Dream
Jing (Ellen) Xu is a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Inner Mongolia, China, and currently based in Queens, New York. Her practice spans painting, drawing, sculpture, and large-scale installations, delving deeply into the intersections of time, memory, history, and environmental relationships.
Ellen earned her BA in Sculpture and Law from Xiamen University, China, and completed her MFA in Photomedia at the University of Washington, Seattle, in 2016.
Ellen’s work has been exhibited extensively across the United States and internationally. Solo and two-person exhibitions include the Governors Island Art Fair, KID Museum in Bethesda, MD, Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, NY office, and Hamiltonian Gallery in Washington, DC. Her art has also been featured in prominent group exhibitions, such as Skyline 3 at Villa Venino in Milan, Italy, and New Vision at Cavalier Galleries in New York City.
Ellen has participated in several prestigious artist residencies, including the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, the Vermont Studio Center, the Wassaic Artist Residency, the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts, and the Newport Art Museum Residency. Her contributions to the arts have earned her numerous accolades, including the Queens Arts Fund Grant, the Asian American Arts Alliance Micro Grant, a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Art, the Hamiltonian Artist Fellowship, and the BRIC Media Arts Fellowship.
I am a multidisciplinary artist born and raised in Inner Mongolia, China, and currently based in Queens, NY. My practice explores identity, culture, and the collective human experience, driven by a deep curiosity about the fluidity of memory and how our environment influences us. Through installation, painting, and participatory art, I craft immersive environments that encourage introspection and foster connection.
I strive to create art that sparks empathy and a reevaluation of shared human experiences, encouraging viewers to see themselves within larger, interconnected stories. My goal is to build moments of connection through tactile, sensory dialogues, blending cultural memory with contemporary concerns.
Dream Girl
Basinski’s style is a blend of expressionism and impressionism with impasto abstract qualities. Using texture and color to lead the eye into Nancy’s paintings, invites viewers to explore the story she is trying to convey. She loves to use luxurious color and contrast to create the design, shape, and form of the subject matter whether it is textural landscapes and seascapes or abstract paintings.
Nancy Basinski’s intentions are to express and create the feelings and emotions that she has experienced in her travels and in the places where she has lived. Each painting tells a story of those emotions, feelings, and adventures.
I am fascinated by the complexities one finds in strong yet simply stated designs. My compositions are a study of the sophisticated elegance of line, shape, and color. Strong colors and brilliant hues are major components of my paintings. Subject matter ranges from travels to California, New Mexico, and back to Kansas. The bold use of color pulls the viewer into the scene eliciting the feeling of being able to reach out and step into what you are viewing. My artwork is in private collections and business collections in Kansas, Missouri, Michigan, Tennessee, and Pennsylvania.
I have studied art extensively at the Minnesota River School of Fine Art, St. Paul, MN, New School of Art, Grand Rapids, MI, as well as under renowned oil painters Joseph Paquet and Rebecca Pasha and acrylic painter Bruce Marian.
Dream Of Flowers
Susan L. Brown is a contemporary artist based in Santa Cruz, California. An artist since childhood, Susan won awards as a student in Ohio, including as Statewide Student Artist at age 12. As an adult, she continued studying at the College of San Mateo, San Jose State, and UC Santa Cruz, and drawing and painting workshops taught by leading instructors.
Susan has taught painting techniques privately and through various city parks and recreation departments throughout California and teaches painting workshops at Ghost Ranch, NM.
She is featured on an international art site that describes her art and process: https://zoneonearts.com.au/susan-brown/
Her work appears in private collections; both non and commissioned.
Susan supports the non-profit Homeless Garden Project Store in Santa Cruz, CA, which sells her cards and prints. She donates 50% of all sales.
