Divine Code
Natalia Koromvokis is a contemporary painter working with light and emotional perception. Born in Moscow, she began studying painting in adolescence under individual mentorship, with a strong foundation in classical methods.
For many years, she worked professionally in design, developing a precise sense of structure, colour, and atmosphere.
In 2024, she consciously returned to painting full-time, creating a new body of work that merges her classical roots with a contemporary visual language. Her practice explores the moment of seeing — where perception transforms what is visible. Objects and spaces appear not in their literal form, but as they are altered by feeling and light.
To hold that shift, she works across techniques — sometimes layered and soft, sometimes direct and precise — choosing the method that serves the image as it appears. She works primarily with oil on canvas and mixed media, building surfaces that balance clarity and resonance.
Now living and working in Greece, she continues to expand her series of large-scale paintings — each one a meditation on light, presence, and transformation.
Natalia Koromvokis — a contemporary painter working with light and emotional perception.
Her works are built on the moment of seeing. Objects and spaces appear not in their literal form, but as they are transformed by feeling and light.
To sustain that transformation, she employs varied techniques — sometimes layered and soft, sometimes direct and precise — choosing the method that serves the image as it appears.
She paints what is visible: the trace of light, the movement of colour, emotion turning into form.
Divine Feminine
INTERDISCIPLINARY ARTIST
(B. BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA 1963)
“When I think about the work I have created or want to make in the future,
there is a common thread that I return to no matter what the medium and
that is to delve into the quiet psychological aspects of the human experience.”
Beverly-Quigley has a background in printmaking, painting, and photography. Earlier in her art-making process she created screen prints, monoprints, and experimental pieces involving layering of photographic or hand-drawn imagery on non-conventional substrates, such as steel and fabric resulting in large artwork panels and installations.
Beverly-Quigley’s work explores both photography and encaustic painting, sometimes bringing the two together. Incorporating photography, drawing, painting, and ephemera into layers of encaustic wax— adding then subtracting and adding again—resulting in a depth of color, content, and texture. Layers are intentionally revealed or obscured to convey the feeling of the abstract quality of memory and time.
In her latest project – revolving around the once-expansive Great Salt Lake – Beverly-Quigley points her focus outwards, likening the landmark’s quiet decay to forgotten valleys of the human experience.
Beverly-Quigley exhibits her work both nationally and internationally. She has taught art and/or design since she was a graduate student at The University of Colorado—Boulder, Weber State University— Utah and has been an invited guest lecturer at The American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, and more recently the Kimball Arts Center, in Park City, Utah.
Her work has been featured in a variety of publications including
The Lure of the Local by renowned writer and art critic—Lucy Lippard.
Masters in Fine Art | University of Colorado—Boulder | Photography & Digital Media
Bachelor of Fine Art | University of Colorado—Boulder | Printmaking
Searching for The Divine Feminine
Find balance….
yet the world seems to be sitting on the top of my head
burrowing in and not releasing anytime soon.
Murmurs of expectations and long, long lists of things to be done.
Time, never really my friend,
Asks more and more and more.
So I dream of gardens of endless scents,
Of long summer days
Conversations that move into the night
Without even a notice
Rare moments slowing, just a little,
To take in the beauty of it all.
Diya The Lamp
An honored Marquis Who’s Who Listee, award-winning and multidisciplinary artist, Tejaswini (Alpana Mittal), lives and works in Bayonne, NJ. She served as VP and a board member at Pro Arts, JC for many years. Her designs are inspired by Rangoli art from India and Tibetan Mandalas. These designs are created on the floor with colored powder during festivals, and they are removed when the festival is over. She wanted to preserve them after creating them. She feels these beads are the perfect medium for this art, and their bright colors and texture add beauty to these designs.
Born into an art-loving family, Tejaswini was exposed to art and its appreciation from early childhood. She chose Fine Arts as her major and has an M.F.A. from CCS University, India. She also has an Arts Management diploma from New York University.
