Painting The Figure Now (2018)

PA INTING T HE

FIG U RE NOW ISSUE #95 | JULY 2018

Rebecca Leveille | Fourteen | oil on masonite panel | 48x30 | 2017

contributors

David Alvarado Ofelia Andrades Tanya Atanasova Debra Balchen Donna Bates Julie Bell Lauren Bergman Kelly Birkenruth Lucas Bononi Margaret Bowland Mike Brewer Noah Buchanan Joe Burns Adam Caldwell Ali Cavanaugh

Jose Luis Cena Matthew Cherry Meghan Cox Shaina Craft Steven DaLuz Joshua Dean Marc Dennis Peter Drake Hollis Dunlap David Eichenberg Heidi Elbers Teresa Elliott Natalia Fabia DebiLynn Fendley Denise Fulton

Santiago Galeas David Gluck Maryam Gohar Sergio Gomez Arina Gordienko Barbara Hack Patrick Earl Hammie Dana Hawk Misty Hawkins Jo Hay F. Scott Hess David Hummer John Hyland Maria Jimenez Jason John

Molly Judd Aleksandra Kalisz Janne Kearney Lisa Keay Cheryl Kelly Cameron Jon Knutson Francien Krieg Brock Larson William Lazos Dave Lebow R. Leveille Shana Levenson Hodaya Louis Gayle Madeira Daniel Maidman

Shaina Craft Gape and Watch oil on wood 6x6 2017

Sylvia Maier Stephen Mangum Susannah Martin Jason Mcphillips Edgar Mendoza Erin Milan Katie Miller Eloy Morales Miguel Angel Moya Agnieszka Nienartowicz Tim Okamura Omalix Reisha Perlmutter Serena Potter Nick Runge

Viktoria Savenkova Patricia Schappler Shane Scribner Victoria Selbach Suzy Smith Matt Smith Xevi Sola Tina Spratt Sarah Stieber June Stratton Judy Takรกcs Matt Talbert Mark Tennant Lesley Thiel Daena Title

Alessandro Tomassetti Jaime Valero Boris Vallejo Victor Wang Doug Webb Thomas Wharton Pamela Wilson Sam Woodfin Daryl Zang Elizabeth Zanzinger Zack Zdrale

Fast forward to 2018, artists continue painting the human figure. Why haven’t we exhausted the subject after all this time? For one, figurative art investigates our identity: who we are and what we are. What does it mean to be a human being? In the past, figurative art was often nationalistic, celebrating cultural heroes loved by a mass of admirers. An example is Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze (1851, The Metropolitan Museum of Art). But the internet has fractured traditional barriers of region and identity and created a million tiny social networks and countless digital tribes. More than at any time previously in history, humans have the power to choose who they’ll talk to. Chat happens anywhere on planet Earth with wifi. Distance is no longer is a limiting factor. You can pick your digital tribe, and membership may be spread from Moscow to Buenos Aires. Who are your people now? It’s your circle of friends, chatting and messaging on a multitude of digital devices. Your followers on Instagram care deeply about you. Everybody is a “brand” today, and skilled self-marketers speak to their followers with emotional images that shape thought itself. The images you see in someone’s Instagram stream define your idea of that artist and their identity. Yet it’s very unlikely you’ve met them in the flesh. The structure of communication across these smart phones, tablets, and laptops is deep, not superficial. It affects viewers’ thinking, a concept popularly known as the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. When artists paint a figure, they are actively encoding ideas about identity into the work. The art might be about female identity, gay identity, Latino identity, or any micro-subcultural group. The fact that it’s a painting underscores the hands-on designed encoding of ideas. A painting is not a found object like a photograph. Every bit of a painting (be it blobs of paint, marks, or color choices) is a result of human direct intention to code specific things. The whole point of the exercise allows a viewer to decode the art and extract some message. If the message is agreeable and well-executed, the viewer may get out a Citibank VISA card and buy the art. Buying art is a cash vote for solidarity around ideas of identity and representation. No matter how fringe, the internet has an identity-matching group for you. If you want to chat about Marvel's new gay black Spider-Man, there is a community interested in probing this identity and welcoming any new visuals to support the discussion. If you draw or paint gay black Spider-Man, people will be hotly interested in how you present this figure. Your painting tells us what you think it means to look gay. And to look black. And to look like Spider-Man. In this new configuration, a painting of gay black Spider-Man becomes an icon, a thing charged with extra meaning beyond what is literally seen, and the icon speaks to an in-group of followers on a privileged channel. Suzy Smith Surrender oil on canvas 36x36 2018

WA LT M O RTO N

PAINTING THE FIGURE NOW Why paint the human figure now?

People have been illustrating the human figure for at least 30,000 years. There are worldwide paintings on rock walls that indicate a primordial desire to express the human form. Five thousand years ago, Egyptian artists painted complex figures on the walls of tombs. Around the year 900 CE, human figures were carefully rendered in illuminated bibles. Innovation in figurative painting ignited in the late 1400’s with Leonardo

DaVinci who invented convincing ways to express dimensional drawing effects and to paint light and shadow. DaVinci gave rise to the next five hundred years in painting history, where artists advanced the craft of figure painting and portrait painting to an all-time high. This was a progression that took centuries of accumulated knowledge and invention, usually passed hand-to-hand, ceremoniously after years of hard labor, from master to student. You had to grind your own paint. Nobody had a digital camera. And there was no internet.

One of the reasons superhero movies are popular now is we’re all interested in the idea of flexible identity and especially the key super-power of shifting your identity, a shift always signaled by a costume change in what the figure wears. A mask, a cape, the visual change overlies something deeper down, normally hidden. There is an implicit thrill in the idea of having a secret identity, an urge that runs counter to an equally strong impulse to be open about yourself. Back in 1969, if you were a Star Trek fan, you were likely in the closet about that fandom, since it felt terribly geeky to identify yourself as a “Trekkie." But since that time, over the last fifty years, the geeks built the internet, earned trillions of nerd dollars, and now run the entire economy on Amazon. Today, it doesn’t matter how obscure your identity obsession is, go to Comicon and you’ll meet the rest of your Sailor Moon tribe celebrating living on the fringe with great joy. In 2018, traditional aspects of fixed identity are in greater flux than ever before. In the past, religions, nationalism, and racism tried to draw hard definitions, segregating groups and limiting freedoms. While these issues are evolving and unresolved, today’s world encourages different thinking about identity. Genderneutral bathrooms, LGBTQI rights, gender fluidity, and changing standards and terminology are familiar news. For artists painting the figure, the issue of labeling is significant, since labeling connects to how work is sold, a practical