Exhibitions ( * Juried events):
* San Diego Museum of Art, Spring Showcase (juried by Hugh Davies); February-April 2023
*Blitzer Gallery, Santa Cruz, CA; Exhibition; March/April 2023
*Stems Gallery, Morgan Hill, CA, Feb—April 2023; (3-month Exhibition)
*Featured Artist; ArtsyShark, December 2022
* A.I.R. Vallauris Exhibition, Vallauris, France, Oct. 2022
*Fusion Art, “Spotlight Artist” solo exhibit; Feb. 2022
*Corto-Borrone Gallery, Paris, Invitational exhibition, Sei L’Arte; March/April, 2022
*Pacific Art League100th Year, Palo Alto, CA; Fall 2022
*Pacific Art League’s 99th Year; “Davenport Evening,” poster; 2021
*Santa Cruz Art League; multiple juried exhibits
*Santa Cruz Open Studios; October, 2021
“*Powerful Woman,” virtual International Exhibit; Sei L’Arte; 2020
*LightSpace Gallery, “International Woman Artists,” 2019:
*LightSpace Gallery, “Faces and Figures;” 2018
*Biennale Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Florence, Italy, 2011
Current Awards:
*Featured Artist; ArtsyShark, December 2022
*“Artistonish” Magazine; featured artist; August 2022
*A.I.R. Vallauris artist residency in France; September 2022
Associations:
*NOAP (National Oil and Acrylic Painters Association)
*San Diego Museum of Art; Artists Guild
Santa Cruz Art League
*Pacific Art League (Palo Alto,CA)
Georgia O’Keeffe: “To create in any of the arts takes courage.”
To me painting is not a “hobby,” it is not easy, and it is not “fun” (although sometimes it can be).
Approaching a blank canvas is like beginning an unknown journey, with pitfalls, challenges, and unexpected surprises; some of them “happy surprises,” some not.
I call the process “painstaking.”
Due to the architectural geometry, aerial perspective, and inclusion of portraits and figures, my “Roadways” and “Today’s World” series are especially complex and challenging.
One thing I do enjoy is getting into the “zone,” where I am so totally absorbed in my work that I hear and see nothing else as if a shroud were over me that shuts out the rest of the world. I even talk to my paintings, sometimes swear at them if things are not going well, and thank them when they are!
I began my painting practice with watercolors, then added acrylic and oil. I still love the flow and beauty of watercolors, especially flowers.
Many of my paintings are local, including “Van Ness Ave, Santa Cruz;” the street I live on, which was one of my first “Location” paintings. “Downtown Santa Cruz” is my candy-colored version of my town’s downtown, where five streets converge. (The geometry of the crosswalks was especially challenging to get right!)
My paintings pose questions for the viewer; figuring out where the roads may lead, and evoke a sense of recognition or deja vu, whether or not they have been to these places. In my “Today’s World” series I also show how we all dealt with and are dealing with difficult situations, such as Covid and immigration. Through my paintings, I hope to create a sense of community through our shared experiences plus my love of beauty.
Dream Of My Self
Doro Hofmann was born a twin in Stuttgart, Germany. She grew up in a family of artists and graphic designers; her father was a teacher of the arts and mechanics. While her sister went on to mechanical engineering, Doro earned a BA degree in graphic design and pre-press processing. During a highly influential period, after a horseback riding accident, Doro decided to move to Paris to follow her dream and become a professional artist.
She first studied Grafik design at the Freie Kunstschule in Stuttgart, Germany, and then was accepted to the National Academy for the Arts in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Doro Hofmann studied under internationally renowned artists and professors such as Horst Antes, Simone Wester-Winter, Antje Majevski, Corinne Wasmuht, and Franz Ackermann graduating with a BFA and later with an MFA as Franz Ackermann’s master’s student.
From 2005 on Doro Hofmann lived in Los Angeles, California until her move back to Germany during the summer of 2023.
In my paintings, I employ painstaking photo-realism. My earlier work was saturated with symbols of our capitalist, postmodern world, when I was combining the universe, luxury fashion jewelry, and fashion models, portraying them in paintings and chapel-like room installations as the divine objects, that pop culture and advertising have elevated them to be.
I paint beauty, as in women, star clusters, and sacred geometry, and I interpret mythology from ancient creation stories and the world’s most famous poems with my signature style, in contemporary settings.
The women in my paintings gaze forth, not always directly at us. They are cut off from both our world and theirs, daydreaming and yearning against a backdrop of diamonds and the expanse of the cosmos.
They are angels that have fallen, they have been seduced into our belief system, trapped in a timeless state of idealized beauty, and still, they ask an eternal question, I continue to ask myself every day: What is our greatest purpose? Why are we here?
The Painting in the submission shows a vulnerable woman lost in her dream.
Dream Weaver
Herbert Appelson was born in 1937 in New York; studied at Brooklyn College, received his M.F.A. at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and an Ed.D. from Columbia University. He is presently living in Cherry Hill, N.J., and is a Professor of Art at Rowan University.