Tejaswini has displayed her artwork globally and has been widely acclaimed for her multifaceted style. Her traditional painting depicting “Krishna” was judged Best in Show by Hudson Artists in NJ at their 60th-anniversary Exhibition in 2013. She received an Outstanding Service award from Sing for Hope, NYC 2019, having painted a piano for the organization, titled “Basant Utsav”, which is based on one of the traditional Art styles of India called ‘Kangra style’.
Mittal has been a featured artist by Liquitex Art Materials. Her work was selected for the Flag Project RC 2022 by the team of Rockefeller Center, the United Nations Environment Programme, and The Climate Museum.
Her work has been displayed in many group shows around the US and Europe. She is a record holder with the India Book of Records. Several of her art pieces are in private and public collections in Asia, Canada, the UK, and America.
I am a versatile artist. I work with many traditional and non-traditional media. One of these non-traditional media is fusion beads and one of my favorites. In 2008 I bought an art kit for my daughter as a Christmas present, with thousands of beads and one 6” X 6” peg board in it. While she was creating small birds and flowers, I started visualizing some patterns on canvas. When I created my first artwork with beads I was thrilled with the outcome. I wanted to explore all the possibilities with this medium. So since then, I have been working with it and the result is very satisfying and thrilling. Bright colors and the texture of these beads add beauty to my work. My work is inspired by Rangoli art from India, which we make during the festive season, on the floor, with colored powder or flowers and remove after the festival. Art is my life. It’s meditative, it’s relaxing. It takes me to another world, the world of peace, silence, and colors.
Do Not Touch, Do Not Exhale, 3
Traci Marie Lee is a graduate of the Corcoran College of Art + Design in Washington, D.C., with a BFA in Fine Art Photography, as well as a Master of Fine Arts in Photography and Integrated Media graduate from Lesley University College of Art & Design in Cambridge, MA.
In her work, she is interested in the implications and consequences of the Snapshot and the Constructed Image on memory construction and preservation. The compulsion to excavate and curate leads to finding new methods of holding onto brief, constantly changing realities, as well as confronting her own tendencies and obsessive drive to collect, as a process of examining loss.
Do not touch, Do not exhale series statement:
Did they not tell you?
We do not touch, we do not exhale.
Touching the fabricated Duchamp.
Do not touch, do not exhale.
Clicking, ‘continue alone’.
Do not touch, do not exhale.
Whispering, ‘She can’t carry it’.
Do not touch, do not exhale.
You said, ’I want to kiss everyone before I go’.
Do not touch, do not exhale.
Sweeping ourselves up, all the dust that we’ve made.
Do not touch, do not exhale.
You said, ’To be honest, I don’t want to wait… that long to see you’.
Do not touch, do not exhale.
Dog And Man
Ceramics 1972-1975 Berkeley
Art classes Oregon State University 1977-1980
Photography Cabrillo College 2000-2003
Printmaking Cabrillo College 2003-2006
3Dimensional Art and Design Cabrillo College 2014
Figure Painting Cabrillo College 2016
Painting Cabrillo College 2019
Printmaking Monterey Peninsula College 2014-2019
Printmaking Open Monterey Penisula College 2022
Figure Drawing Monterey Peninsula College 2015-2018
Figure Sculpture Monterey Peninsula College 2019
Numerous online workshops
Michael Azgour’s continuing education online current
Current Shows and Awards
Chermers Gallery Representation, Tustin, Cal
New Museum of Los Gatos, Juried Feb-March 2022. Third Place
San Fernando Valley Arts In The Abstract juried March 2022 Honorable Mention
San Diego Museum of Art Spring Exhibition Juried March-April 2022
Femina 2022 Book and online Juried
Ellington-White Contemporary Gallery Feminist Insight Telling Her Story Juried 3/16/2022
Arc Gallery San Francisco Faces Juried June-July 2022
O’Hanlon Center for the Arts It’s OK to Laugh Juried May-June 2022
Art Fluent Within Juried June 2022