reality of marketing oneself. Artists, more than most professions, have always been conscious of the personal identity they present to the public. There are a lot of mythic representations of the eccentric artist in popular culture, and these work to establish the special nature of the art product, different from products of the butcher, plumber, or janitor. The artist identity is always a manufactured product, often a collaboration between the artist and a pioneering gallery selling the new. The public face of Andy Warhol was just as conscious a creative work as any of his paintings or prints. Warhol knew the audience didn’t just want art, they wanted a show — a distraction, amazement, a jolt. Marketing the artist can be show business. The marketing notion leads us to a core issue attached to painting the contemporary figure, which is "truth.” The word “true” is a hot potato in art, since it can be loaded with heavy meaning (“a true artist”), but more practically one hears things like “true color” as part of any debate on accuracy. Words like “honest” and “authentic” are favored by savvy art sellers these days. Any whiff of sincerity carries a special power in a global factory economy that takes your money in return for handfuls of disposable tech-gizmos. In other words, mass-market consumerism has transcended morality for almost every product we buy. However, contemporary paintings represent a retro antidote. A return to an era of handmade items. Part of the magic in painting the figure now is carried in this increasingly rare connection to the world of handmade craft products. Painting requires real artists to work with actual physical materials and to produce a singular object in the material world. The one-of-a-kind nature of painting supports the curious idea of the real thing. An object that is truly itself and nothing else. Truth is where great liberties get taken by artists painting the figure. While a finished painting on canvas, linen, or aluminum is a real physical object, the image is never entirely true to the source material. The physical reality of the painting is an indisputable thing, but we’ll never know for sure what the model actually looked like. No, despite a modern obsession with more megapixels and high-definition detail, even the most hyper-realist contemporary painting presents a view of the world skewed by the artist’s mind. Skewed is a good thing. We want the artist’s outlook and mental state to impact the look of the painting, because without that interior psychological aspect, we may as well just use a camera for an objective, non-partisan view. The camera is quicker, easier, and has greater density of information. But what the artist gives us in a figure painting is a human-calibrated selection of most-essentials. What’s left out — that says everything about what the artist believes is most important. In considering the works shown in 2018’s collection for Painting The Figure Now, this should be your first question: “What does the painting tell me about how this artist thinks?” Human life is fragile and relatively short. To capture an image of the human figure that endures centuries touches on a power to hold back the ravages of time in a way normally forbidden to biology. A painting offers us the capacity for the important moment, frozen forever. The artist who thinks to capture the figure this way sometimes dares the flaming pit of ego, with a selfie. In following Rembrandt’s example of forty self-portraits, from youth to withered age, we find hope to discover the truth about oneself. There is hubris in this, a wish for understanding, recognition, love, even egomaniacal greatness. More than that, a marker that you do exist. You matter, right here and now and forever. Even if you are a queen, a president, a hero, or a great beauty, the one thing that will erode your image and erase your identity is time. You cannot last. But a painting of you, if nothing else, may remind future generations of your marvelous, spectacular existence. This is also a good thing: to capture us as we are, bold humans clawing a daft mark across endless eternity.

ELOY MORALES

F. SCOTT HESS

Floating baby number two | oil on canvas | 200x130 cm | 2017

Allegory of Mud | oil and egg tempera on canvas | 32x40 | 2017

DARYL ZANG

REISHA PERLMUTTER

Inhibitions | oil on canvas | 30x40 | 2015

Venus of Rancagua | oil on canvas | 36x72 | 2017

JASON MCPHILLIPS

VIKTORIA SAVENKOVA

Voice Twilight | oil on panel | 52x26 | 2017

Bathing | oil on canvas | 32x48 | 2014

MOLLY JUDD

SUSANNAH MARTIN

Morning | oil on board | 28x21 | YEAR???