My present works, which I call “hand-threaded embossments,” are an attempt to combine papers and threads into a creative art medium. I wanted to create prints that activated the flat surface of the paper and possessed true sculptural qualities. This embossment process represented a dual experiment: on the one hand, it expressed the beauty of the matrix; and on the other, created a sculptural composition in form, line, and texture.
Dreaming In Venice
Amelie Monira Egenolf is a German artist, living with her family in South Germany close to Switzerland. Amelie Monira‘s journey to becoming an international selling artist brought her through lots of different countries and continents such as Asia, Europe, New Zealand, and South America. All these countries have their own beauty and cultures and inspired her in her art and she could learn some amazing techniques from local artists in all that places. This experience has brought Amelie Monira a unique way to see the world in all its beauty and elegance, through the eyes of locals. It has given her an opportunity to broaden her horizon and open her mind and heart which resulted in her gaining valuable skills and visions which are the basis for her artistic career. Amelie Monira‘s favorite medium is oil, while she also works in acrylic and other mediums. She loves painting seascapes, as it reflects one of her biggest passions, traveling. Painting scenes from her dreams makes her art very unique and bring others the same joy she felt in that dream or at the amazing places she visited. Amelie Monira loves to travel and help other artists in their art careers and organizes group art exhibitions. She is exhibiting internationally in galleries and art fairs and her art decorates walls all over the world. Her paintings are in private collections in Mexico, the USA, Eastern and Western Europe, and the Middle East.
“My heart and soul were always with Art, and since my childhood as long as I remember myself, I was dreaming to be an artist. I was painting after school and later after work, when I had time, and teaching myself through various online workshops learning from artists from all around the world, and visiting art galleries and museums. As I lived many years in South America I had the possibility to learn from different Art Masters and to find my own style. I had a few bad experiences in my life and creating art helped me to become a more stable person, be more spiritual, and to communicate through my art with the world was a process of healing and growing. For a few years, I paint daily and that is what I want in my life I love to help other artists and art lovers to find their way as well. I really enjoy that connection with my art collectors and they became good friends. My artistic intention is to remind others daily through artwork to draw energy from great moments, to believe in their visions, and to strive for the realization of their goals.“
Dreaming Of Summer
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.
Dreaming Spanish Gal
Stacie Flint’s paintings and portraits are owned nationally and internationally. Based in New York’s Hudson Valley, she has exhibited extensively throughout the region, and in New York City, various U.S. states, and Canada. Her art has been featured on numerous magazine covers and has appeared in various publications. She illustrated a children’s book and several music CD covers. Her commissioned public art is on permanent display in Ulster County and is in the permanent collection of regional institutions.
My intuitive focus while in the art studio is to create Playfully Vibrant Expressionist Paintings that simultaneously are a meditation. With acrylic paint on canvas, I use imagery of people, places, and objects from my life, imagination, and reference photos to reinvent with strong color, lively energy, and heart. Sometimes the work suggests a narrative, while at others it is more about painterliness. My contemporary art is bold, accessible, soulful, relatable, and fun. My favorite artists are Matisse and Hockney. With my painting, I aspire to beauty, connection, celebration, inner knowing, a good smile, and I hope, something lasting.
Dreamland
Katrina is a Professional Artist specializing in Acrylic Paintings with more than 30 years of experience and she Illustrated several children’s books as well. Katrina comes from an artist family of several generations and to become an artist was pretty easy for her as colors, brushes, and canvases followed her all the way around since early childhood.
She’s been participating in exhibitions since sweet sixteen and won several awards, the most important was the opportunity to spend some time in Vienna City, Austria where she discovered F. Hundertwasser’s art which really inspired her. Other inspiring names in art for Katrina are Henri Matisse, Claude Monet, Gustav Klimt, and Pablo Picasso.
For the last twenty years, she’s been living in Leeds City, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom. The beautiful scenery of Yorkshire widens her creativity, here is some kind of mix of different natures, like Italy, France, Spain, and Latvia all in one.
In my paintings, I devote much attention to the play of colors, lines, and plot. I convey my vision of the world with colors and images, but the plot plays a special role. The paintings were created mainly during my travels. I try to perceive the world not only in my native Latvia but also in other countries. Each painting has its own story. It tells about the scenic mountains of Tuscany and the magic cathedrals of Italy. Perhaps, there are stories about Britain’s magical gardens or a cat that brings warmth and peace to home. A woman waiting for the love of her lifetime…
I wish to spread beauty in the world and bring happiness to people through my paintings. I wish everyone looking at my paintings will feel the love I can give. Who knows, any person can share this love with others…