Long Beach Island Foundation of the Arts Unmasked Contemporary. Portraits Juried July-Aug 2022
The Lakeland Art Guild 50th Annual Melvin Gallery Art Exhibit Florida National Juried May-June 2022
Las Lagunas Art Gallery. Laguna Beach, Cal 50 and Older Exhibition juried June 2022
Emotions 2022 Exhibition and publication juried 6/22-7/22
Las Lagunas Art Gallery. Laguna Beach, Cal Women In Art 2022 juried July 2022
Iveta Café and Gallery solo show Santa Cruz, Cal July-August 2022
Santa Cruz Art League members show August 2022
Pajaro Valley Arts Takeaway Show juried Sept 2022
Triton Museum Santa Clara Cal Salon at the Triton 2022, Juried August -Sept 2022
San Fernando Valley Arts and Cultural Center Human Form and Figure juried Sept 2022
Santa Cruz Fair Sept 2022. Honorable Mention
Open Studios Santa Cruz Oct 2022 juried
Las Lagunas Art Exhibition Juried Jan 2023
Las Lagunas Art Exhibition Juried Celebrate Art Feb 2023
Terravarma juried Jan 2023. Honorable Mention
Central Coast Art Association exhibit Pacific Grove Jan 2023
Central Coast Art Association exhibit Monterey County Building Jan-May 2023
Shockboxx Gallery Hermosa Beach juried Feb 2023
I Want to Believe Exhibition and Publication March-April 2024
Coastal Art League juried April 2023
Pajaro Valley Arts Takeaway Show juried Mar-April 2023
Iveta Café and Gallery July and Aug 2023
Open Studios juried Oct 2023
KLB Gallery Juried Nov 2023
New Museum of Los Gatos Juried Jan-Mar 2024
Santa Cruz government center Juried Jan-Mar 2024
Arc Gallery juried San Francisco April 2024
Transmissions Gallery juried Oakland April 2024
Frozen Moments/Contemporary Narratives
Watching the human form and spirit with all its complexities and coping mechanisms is a powerful part of my life. I have experienced all the accomplishments and the losses in our fragmented world over the past years and I surrender to self-expression. Because I feel that figurative narratives are relatable on a visceral level, through mood, gesture, and relationships this in turn generates a feeling of intimacy. Painting narratives, both real and imaginary, moving in and out of focus, is a way to cope with change, bridge boundaries, reduce tension, and show our global similarities.
As I paint, the in-between spaces of our lives, which we see but do not notice, become more apparent. A mood or feeling takes over as I try to express this and communicate to the viewer via emergence and disappearance, line and no line, transparent and opaque, realism and abstraction, all coexisting in an attempt to see beyond the surface, both literally and figuratively, exploring the power of paint, color, texture, and line.
I invite you to linger longer and see each piece, its complete incompleteness, give the characters voice, and share in these silent stories.
Dog In The Bathroom 1
Sylvia Bandyke, Royal Oak, MI, USA, is largely a self-taught photographer, having taken studio and art history classes in college. She began her art career by displaying photo collages in ArtPrize, an independent international art competition in Grand Rapids, MI, from 2014 to 2018. Subsequently, she has been juried into more than 100 group exhibitions in 24 states and accepted into numerous online international exhibitions. An award-winning artist, she keeps an eye open for interesting views of a subject while looking for hidden beauty every day. Most recently, she was a caregiver to her elderly mother and was able to create some memorable, unique art as a result of this experience.
I prefer using the collage format to integrate associated images into a cohesive unit that is even more compelling because of the embedded story. Having been a playwright and technical writer, I am accustomed to delivering content with a message. So now, as a visual communicator, I continue to provide meaning via the structure of the collage format, wherein the four photos confirm, augment, or even contradict each other if warranted. I enjoy offering the richness that the multiplicity of images provides, along with the impact gained through their thoughtful positioning. Ultimately, I intend to have my work act as a doorway to the viewer’s own mental and emotional framework regarding the collection of images, perhaps finding their own very personal meaning in them.