Helium (cropped) | oil on canvas | 80x150 | 2017

DAVE LEBOW

BROCK LARSON

Thy Neighbor’s Wife | oil on canvas | 24x18 | 2018

The Atelier | oil on canvas | 30x36 | 2016

MIKE BREWER

DANIEL MAIDMAN

Portrait of a Young Woman | oil on canvas | 40x30 | 2016

Rachel Checking Her Phone | oil on canvas | 30x40 | 2017

NICK RUNGE

DAVID ALVARADO

Visitor | oil on cradled wood panel | 24x26 | 2018

Restive Slumber | oil on linen | 18x24 | 2018

MARK TENNANT

JOHN HYLAND

Nude with Blue Drapery | oil on canvas | 48x36 | 2017

Sisyphus Biding His Time | oil on canvas | 14x8 | 2018

ARINA GORDIENKO

DENISE FULTON

Angel (Portrait of Angelika) | oil on linen | 40x30 | 2008

Chutes & Ladders | oil on panel | 24x20 | 2018

R. LEVEILLE

MATT SMITH

47 Years (Self Portrait) | oil on poly cotton linen | 40x62 | 2017

The Desolate Void | oil on gessoed cradled birch board | 11x14 | 2018

NATALIA FABIA

SHANE SCRIBNER

NEED INFORMATION

Kyra | oil on panel | 24x18 | 2017

THOMAS WHARTON

DAVID EICHENBERG

Torso No. 1 | oil on linen | 18x18 | 2018

Devan and Stripes | oil on aluminum panel | 20x31 | 2017

SAM WOODFIN

F. SCOTT HESS

Reddance | oil on panel | 24x24 | 2017

Natural Selection | oil on canvas | 38x32 | 2017

VICTORIA SELBACH

DANA HAWK

Butterfly | oil on palette | 20x16 | 2016

Itch | oil on canvas | 20x16 | 2017

DOUG WEBB

EDGAR MENDOZA

Mid Life | acrylic on linen | 16x12 | 2018

The Submarine | oil on canvas | 24x28 | 2018

XEVI SOLA

BARBARA HACK

Hit | oil on canvas | 116x89 cm | 2018

Guidance | oil on panel | 12x12 | 2018

JUNE STRATTON

JAIME VALERO

Lavender Haze | oil on linen mounted on paenl | 40x30 | 2018

Portrait #2 | oil on board | 44x33 | 2017

WILLIAM LAZOS

PATRICIA SCHAPPLER

Confederation | oil on canvas | 60x72 | 2017

Three Drops | oil on canvas | 60x36 | 2016

SHANA LEVENSON

LISA KEAY

Vanessa | oil on dibond | 20x24 | 2018

The Student | oil and gold leaf on panel | 24x20 | 2016

HOLLIS DUNLAP

NOAH BUCHANAN

Electric Blue | oil on linen | 40x50 | 2017

I.Crow X | oil on panel | 10x10 | 2016

PATRICIA SCHAPPLER

SERGIO GOMEZ

The Guardians | oil on wood | 48x36 | 2017

New Beginnings 2 | mixed media on paper | NEED INFO

STEPHEN MANGUM

JOE BURNS

Red | oil on linen | 60x48 | 2017

Oil Man | oil on canvas | 52x28 | 2016

JO HAY

MISTY HAWKINS

Maddow | oil on canvas | 60x48 | 2017

Awaken | oil on linen | 22x30 | 2018

LUCAS BONONI

VICTOR WANG

Aptekareva | acrylic on panel | 48x24 | 2016

Flushed Birds | oil on canvas | 65x52 | 2018

STEVEN DALUZ

TIM OKAMURA

Voyager | oil, metal leaf on panel | 48x60 | 2018

Rare Groove | oil and mixed media on canvas | 80x82 | 2018

OFELIA ANDRADES

HODAYA LOUIS

Alegorias II | oil on linen | 115X160 cm | 2016

The Routes You Follow | oil and acrylic on canvas | 48x48 | 2018

PATRICK EARL HAMMIE

JANNE KEARNEY

Inheritance | oil on canvas | 12x16 | 2015

Miasma | oil on canvas | 39x39 | 2015

SARAH STIEBER

MARC DENNIS

Hell Ya! | acrylic on canvas | 48x96 | 2018

A Simple Relationship | oil on linen | 40x36 | 2017

MARGARET BOWLAND

DAVID HUMMER

The Motions of Grace | oil on linen | 86x60 | 2012

Precarious | oil on canvas | 48x48 | 2018

PAMELA WILSON

HEIDI ELBERS

Purification | oil, gold, and silver leaf on panel | 36x24 | 2018

Purification | oil on canvas | 18x24 | 2018

DAENA TITLE

DAENA TITLE

Selfie With Famous Whores | acrylic and pencil on canvas board | 18x14 | 2018

Selfie With Dog Painting | acrylic on canvas board | 14x18 | 2018

ERIN MILAN

ELIZABETH ZANZINGER

All the wanting in the world | oil on linen | 26x38 | 2017

NIGHT FOREST | oil on ACM panel | 26X28 | 2017

KELLY BIRKENRUTH

DONNA BATES

Duality | oil on canvas | 36x24 | 2015

Remix 01 | oil on dibond | 24x24 | 2018

MEGHAN COX

GAYLE MADEIRA

Fort | oil on linen over panel | 26x22 | 2018

American Dreaming | oil on aluminum panel | 24x12 | 2018

SYLVIA MAIER

VIKTORIA SAVENKOVA |

Tattooist’s Apprentice | acrylic on linen | 48x66 | 2017

Drop | oil on canvas | 24x36 | 2018

CAMERON JON KNUTSON

ADAM CALDWELL

Nightmare | oil on linen | 50x35 | 2018

The world as it is in itself | oil on canvas | 30x24 | 2017

ALEKSANDRA KALISZ

PETER DRAKE

Embrace | oil on canvas | 31x39 | 2017

Bad Dog | acrylic on canvas | 36x38 | 2008

JOSHUA DEAN

SERENA POTTER

Prototype | acrylic on canvas | 34x48 | 2018

Aperture | oil on canvas | 38x62 | 2011

MARC DENNIS

SANTIAGO GALEAS

Money Shot | oil on linen | 80x40 | 2015

Tercerx | oil on canvas | 30x24 | 2017

VICTORIA SELBACH

JASON JOHN

Denisia | acrylic on palette | 11x14 | 2017

Love Gun | oil on canvas | 18x26 | 2018

LESLEY THIEL

MIGUEL ANGEL MOYA

After The Fall | oil on panel | 36x28.5 | 2018

Irene and the Unicorn | oil on linen | 38x38 | 2018

TERESA ELLIOTT

JUDY TAKACS

The Arrival | oil on aluminum | 47x33 | 2018

Tickled | oil on canvas | 30x30 | 2011

ZACK ZDRALE

MARIA JIMENEZ

51244 | oil on panel | 32x48 | 2017

Black Box | oil on canvas | 20x16 | 2018

MATTHEW CHERRY

MATTHEW CHERRY

Sometimes, When I Watch the Dark Knight ... I Think About the Arnolfini Wedding | oil on canvas | 84x72 | 2013

Sometimes, When I Watch Mr. Squarepants ... I Think About The American Gothic | oil on canvas | 60x72 | 2012

KATIE MILLER

FRANCIEN KRIEG

Baby With Dead Phone | oil on canvas | MISSING SIZE | 2014

Random DNA III | oil on panel | 30x40 cm | 2017

JOSE LUIS CENA

JOSE LUIS CENA

Shadows Game | oil on linen | 100x100 cm

Engraved In Red | oil on board | 80x80 cm

ALI CAVANAUGH

DAVID GLUCK

Passing Daydream | watercolor | 18x24 | 2018

Fall | oil on canvas | NEED SIZE and year

DEBILYNN FENDLEY

CHERYL KELLY

Being Slipshod | acrylic on canvas | 30x22 | 2017

Buick with Lady in Yellow Dress | oil on aluminum panel | 28x30 | 2013

TANYA ATANASOVA

ALESSANDRO TOMASSETTI

The Banana Boy | oil on canvas | 55x39 | 2018

Lie To Me | oil on aluminum | 28x20 | 2018

OMALIX

DEBRA BALCHEN

Sleepless | oil on linen | 42x24 | 2016

Pearl Necklace | fire earth, hand painted | 20x9x9 | 2018

AGNIESZKA NIENARTOWICZ

ALI CAVANAUGH

The Storm On The Sea | oil on canvas | 35.4x25.6 | 2018

No Woman No Cry | watercolor | 48x36 | 2017

TINA SPRATT

MATT TALBERT

Blue Shawl | oil on linen | 22x34 | 2018

American Beauty | oil on panel | 48x42 | 2017

MARYAM GOHAR

LAUREN BERGMAN

Red Paint | acrylic on watercolor paper | 15x11 | 2018

Awakening | acrylic on paper | 40x60 | 2012

JULIE BELL

BORIS VALLEJO

NEED NEW INFO

Gryphon and The Maiden | oil on panel | 24x18

David Alvarado is a Los Angeles based figurative artist with atelier training in Europe. He studied and taught at both Charles H Cecil Studio and later at the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy. His nudes, in either a natural or an imaginative setting, are all brought to life with contrasting and harmonious colors and bold compositions. A sensitivity to light and his choice of subject matter exude a certain moodiness that is highlighted by his subtle application of paint and masterful execution of form. He uses traditional and contemporary methods in an attempt to capture a beauty that is both bold and fragile. His work has been shown nationally and internationally. Ofelia Andrades was born on September 29th, 1982 in Santiago, Chile. From 1984 to 1992 she lived in Buenos Aires, Argentina. From an early age Ofelia attended art workshops where she learned the different techniques of painting and drawing, with particular emphasis on oil painting. She began her professional studies at the Experimental Art School (19972000) where she obtained a technical degree in Visual Arts with a major in painting and graphics. Ofelia later obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts with a painting emphasis (2003-2007) at the University of Chile where she was finally granted the title of professional painter in 2010. Among 2012 and 2014 she lived in London, United Kingdom. Since her graduation from the National Academy of Art in Sofia, Tanya Atanasova has worked in several different media: painting, ceramics, sculptures and installations… She grew up in an environment where different artistic disciplines were in constant interaction. But although she has been drawing and painting all her life (her secondary and BAA educations were art related), she has only discovered her great passion for oil painting in 2016. Inspired, after visiting the studios/taking master classes by some of her most favorite contemporary artists - she decided to become a full time painter. Dedicated to big size non-traditional portraits, she started weaving her way through contemporary realism. She is now working from her own studio in Antwerp – one of Europe’s most important cities for art and culture. In 2018 she is preparing a solo exposition of portraits (to be completed in 2019) and she was pre-selected for some of world’s most remarkable competition such as MEAM Museum’s in Barcelona. In her artistic practice Tanya uses a lot of old and modern painting techniques to create the different “layers” of a personality, character, spirit, presence… Each of her paintings tells a story and she devotes a lot of attention to the construction of her character’s personalities. Being interested in the psychology of her models, the artist wants to become an intermediary between subject and viewer – building a connection that goes beyond painted realism. Her gaze is directed deep into the story of every personage she creates, his/her identity and unique complexity. Looking at the paintings should be like taking a glimpse into the character’s diary or reading a page out of his/her biography. Debra Balchen is a Chicago area artist who specializes in sculpture, drawing, painting, and art glass. Debra was raised in Chicago and has also lived in New York, Italy, South Africa, Kenya and Egypt. Working in a variety of mediums and incorporating the rich cultural diversity discovered while living overseas for 2 decades, Debra utilizes figural narrative as her primary language. Debra wants to engage the viewer in a tactile sense, seeking an emotional connection through a dynamic, shifting interpretation of traditional and alternative uses of material. Sculpting is a process of connection; working from life, the subjects expose their inner landscape through figural gesture and visceral expression. Vulnerability, the immediacy of the material and interpreting the beauty each life possesses become the language that reaches out through every pose. Native Southern Californian, Donna Bates lives and paints in Los Angeles CA. Her years of experience as a commercial illustrator and 3D Artist for over 20 years has evolved into a career in painting. She is a self-taught artist that is known for her urban, edgy, realistic style of strong independent women or “Bad Ass Chicks”. Art and being a creative have dominated Donna Bates’ life who started drawing

