a creative reflection of her soul since she was a young girl. Painting allows her to express the reality of life’s challenges with transparency and beauty, revealing truths that words can never do justice. Her unique talent has earned her multiple awards for masterpieces conveying emotions onto a canvas with grit and passion that have taken her work all around America. She is an artist dedicated to uncovering the true nature of the world with stunning truthfulness! If we are looking at ways to influence her heart and her world, she has to open up, avoid sugar, and be who she truly is!
Art is where my heart is, and for me, that place of comfort and security has always been found through creating art. For years, I’ve been using my art to express the depths of my soul: from the colors I choose to the brushstrokes, to every unique tool I use – each painting tells a story. Each piece of artwork is like a journey into my inner world, filled with emotions, feelings, and experiences that have been hidden away – it’s almost magical. My passion for creativity and transparency when connecting with the world has earned me numerous awards and exhibited shows – proving just how powerful art can be. I’m proud to continue pushing myself artistically to capture the beauty within our ever-changing world!
Children Jumping In The River For A Summer Swim
I quickly developed a love for painting. My first college teachers were full of love and support for me, and I am still indebted to them. They encouraged me to transfer to a BFA program in painting which I was able to do at SUNY New Paltz.
The Faculty at New Paltz was predominantly New York School Abstract Expressionist painters.
My MFA was completed at Brooklyn College which was the right fit. I was fortunate to be accepted into the MFA program at Brooklyn which was very competitive at that time with limited numbers of accepted students. My principal mentors at Brooklyn were Lois Dodd, Lennart Anderson, and Philip Pearlstein. Each one of these teachers was a seminal artist and a wonderful teacher. Lois Dodd became my closest teacher and dear friend. She remains that way for me today.
After moving to New Jersey, Lois Dodd introduced me to Mel Leipzig and within a very short period, we became very close friends.
I never know who or what I will be painting until the subject pulls me to it. In following that interior voice, I have chosen a subject matter which is personal. The figurative work that I choose does not derive from professional models. My portrait paintings are of people I know. If I paint a still life, it is often a surprise as to what I choose and the arrangement I select. The same approach is true when I select the landscape as the subject matter.
I never use photography but rather I choose to work directly from life, and I make that choice because of the vitality and energy transmitted from what I am seeing.
I am invested in color and the color I choose is visible and vibrating in nature. I firmly believe that color is a personal aesthetic. In my opinion, color is always a vehicle for expression. As my painting evolves the color evolves and becomes rich, layered, and satisfying. At that point, something feels right, and I believe the painting is complete.
Chilling With My Friends
Sue Skellern, New Zealand Artist
CreaTIVE & BeauTIFUL & ImaginaTIVE. A Visual Artist creating beautiful imagery and creative photographic ART.
Sue Skellern embraced the creative sector as a visual artist-designer, photographer, and creator with imagination. Years of working with many mediums until recently selected to create a combination of reality and digital surrealism creating unique artworks.
Her work is spontaneous, often from a vision and then a scribble cultivating a story from images that evokes a feeling within you. Incorporating objects that have meaning to reflect their importance and create a mood atmosphere making it a meaningful piece, hoping to create a smile and conversation with the slight quirkiness in her images.
Sue’s career in the art industry evolved from being a graphic designer, and product developer to a display artist in the New Zealand Army, and then many years as an exhibition designer in the museum sector.
Currently residing in the Bay of Plenty, her passion is to create a smile! with artworks scattered around the world.
Digital surrealism captures your thoughts, ideas, visions, and dreams on a creative platform to share with the world – the quirkiness starts a conversation leading to a smile. After years of working with different mediums, I have gone back to where I started.
“Paradise Pink”
Forget about Fifty Shades of Grey – it’s a Hundred Shades of PINK!
Pink is the color most often associated with charm, politeness, sensitivity, tenderness, sweetness, childhood, femininity, and romance.