Don Tien
Gail Gelburd, Ph.D. in art and art history, is a writer about art and someone who creates art. Her works cross the boundaries of the disciplines in order to focus on the intersection of art, social issues, and spirituality. Her work has been included in exhibitions and private collections in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Brooklyn, Colorado, Skopelos Greece, Melbourne Australia, and Goa India. She has been reviewed and interviewed in print, online, social media, radio, and television. This year she was included in the Art of the Hills exhibition at the Berkshire Museum. In April 2022 she was featured on the cover of The Artful Mind Magazine. Her art installation, Color Your World traveled to four museum venues. Her images of floods and water have been exhibited in galleries, and museums and were commissioned for a 50-foot atrium space. Her work on the Tsunami in Japan and the earthquake in Nepal was featured in a solo exhibition at MS 17 in New London Ct.
Art can reveal the soul of a place and that place can inspire the unique expressions of an artist. My work aims to reveal the unique elements of a place and yet show that which is universal. It comments on social and environmental issues. It should make a viewer stop, contemplate, and hopefully be inspired. Beginning with photography and then adding encaustics, I have transformed my photographs into three-dimensional objects be they a suitcase, a lightbox, or a life-size mannequin. The photograph becomes a collage, assemblage, installation, or sculpture. Images are clearly visible and yet hidden, like life itself; much of it is fleeting, changing, and mysterious. In my work, I tell the stories of floods and poverty, spirituality, and the power of nature. I am interested in the universality of the human spirit and the environment in which we exist. For we are our environment and to understand ourselves we must understand our place in it.
Dont Give Me That Look
I began my journey as a photographer the same way many of my peers did: with a camera passed down or gifted. It is something not terribly expensive but with good glass and simple operations. Mine was a Yashica-MAT 124G, during one of its final years in production. This was in 1985. It was an oddball relic even at the time since almost everyone else I knew had already become acquainted with 35mm. But I was and continue to be rebellious. I would prefer a larger negative. My rig was heavier, simpler, and so required more patience and thought. It required an artist’s eye, and that’s what I would put to it.
Now I was a photographer. And I would be known among my friends as that eccentric with a strange, boxy twin-lens camera, which I took with me everywhere. I learned how to frame a shot and the essentials of exposure.
Fast forward. I would sell off that Yaschica and later upgrade to a second-hand Mamiya C220 after graduating from college. I was in New York pursuing a career in publishing, and later my roots would set in Los Angeles where I continued to pursue photography and publishing.
My cameras are an extension of me, my inner dialog brought to the fore. I compose when I shoot. We’re constantly moving in a place like Los Angeles, but it is through my constant pursuit of photographic exceptionalism that I’m able to see the details, the story, and the drama of the stillness between stoplights. I’ll always shoot, and most of the pictures are not going to be that good, but the ones that get through will hopefully transcend into a photograph.
I endeavor to see the story when I’m in the moment of capturing an image, trying to transcend its history. And at that moment, I often reflect on whether anyone has stood in the same spot I did and if so, who were they? Did she or he see what I saw? The possibilities are endless. Photography is the quiet observance of the fast-moving world in which human connection has been untwined to the last strand but in that tethering, we see and feel the world upon which we tread. We’re passing through this time; I’m simply a vessel whose strength is observation. I want my world to be beautiful, but I can’t force it. I want those who see my work to slow down and reflect. That’s what photography is to me: Reflections on this passing moment, and somewhere within the casting of that light there is beauty.
Double Gen X
Karen Safer, a native LA, California photographer, artist, writer, and poet with a musical bent, was exposed to California motifs: light, palm trees, the sea, music, and vernacular architecture that defined and influenced her left-handed aesthetic. An early life of travel shaped her love of the exotic paired with an eye for the accidental, unusual, “formal” and “the beautiful” that jiggled the lens/frame of her eye. She received a master’s degree in art, worked in major design and international architectural firms, and photographed in over 230 countries (and territories). Influenced by artists and photographers from Atget to Cindy Sherman, she has won numerous awards in national and international competitions/exhibitions, is included in private collections, and is a member of many arts and other organizations. She is a self-described old romantic soul with intellectual cravings.
A photographer has the whole world – big or small – to capture. – kjs
I got a camera and some crayons as a kid,
journeyed along a path in life – far from what I’d expected,
moved from youth to middle age,
did some work, had some fun, got high, got low,
and just continue doing it – never tiring of the next visual surprise.
– Life is still a mystery, after all.