as soon as she could pick up a pencil. As with so many creative people, Donna wanted to do it all. Although art was always her driving force, she started playing drums when she was 16 and played in numerous bands. Touring Viet Nam in a USO Show during the war with an all-girl band to playing with bands in the early LA Punk scene in the late 70’s and early 80’s. She then transitioned into computers in the early ‘90s, being one of very few women who entered the male-dominated 3d Animation/VFX field. She went on to be one of the only women to teach CG Modeling at Gnomon School of VFX.

modeling. When she wasn’t walking the runway, she spent endless hours in the great museums of the world, closely observing and studying the works of the Old Masters. “My time abroad, particularly in Paris, opened my eyes to the vast beauty and power of a great painting. After that I knew I wanted to dedicate my life to the pursuit of Fine Art” said Birkenruth. After returning to the States, Kelly studied at Otis College of Art in Los Angeles, CA. She then continued her studies through workshops and private study with renowned artists such as Daniel Sprick, Steven Assael and Jesus Emmanuel Villarreal.

In the last two years Donna has participated in numerous shows, including the prestigious “Women Painting Women” Show at RJD Gallery in the Hamptons and had 3 paintings in the “Woman as Warrior” show at Zhou B Art Center in Chicago curated by PoetsArtists. She recently had a solo show at Gabba Gallery in Los Angeles. She has also been featured in Poets Artists Magazine’s “Figurative Painters of 2016”, “Male Muse”, “The Portrait”, “The New Feminist”, “Woman as Warrior” and “50 Great Figurative Artworks of 2017” issues. She currently has a six-page spread in Poets Artists Magazine’s “PA 10 Year Anniversary” issue and will also be featured in PoetsArtists “Visions of Venus” issue and exhibit at Zhou B Art Center, curated by Dr. Elaine Schmidt of the Bennett Collection and opening April 2018.

Her paintings are in the style of contemporary realism while staying firmly grounded in the tradition of the Old Masters. She is able to pull the viewer into her paintings by interweaving emotion with a humanistic quality through her engineering and handling of light. Through her portraits and still lifes she is able to evoke sensitivity and empathy, which in turn allows her to create images which transcend mere representation to capture the true essence of her subject.

Julie Bell was born in Beaumont, Texas. A former competitive bodybuilder, She applies the same discipline and intensity to her art career. Her knowledge of anatomy has allowed her to imbue her figures of humans and animals with grace and strength. At the heart of her work is an element of empowerment and independence. She has been named a Living Master by the Art Renewal Center. Julie¹s work has appeared on hundreds of book covers, album covers, international advertising campaigns, comic books, trading cards, and numerous collectibles. Her original paintings have been shown in exhibitions across the US and in Europe, and can currently be seen at Legacy Gallery and Montana Trails Gallery in the Western US, American Legacy Fine Arts in Pasadena, CA, and Rehs Contemporary Gallery in New York City. There are three volumes of her work available, Soft as Steel, Hard Curves, The Julie Bell Portfolio, and many books with her husband, Boris Vallejo, such as Fantasy Workshop, Twin Visions, Superheroes, Sketchbook, The Ultimate Collection, Fabulous Women, Imaginistix, and, most recently, Dreamland. Each year, Julie and Boris create a highly anticipated Fantasy calendar together, now in its 38th year, published by Workman Publishing. Lauren Bergman is a painter whose work explores female identity, the vulnerability of wildlife and children, and the fragility of our world amid contemporary cultural shifts. While Bergman was growing up, her feminist mother was a working model, inspiring Bergman to delve into the conflicts and complexities of female identity. Bergmanís work has been featured in publications ranging from The New York Times to Juxtapoz. She has had three solo exhibitions at the O.K. Harris Gallery in New York, which represented her for a decade. Other solo and twoperson exhibitions include Makor Gallery and Tria Gallery in New York and the Corey Helford Gallery in Los Angeles. Her many group shows include Plus One Gallery in London, Carl Hammer Gallery in Chicago, and Jonathan Levine Gallery and Claire Oliver Fine Art in New York. While still in high school, her work was exhibited in the Capricorn Gallery in Washington, D.C., among such renowned American realists as Burton Silverman and Sondra Freckelton. Bergman grew up in Washington metro area, where she studied at the Corcoran School of Art. She earned a Bachelors Degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and her Masters at Smith College before relocating to Manhattan to study painting and design at FIT and The Art Students League. Bergman now lives in a converted pickled herring factory in the West Village and has a studio at Mana Contemporary. Kelly Birkenruth grew up in Northeast Pennsylvania and attended Pennsylvania State University. After graduation she moved to southern California where she began a career as a fashion model. Her agency soon sent her abroad to Paris, Milan and Tokyo, where she spent the next several years

Kelly has won numerous awards and has exhibited her work at The Tucson Desert Art Museum, The Rockwell Museum and The New Britain Museum of American Art. She has been a finalist in The Art Renewal Center International Salon three times and Artist Magazine named her artist of the month for February 2017. Her work is in many public and private collections across the U S. Joe Burns worked as a freelance graphic designer for more than 15 years, doing projects for packaged goods companies, along with corporate logos and other marketing communications design and branding work. But in 2006, inspired by his love of master world portrait painters like John Singer Sargent and renowned artists such as Jeffrey T. Larson, plein air painter Scott Lloyd Anderson and others, Burns went back to school for four years -- painting seven hours daily at The Atelier Studio Program of Fine Arts in Minneapolis. He studied primarily under Dale Redpath and Cyd Walker, who were students of Richard Lack. “Although the Atelier elevated my ability to draw and paint, what I really learned there was how to see, and then how to interpret on canvas what people believe they are seeing,” Burns says of the legendary school with roots in 19th century French Impressionism. “That is really a painter’s goal with any subject matter, I believe. The artist’s job is to convince viewers of their work; that those dabs and brush strokes of color on canvas are really something else!” With a handful of exhibits under his belt, Burns gained more notoriety in the summer of 2013 after painting 57 portraits of neighbors. As a 17 year block captain, he thought, “It would help me to get to know my neighbors even better and serve as a good gesture in community building.” Working three-to-four hours on each neighborly portrait it was the ultimate way to make a connection. But he’s also had a less artistic, more altruistic purpose: “The best thing for me was to get to spend four hours with everyone on the block. You never know where a portrait, or a conversation, is going to lead you. ” For his exhibition Canvasing the Bakken Oil Fields, Burns spent over a month in North Dakota taking four separate trips to Williston, Watford City and driving countless rural roads painting on-site and taking photos. While on site he met numerous people working on drills, in machine shops, in the bars and restaurants and for the local utilities. After working in the field, Burns went to work in his studio to develop large-scale paintings, some as large as 52x28 and 76x19. This is where he met and painted the portrait of The Oil Man. Joe works out of his studio above the garage in Southwest, Minneapolis neighborhood, where he lives with his wife Kris. His studio is always open to visitors, and currently he is working on his next show called Facing America, a collection of portraits of immigrants and their stories of coming to the land of opportunity. Lucas Bononi (b. 1991) was educated at Academy of Art University San