Floating in the land of imagination, take your dreams to a different level – PINK candy floss, Pink bubble gum, PINK doughnuts, PINK perfume, PINK bubbles, PINK flamingos the list goes on……….
Enjoy my PINK vision – a collective arrangement of PINK images to create a smile maybe a giggle?
Chip Off The Old Block
Joe A. Oakes was a curious and observant child who started drawing at the age of five. He has been painting full-time since 2008 and like other artists, previously worked at other things including substitute teacher, art consultant, and graphic designer. Oakes has survived cancer and the loss of a child and has used these life-changing events to propel his art career forward. His landscapes burn with the excitement of bold, bright colors and draw on scenes from all over the U.S. but especially the Southwest and the state of California. Oakes’ work offers a new perspective on color and place while offering a meditative sense of calm, happiness, and reverence for the land. He holds a BFA from California State University, Fullerton, and among his awards are the Distinguished Artist Award from the City of La Quinta, CA in 2011 and a First Place Award for his work in the “Visions” Exhibition at Chaffey Community Museum of Art in Ontario, CA in 2019. Oakes resides near Riverside in Southern California.
My landscapes are about the joy of nature and the colors it offers us. I paint with colors that evoke feelings of the first brilliant seconds of sunrise and the last fiery moments of sunset. Expressing those feelings through the use of bold, vibrant highlights and shadows of violet hues is my signature. I paint tributes to the mountains, fields, and trees in the hopes it will slow us down long enough to appreciate them. Every painting is a challenge to examine the colors of our world and reconnect with nature.
Choices
Born and raised in Northern California, Natalie grew up horseback competing in shows, gymkhanas, and rodeos all thru school and beyond. Joining the FFA horse judging team in high school left an impression on her and sparked a love for well-built horses that would eventually help her art career. After school, Natalie met and married her husband Gabe and together they have two sons and a small herd of beef cattle.
Natalie started her art journey accidentally after taking a ceramic sculpting class, mostly as a way to get out of the house. After finding a love in art she quickly started trying new mediums until ultimately landing on Pastel and color pencils as her main choice.
Now she spends her days creating pieces that represent the Western way of life she is fortunate enough to see every day in her community.
My pieces are a way for me to keep the tradition of our Western way of life alive at the forefront. The hard work and beauty of the horsemen and women’s way of life provide endless references that will hopefully leave the viewer in awe.
Choices
Sheryl Ann Noday offers life-changing channeling, healing sessions, and storytelling art. She is an educator, vibrational healer, as well as creating a passionate art practice, focusing on bold, striking, colorful paintings featuring narratives. “Life as it Is and Life as Imagined.” Her channeling of Spiritual Beings has been known to transcend people’s lives, bringing them to a state of peace, balance, and higher versions of themselves. The love and compassion shared through Sheryl encourages others to live a life of passion rather than the fear of it. She has produced and directed the first film of its kind, “The Voices of Crystal Skull Consciousness”, a short film. Her work has been featured nationally and abroad. My work embodies my truth, my soul, and everlasting beauty found here on our planet. I believe in working on what you love and bringing love into the world.
I am a magical realism painter with a focus on figures, hybrids, whimsical, and the metaphysical. Life as it is and life as imagined. I explore dreams, meditations, and the cosmos. My studio, I have come to understand, is a work in progress. Sort of like a provocative daydream. I seek to discover the soul and spirit of what I am engaged with, making visual narratives about life in the now moment. In my work as a channel/healer, I often experience people in the most intense times of their lives, both in pain and joy. I have learned to draw upon this, creating narratives reflecting personal growth in my paintings. I am interested in the complexity of mysticism, spirituality, healing, and otherworldly explorations. I share stories about my personal life experiences, which can remind me that my work is a visual diary. I am inspired by Guillermo Lorca, Odd Nerdrum, and John William Waterhouse, who seek to tell stories within their art. And finally, I am forever inspired by Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Berthe Morisot.