Francisco (2012 - 16) and is attending the core program of Grand Central Atelier. His work explores the mystery of ontology through discovery and interaction. Having studied art since an early age Lucas found a love for oil painting, his primary medium. Currently, he is showing full time with Waterhouse Gallery, Santa Barbara and is displayed in the MEAM Museum of Barcelona. Mike Brewer has lived most of his life in Norfolk and Virginia Beach. He has a Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree with a Major in Studio Art from Old Dominion University. Vincent Castagnacci, Tony Cacalano, Ernest Mauer, Vic Picket and Ken Daley were his professors. He has studied with Richard Whitney a classically trained artist and one of the country’s leading portrait artists. He has taken many Studio Incamminati workshops. Mike’s portraits include former Eastern Virginia Medical School President, Dr. Edward Brickell, opera conductor, maestro Walter Atanassi, President of Colonna’s Shipyard Tom Godfrey, and philanthropist Leonard Strelitz. Besides painting Mike has worked in advertising, publishing, printing and banking as a business owner, manager and account executive. Now Mike has escaped the distractions of the business world and spends most of his time painting. With this extra time, in addition to his portrait commissions, he is experimenting with landscapes, nudes and still life. Mike also finds artistic outlet in cooking and gardening. Mike is a member of the Tidewater Arts Alliance and the Portrait Society of America. Ali Cavanaugh (American, b. 1973) is an internationally represented fine artist. She studied painting at Kendall College of Art and Design and the New York Studio Residency Program in New York City, earning a BFA from Kendall College of Art and Design in 1995. At the age of 22, she co-founded an atelier -The New School Academy of Fine Art- in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She relocated to Santa Fe, New Mexico in 2001. It was during her six years in Santa Fe that she developed her modern fresco process on kaolin clay. Her paintings have been the subject of numerous national and international solo and group exhibitions. Cavanaugh’s paintings have been featured on book covers, countless internet features such as the Huffington Post, Fine Art Connoisseur, Artsy and in numerous print publications including The New York Times Magazine, American Art Collector, American Artist Watercolor. She has painted portraits for TIME magazine and The New York Times. Her work is featured in more than 400 private and corporate collections throughout the North America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. She currently lives in St Louis, Missouri with her husband and their four children. José Luis Ceña was born in Málaga in 1982. He was awarded a grant from The Royal Mint to study Engraving and Graphic Design. Part of his iconography emerges from his thoughts based on readings or experiences he needs to represent to be remembered. Open compositions and silhouettes are part of his series as is the concrete left behind to serve as an amotion and perception and a chance for narration. Shaina Craft is a visual artist who lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She graduated with an MFA from The New York Academy of Art in 2015 and a BFA from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2011. Shaina creates figurative oil paintings and works on paper that explore contemporary and classical techniques. Shaina’s painting “Wonder” was recently on view at the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art for their inaugural exhibition, curated by Alyssa Monks. She has also recently received the Blick/ InLiquid Microgrant for her series of Petite Paintings. Her work has been shown at galleries across the United States including First Street Gallery, Limner Gallery, and Pentimenti, as well as the Affordable Art Fair NYC with SaatchiArt. Shaina exhibited in a group show of drawings at Lacey & Phillips curated by InLiquid in early 2017. In 2016, her piece ‘Scatter’ won 3rd place at the Philadelphia Sketch Club’s Works on Paper exhibition and her painting was chosen for the “Art of the State” exhibition at the PA State Museum in Harrisburg in late 2014. Shaina’s work has been recognized by publications such as Juxtapoz, Curve Magazine, Hi Fructose, and Blisss Magazine. Steven DaLuz (b. 1953) is known for figurative works and imagined landscapes, using both encaustic, and a process he devised with metal leaf, oil, and mixed media. Born in Hanford, California, Steve retired from

the Air Force after living 14 years abroad. He completed a BA degree in Social Psychology, and an MA degree in Management, before earning a BFA in 2003. Identified as a “contemporary Luminist” in Wikipedia, his work is in private and corporate collections in 34 States and overseas. He has exhibited internationally, and has been published in art books, and magazines, such as Art in America, American Art Collector, Fine Art Connoisseur, The Huffington Post, Encaustic Art, Professional Artist, the International Drawing Annual, and The Artists. He is a frequent guest curator for Poets Artists magazine. A finalist for the prestigious 2015 Hunting Art Prize, DaLuz is represented by AnArte Gallery in San Antonio, Texas. Joshua Dean has shown in NYC galleries, Saatchi’s Other Art Fair and the Chelsea Art Museum. His work is in the private collections of The Clearing House and the CEO of ExxonMobil. He has been published in PoetsArtists Magazine, Create! Magazine and the London A5, Wotisart and Average Art Magazines. He will appear this summer in Flowers Gallery’s presentation of The New York Academy of Art’s Summer Exhibition and the Contemporary Museum of Art in Wausau, WI. Painting in a photorealistic manner, the Brooklyn based artist chooses imagery from social media and the culture succeeding the information age. His work investigates how photography’s ubiquity substitutes for cultural memory. Highlighting media driven advertisements, home movies and the history of photography, he hopes to expand an awareness of these tableau. Drawing from Pop Art influences, the young painter developed an appreciation for social commentary. Seeing the significance of both traditional and postmodern painting, he devised a plan to join the two by digitally reinterpreting the techniques of Master painters. He paints like a printer. Marc Dennis is an American artist known for his hyper-realistic paintings that celebrate the subversive potential of beauty and explore the charged subjects of identity, pleasure and decadence. Interested in transformative possibilities Dennis merges various movements throughout the western art historical canon with modern tropes in order to create clever, provocative and symbolic contemporary paintings that play on our psychological and cultural relationships. Inspired by old masters such as Caravaggio and Velasquez, and influenced by contemporary culture, Dennis introduces us to an alternate reality rich with hype, narrative and humor where art, history, politics and modern lifestyles intersect. Born in Danvers, Massachusetts in 1971, Dennis was one of five sons. He received his B.F.A. from Tyler School of Art of Temple University in Philadelphia, PA and his M.F.A. from The University of Texas at Austin. He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His works have been included in numerous group and solo exhibitions in New York, London, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami, Boston, Houston and Seattle among others. His works are in numerous private and public collections, including those of John and Amy Phelan, Glenn and Amanda Fuhrman, Bill and Maria Bell, Beth DeWoody, Larry Gagosian, Larry and Marilyn Fields, David and Jennifer Stockman, Carl and Donna Hessel, Anders Hedin, Bill Hair, Courtney and Karen Lord, Nancy Rogers, Sean and Tammy McCarthy, The Neuberger Berman Collection, New York; The Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin; The Springfield Museum of Art, Ohio, and the Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University, Palo Alto, California among others. Hollis Dunlap was born in 1977 in Northern Vermont, USA, and has been painting since the age of 14. After beginning his study of realist painting in high school, he went on to study at the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts, graduating in 1999 after painting and drawing the figure extensively for four years. While at the Academy, he was the first painter to be awarded First Prize at New York’s National Arts Club student exhibition for two consecutive years. Hollis was the recipient of the John Stobart Fellowship, awarded each year to a graduating student in recognition of outstanding work, and he is also a 2 time grantee of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation. His latest work focuses on combining elements of realist painting with abstraction and experimental color and paint application. He has had numerous solo shows in New York, Boston, San Francisco, and Miami, and currently paints and teaches

painting in Southeastern CT. David J. Eichenberg received a BFA in sculpture and painting from the University of Toledo. His works have been exhibited in museums around the world including such exhibitions as the Outwin-Boochever National Portrait Competition 2009 (US NPG, Washigton, D.C), The BP Portrait Award (UK NPG) 2010, 2011, and 2012, The Realism Biennial 2012 (US, Fort Wayne Museum) The Figurativas 13’ and 15’ (MEAM in Barcelona, Spain). David received a BP Portrait Award in 2010 for his piece “Tim II” as well as 1st place in The Realism Biennial 2012 and 1st place in the Figutativas 17’ at the MEAM in Barcelona, Spain. David is represented by Robert Lange Studios in Charleston, SC and Fairfax Gallery in Hampstead, UK. Teresa Elliott is an American realist painter living and working in her desert studio north of the Big Bend National Park in Alpine, Texas. Today, she is best known for portraits of bovines and figurative paintings immersed in the natural rural environment in the Southwest. Her family of origin settled in Texas in the 1800’s, working a farm with Angus cattle and pecan orchards. A fascination with livestock and Texas countryside colored her world then, and has continued to inspire her fine art today. Yearly family vacations to the farm from her home in the midwest kept her interested in the gritty lifestyle of farm life that has influenced her work to this day. After completing a Fine Art BFA from the University Of Kansas she moved to Dallas, Texas working as an artist designing intricate scroll work for Colt, Winchester firearms and Buck knives for an etching company. Soon, she saw an opportunity to become self employed as a graphic designer and illustrator. Many years as an illustrator prepared her for her true calling as a fine art painter, especially after discovering the Texas Longhorn with all their many colorful attributes living near her home in suburban north Texas. In 2006, she had a sold out gallery show in Ft. Worth, Texas which launched her career and afforded her to devote everyday to her studio practice. Her studio in the hills of the Big Bend region of West Texas sits on a bed of ancient lava rock looking over a vast old ranch now vacant. The wandering javelina herds, deer and turkey are frequent visitors at her studio reminding her of her favorite quote from John Muir, “When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it connected to the rest of the world.” Debilynn Fendley is an interdisciplinary artist working in printmaking, drawing, painting, and photography. She holds graduated degrees in art and English as well as an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art from Goddard College in Vermont. She works as both a documentarian and conceptual realist, preferring to work within cultural subgroups to produce work inspired by and about the ideas and the people she finds there. She says, “My work comes from the premise that I can — and do — use my art as a means of social and spiritual exploration. I work with cultural subgroups, and the process of forming bonds with them and of listening to their stories and ideas is as much a part of my art as the end product. The work I produce — prints, paintings, drawings, and photographs — is a direct result of the way the interaction with my models change me as a person, either strengthening my ideas or altering them altogether.” Denise M. Fulton grew up in Ohio, where she earned a BA in journalism and a BFA in graphic design and painting. After graduation, she went to work as an interface designer at Microsoft. She remained in the corporate world for nearly twenty years, working for companies such as DreamWorks and Electronic Arts, managing creative teams working on multi-million dollar projects. In her free time she continued to develop her art. Finally recognizing this as her vocation, she began her professional fine-art career in 2009. Since then, she has exhibited her work in shows across the country. Denise lives and works in Austin, Texas, where she is represented by Davis Gallery. She is the director and co-founder of Atelier Dojo, Austin’s new realist art studio. Santiago Galeas was born to parents from Peru and El Salvador, and currently lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His work uses a diverse range of subjects that address varying concepts in portraiture, often including LGBTQ

and racial issues. Galeas believes that the contemporary figurative painting scene is severely lacking in its diversity and his work brings a light to those who are often underrepresented. Many of his figures dissect the diaspora of Latino race and culture, and question our place within American culture. Galeas has exhibited in a number of group and solo exhibitions in Pennsylvania, Florida, and Colorado, and has an upcoming exhibition in Guayaquil, Ecuador. Recently he was invited to attend artist residencies in Mexico, Ecuador, and Philadelphia. Aside from exhibiting, publications have been showcasing his work including The Huffington Post, the cover of PoetsArtists, and several local newspaper sources. Sergio Gomez is a Chicago based visual artist, curator and creative entrepreneur. He received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Northern Illinois University. Sergio’s work has been subject of over 40 solo exhibitions and has participated in over 150 group exhibitions in the US and abroad. His work has been exhibited in Italy, Spain, Sweden, Egypt, England, Austria, Korea, Belgium, Mexico and the US. His work can be found in private and public collections of the National Museum of Mexican Art, Brauer Art Museum, and the MIIT Museo Internazionale Italia Arte among other public and private collections. Besides his ample studio practice, Sergio Gomez is the founder/director of 33 Contemporary Gallery, curator/director of exhibitions at the Zhou B. Art Center, contributor for Italia Arte Magazine, Art/Design faculty at South Suburban College, co-founder of the Art NXT Level Program which helps artists launch and succeed in their art career. Barbara Hack’s work is an ongoing reflection of people and their emotions. Working predominantly in painting media, Barbara relishes the challenge of realistic portraiture, and her subject matter reflects her passion for figurative work. But she pushes beyond realism as she captures resonant yet fleeting moments. Her work pursues the moods and context of figures. These ephemeral figures are momentary presences that are nonetheless powerful enough to make lasting, formative, impressions. Barbara’s mission is to share her understanding of these figures and their ephemerality with others. Barbara received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in drawing and painting after intensive study in Europe and additional training in New York. Since then, she has continued to harness her artistic talents to drive her professional career. Working in portraiture, fashion illustration, and as a courtroom artist have challenged Barbara to find alternative contexts for figurative artistry, and in a variety of media, including charcoal, pastels, and oils. Her work has been included in numerous invitational and juried shows. Dana Hawk grew up in rural Missouri and attended Southwest Missouri State University, intially as an art student but switched to Cell and Molecular Biology her sophmore year. She went on to University of Colorado, receiving a M.S. in Physical Therapy and practiced in the field for over a decade. She took up oil painting in 2003, experimenting in many styles but sticking to realism, and quickly received requests for canine portraits, which she still does today, and has been published in many magazines such as The Artist’s Magazine, Metropolitan Magazine, and New Barker. Although largely self-taught, Dana has committed to improving her art through workshops with Jenny Morgan, Paul McCormack, Lee Price, Stephen Bauman, and Adam Miller. Her realistic paintings of people and animals, with a touch of whimsy at times, can be seen at Abend Gallery in Denver, West End Gallery in Corning, New York ,and at her website, danahawk.com. Misty Hawkins grew up in San Diego, California. Her work explores personal identiy in intimate portraits and nudes. Her models are often friends, if not herself. At an early age she started drawing, with an interest in faces, using magazines and books. Later this grew into an awareness of cultural ideas about the body informed by personal research and classes. In college she focused on Life drawing, painting, and literature courses and received a BA in Painting from San Diego State University. Misty had a desire to continue her formal study in art and experience living on the east coast. She moved Philadelphia to complete a Master’s degree in Painting and Drawing from Tyler School of Art at Temple University in 2003. Next she lived and worked in Brooklyn and New York, mainly inspired to visit the museums and galleries.