Rather than subscribe to a particular icon, subject, ideology, or style, I prefer not to be limited. I start with large brushes, allowing for a free form “gliding” over the canvas. In that way, it’s easy to feel that my process is like an open-eye meditation. I point my brush in the direction to capture the essence, the soul of my subjects. Perhaps to give the viewer a sense of connection, a sense of timelessness, to enter the art and be part of it. I like to think of what I do as outrageous, spontaneous play with the Unseen, to make Seen. I am in constant dialogue with the muse to discover what’s next, to listen. In that way, my work feels less controlled.
Christmas Bunny Waiting
The beauty of nature surrounding Los Angeles was the impetus for her entrance into the field of photography. Joanne began vigorously studying photography and other art arenas to hone her skills as a visual artist. In 2000, she graduated from California State University, Los Angeles with a Master of Fine Art (MFA). She is now a full-time artist.
In addition to color and black and white film, Joanne shoots digitally employs the techniques of infrared imaging, and enjoys creating 3D anaglyphs to be viewed with red/blue lenses. As an extension of photography, she has branched out to do videos and has a YouTube Channel, THE VIDEO ART OF JOANNE CHASE-MATTILLO. Along with nature, Joanne frequently photographs female and male subjects in fun-themed studio shoots.
Joanne has exhibited throughout California, nationally, in Korea, France and England, Switzerland, Scotland, Greece, Spain, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Holland, Brazil, Dubai, and Italy. Her work has also been selected for Lunar Codex, a very special project partnered with SpaceX to deliver the images of art in a time capsule to be permanently affixed to the surface of the moon, selected by Era Contemporary Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as part of “Legends Of The Moon”.
As a photographer, I am constantly in search of iconic imagery. The craftsmanship and perfection of classic Hollywood cinema have always been an inspiration and goal I seek to achieve in my photography. While enjoying the technology of the present and how that has enhanced photography, I am very drawn to recreate photographs that reference the best of the past. It is my intent that the viewer of the images I create will be taken out of the everyday present to a magical place where at any time they would dream of going. Whether photographing people or nature, I strive to honor the best and beauty of all that I have an opportunity to capture with my camera.
Summer days are the dream moments of the year that are looked forward to in dreary seasons. The beach, pool, lakes, and oceans draw all to embrace the sun and beat the heat. When we think of summer, we embrace all that the warmth of the sun brings.
Christmas Light Explosion
When I was studying architecture, photography was a tool I used in the creation of projects and to enhance the presentation of the final product. I incorporated the camera lens as a part of the design development process looking at elements of design such as form, space, geometry, light, texture, and color. Over time, as I improved my knowledge of creative design, I also increased my interest in photography learning that the elements were the same. Just as I had photographed the components of my designs, my work became focused on looking for the elements of architectural design in every image I create. To me, composing a photo is similar to designing a building. I like to see how the visual building blocks in the elements of design can be combined into a unique whole.
“I look at every photo opportunity as if it were a design with architectural, structural, and artistic integrity, regardless of the subject matter.”
RJ Pizzi
Before putting up Christmas lights in some neat and geographic arrangement, they are usually wound or jumbled and in some disarray. By photographing them in this pre-hung state by moving the camera in a circular motion and providing some photographic art with the outcome, the result was a burst of vibrant color.
Chromaniac 1
Born and raised in Baltimore, Derrick’s passion for Photography started when he was in high school but he took it more seriously in college when he enrolled in a digital photography class it opened his eyes to photography even more, and he hasn’t looked back since. He purchased his first camera during that time period and later started using his iPod as another camera source to take pictures just because it’s easy, convenient, and with the increase of technology with camera usage. There are no limitations to being creative.
They say art imitates life, I have a great eye for capturing my surroundings, and my photos imitate my surroundings. What I capture at the moment, I bring it to life. The photos I capture are symbolic and metaphorical because they represent the essence of life.
Most of what I capture is objects and things because they are just as important as people are when it comes to photographing subjects. There are no limitations on what I don’t capture. It’s not about where you create your art, it’s about the art you create. Create What Can Be Manifest.