Misty returned to San Diego in 2005 to teach drawing courses for the San Diego Community College District and live close to family. She continues to paint in a private studio and exhibit her work. Patrick Earl Hammie is a visual artist best known for his large-scale portrait and figurative paintings that draw from art history and visual culture to examine cultural identity, social equity, and critical aspects of gender and race today. Considering such conventions in a contemporary context, he delivers fresh ideals of bodies of color and women that both disturb the existing cannon and normalize the presence of those figures in public art space and discourse. His work has been exhibited in galleries throughout the U.S. and abroad, and he has received awards and grants from Alliance of Artists Communities with the Joyce Foundation, Indianapolis Art Center, Puffin Foundation, Tanne Foundation, University of Illinois, Wellesley College, and Zhou B. Art Center. His work is a part of several prominent collections including the Kohler Company Collection, JPMorgan Chase Art Collection, John Michael Kohler Art Center, and William Benton Museum of Art. He has been an artist-in-residence at the John Michael Kohler Art Center and was named an “Artist to Watch” by the International Review of African American Art. His work was recently featured on the cover of Obsidian vol 43.1, and appeared in 125th issue of Transition Magazine. Hammie received his BA in Drawing from Coker College and MFA in Painting from the University of Connecticut. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Jo Hay is a contemporary British American portrait painter whose work focuses on acknowledging human courage characterized by those who dare to stand up and express who they are or what they believe. Inspired by the current political climate and wishing to strengthen the voice of women and girls, Hay is working on an ongoing series of large scale, oil on canvas portrait paintings titled Persisters. They feature outstanding women who have made an impression with their tenacious resolve to succeed in their pursuit of justice as they perceive it. Originally from Newcastle Upon-Tyne, England, she received her BA from Middlesex University, London, UK and her MFA from the New York Academy of Art, NY, NY. Hay lives and works in Provincetown, MA and has taught painting and drawing at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum (PAAM) and the Fine Arts Work Center (FAWC). Hay was the first recipient of the Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Foundation Grant 2010, sponsored in part by PAAM and the recipient of the New York Academy of Art Portrait Scholarship 2011. Her portrait from her Benders series entitled Dodger, was a semi-finalist in the BP Portrait Award 2015 at the National Gallery in London. Hay’s work was a finalist in Art For Freedom: A Global Initiative encouraging creative expression that brings awareness to Human Rights Violations juried by Madonna. Hay was also the featured subject of a documentary “She is Juiced” by British director Lois Norman. It was screened at The Tate Modern in 2017 as part of the groundbreaking “Queer Britain” Exhibition and the “London Pride” launch 2017. “She Is Juiced” has recently been awarded Best Art Film at New Renaissance Amsterdam, Best Feature Documentary at Brighton Rocks, UK and was a finalist at Carmarthen Bay Film Festival. Hay’s work has been featured in numerous publications including Charleston City Paper, Provincetown Arts Magazine, The Boston Globe, Time Out NY, Provincetown Banner, Provincetown Magazine, Bedford Magazine and Artists of the South. Born 1955 in Baltimore, F Scott Hess studied at the UW-Madison & the Vienna Academy of Fine Art. He exhibited in Austria, Germany, and France before moving to Los Angeles for his first American solo exhibition in 1985, followed by hundreds of group and solo exhibitions. His work is included in the collections of the LA County Museum of Art, Orange County Museum of Art, Long Beach Museum of Art, San Jose Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian Institute, among others. He has received a Theodor Koerner Award, Western States Art Federation award, a J. Paul Getty Fellowship, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Hess’ 2014 retrospective (Cal State Fullerton, & the Municipal Art Gallery of Los Angeles) was accompanied by

a monograph of 40 years of his work. The Paternal Suit; Heirlooms from the F Scott Hess Family Foundation toured five museums in the United States. Hess is represented by Koplin Del Rio in Seattle.

collectors and corporations such as Scholastic Inc. and has been published in PoetsArtists. Maria’s drawings have appeared in Artists Magazine winning second prize in the Shades of Gray competition.

the Dutch Portrait Award and shortlisted for the Figurativas 2017 MEAM in Barcelona. Additionally, Her work was published in the Austrian art magazine Milionart Kaleidoscope.

David Hummer is the Founder, Executive Director, and Curator at the Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art, (WMOCA), in the newly renovated historic Wausau Club, bringing National and International Art to North Central Wisconsin. He also owns and has operated The Bauhaus, LLC painting studio for over 6 years instructing beginners through advanced painters in color theory and paint application. His own paintings, as a self-represented artist of over 30 years are included in many private and corporate permanent collections throughout the US including The International Brotherhood of Teamsters, The United Association, the Honorable George W. Bush, the Acuity Collection, Light America, The BA & Esther Greenheck Foundation, the Dudley Foundation, and EO Johnson Company. His works have taken best of show awards in State and Regional juried exhibits including the Contemporary Arts Collective of Las Vegas. His vision for WMOCA matches that of his own works, focusing on contemporary figurative painting. He also provides Participatory Art Workshops for Children with Special Needs, Marathon County Veterans suffering from PTSD, and most recently Addicts in Recovery at NCHC through the new non-profit organization, Rise Up.

Molly Judd born 1991, is an Irish Contemporary Representational painter who began her studies at 18 at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy.

Brock Larson first began drawing at a very early age under the guidance of his father, Jeffrey T. Larson. He started his training in high-school with Charles Bargue copies, master copies and cast drawings before moving to Minneapolis to pursue a formal classical education at The Atelier Program of Fine Art, where he studied full-time for five years. In his final year of school, Brock began teaching part-time classes in which he continued before moving to his hometown area of Duluth, MN, to help his father establish and to codirect at the Great Lakes Academy of Fine Art in 2016. Recent honors include:Two ARC scholarships, an ARC salon finalist award, and is selected as the Minnesota State Bar Association’s presidential annual portrait painter. Brock’s work is represented through Collins Gallery in Cape Cod, MA, as well as Edgewood Orchard Gallery in Door Country, WI.

John Hyland is a painter in New York City, specializing in portraits, figure studies, landscapes, seascapes, interiors, exteriors and still-lifes in oil and pencil, though if he had to limit it to just one, it would be portraits. His work has been shown in New York, San Francisco, Budapest, Paris and New Jersey and on Block Island in Rhode Island. A native of Forestville, Conn., John is largely self-taught, inspired by the works of Sargent, Sorolla, Zorn, Mancini and Van Gogh, as well as the Russian master Ilya Repin and the American painters Charles Harold Davis, Nelson Cooke White and Helen Van Wyk, whose televised and taped painting lessons played a formative role.

This year Judd will exhibit for the first time in the US at the Florence Academy of Art in a group drawing exhibition this Spring and as part of the ARC Salon’s traveling exhibition beginning in the Salmagundi Club, New York and traveling to Sotheby’s in Los Angeles in the Fall.

A graduate of the College of the Holy Cross, John recently retired from a lengthy career in journalism, most recently as an editor and manager at The New York Times and before that as a reporter and editor at The Hartford Courant in Connecticut. After years of balancing the reporter’s notebook in one hand and the painter’s palette in the other, he can now finally concentrate solely on art. John welcomes commissions. He makes his home and studio in the sky in an Old World-style penthouse in Tudor City in Midtown Manhattan, where the views inspire every day.

Along with studies in painting, Lisa’s interests extend to Alchemy and philosophy, the symbolisms of which often find their way into the paintings, lending the works a certain balance that resonates with the strength of character and beauty she strives to achieve in her work.

Jason John has been affiliated with Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA and Arcadia Gallery in New York. Jason’s work has been on the front covers of Blue Canvas Magazine, Art Calendar, Poets and Artists Magazine, Visual Arts Overture Magazine, and Weave Magazine. Jason’s work has been featured in American Arts Quarterly, American Art Collector Magazine, Manifest Gallery’s International Painting books 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, Studio Visit Magazine, Creative Quarterly Magazine, and Aesthetica Magazine. Jason participated in the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville’s exhibition ‘Get Real’, curated by Ben Thompson and was included in the Huntsville Museum of Art’s exhibition, Red Clay Survey. Jason has participated in 100 exhibitions in the last 6 years. Maria Jimenez was born in New York City and is a contemporary representational artist. While working towards her undergraduate degree at the School of Visual Arts, she began working as a freelancer illustrating trade and mass-market paperback covers. After graduating, Maria studied in academic schools such as the New York Academy and National Academy and was awarded a residency scholarship at the Vermont Studio School. She currently divides her time between teaching high school and pursuing painting. Maria Jimenez’ objective in her work is to capture the essence of people in an arresting moment and/or portraits of people in everyday situations. Last year she completed her MFA at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Her paintings and drawings have appeared in National exhibitions and juried competitions including the Long Island Museum, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Gallery, Salmagundi Club, and Museum of American Illustration winning the Richard Amsel Memorial award. She was also awarded a grant from The Elizabeth T. Greenshields Foundation. Her work is owned by private

In 2011, she began an apprenticeship with World renowned painter Odd Nerdrum. Judd studied with Nerdrum at his Atelier in both Norway and Paris from 2011 to 2013. Judd has received many awards for her work in both Europe and the US, being awarded first place in the Mod portrait competition in Spain as well as receiving the Henessy Craig Scholarship and the Irish UScouncil Portrait Award at the RHA’s Annual Exhibition in Ireland. This year she has received an Honorable mention in the figurative category of the ARC salons 13th International Competition also winning first place in the graphite section of the Artists Magazine All Media competition in the US. Judd aims to create work with a timeless archetypal quality through dramatic representations of the human condition, using the palette and techniques of the Old Masters. Judd works from her home in the Irish countryside, her subjects for her narrative paintings and drawings are friends and relatives and the places around her.

Lisa Keay is a Canadian figurative painter born on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia in 1976. Lisa was introduced to oil painting at 16 years of age by artist Judith Luke and later attended the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She now works and teaches from her studio in Fall River, NS.

“My paintings are a reflection of my innermost understanding of what I believe to be philosophical truths. As I explore ancient theories and esoteric teachings and symbolisms I create allegories visually in my mind as a way of putting it all together in a conceptual way. Over time these become the narratives in my paintings, personified by the figure. Allegory, symbolisms and the use of metal leafing have become the forefront in my paintings all the while maintaining a beauty and captivating quality. The subject matter is most often carried by the female form and the underlying meanings are most often subtle enough to be left as a beautiful mystery or recognizable to the discerning eye as it is in mythologies, encouraging the viewer to look deeper.” Cameron Jon Knutson is a portrait oil artist best known for his hyper realistic portrayals of various mythological characters via the oil painting medium. Through his work, Cameron explores new ways to reinterpret these ancient archetypes through contemporary lenses. Francien Krieg [1973] is a Dutch artist who lives in the countryside in the middle of The Netherlands with her two children and husband, working fulltime in her studio. She graduated in 1998 from the Royal art academy in The Hague, study course Monumental art. That brought her to think conceptually and she discovered her fascination for the human body. Francien Krieg expressed her thoughts in these academic years with meat installations and human skins made of rubber. A few years later, she picked up her passion for painting at The Free Academy of The Hague. She expressed her fascination for the human body into paintings with strange body perspectives. Soon her work was picked up by art collectors and art galleries. Her work became part the Dutch art collections like ING Collection and the former Scheringa collection. Francien has shown at Scope Basel, art fair Realisme Amsterdam, Robert Lange Studios Charleston USA, Zhou B Art Center, Townsend atelier and recently an exhibition at Gallery Beinart. In 2017, she was nominated for

Dave Lebow is a representational painter, illustrator and teacher. Born in 1955 in Oklahoma, he has a BFA in Painting from Boston University and an MFA in Experimental Animation from Cal Arts. He studied in Los Angeles with Harry Carmean and Glenn Vilpuu and privately in New York with Burton Silverman and at the Art Students League with Robert Beverly Hale, David Leffel, Daniel Green, Robert Philipp, and Robert Brackman. In 2000, Dave left painting to work in animation. He went back to painting full time in 2009 and devoted himself to more imaginative, surreal and expressive subject matter. His work was included in the Southwest 90 exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico and in the HEY! Modern art & pop culture Act III, Collective exhibition in the Halle Saint Pierre Museum Paris, France. Rebecca Leveille is a contemporary artist working in a figurative mode. Freely mining both art historical sources and contemporary painting she cites influences ranging from Titian to Walter Robinson, from Fragonard to Kara Walker. Her practice involves a translation of pictorial practices and inner mythologies through her distinctive ability to compose lyrically gestured figures largely from imagination. Leveille’s facility with the figure and drawing was the center of her successes as an illustrator in the 1990’s until 2011. As an illustrator under the name Rebecca Guay she received numerous awards, and was featured as a special guest in events in Japan, Australia, Italy, Spain, and France as well as around the U.S. . Her prior work in illustration is in several museum collections including the permanent collection of the American Museum of Illustration at the Society of Illustrators in New York City, and she maintains a position on the LOW committee that stewards the Illustration collection at the New Britain Museum of Art. Breaking out of the prescriptive narrative mode of illustration her relationship to language persists yet the narrative potentials in her current work are subverted by her determination to create that which is poetic rather than literal. These personally driven explorations delve into sensuality, the female gaze, media imagery, and Art World social phenomena. A constant subtext of Leveille’s art is her relationship to materials. Thick buttery paint forms the confident wide lines of the drawing in her oils. Washes drift below impastos. Pencil and graphite powder bear force of mark and streak. The assertion of materials never overwhelms the creation of pictures yet it forms an ever-present and voluptuous tactility with meanings of its own. Leveille’s art has garnered words of praise from Jerry Saltz, Walter Robinson, and Peter Frank. Her work has been exhibited around the country including several previous group shows with the Untitled Space curated by Indira Cesarine (One Year of Resistance, Secret Garden: The Female Gaze on Erotica, She Inspires, and Uprise) The LBIF Annual Drawing Exhibition 2017 Juried by the Whitney Museum’s Jane Panetta and The Spring Break Art Show 2018. Additional group shows include the Allentown Museum of Art, PA, Delaware Art Museum, DE, MA, Jonathan Levine Gallery, NY, Abend Gallery, CO, the Corey Helford Gallery, LA, and The Center for Contemporary Art, Sante Fe, NM. Other exhibitions include solo shows at: Corey Helford Gallery, LA, Site:Brooklyn Gallery, NY, and the Michelson Gallery, MA. Rebecca Leveille currently lives in Western Massachusetts with her husband and daughter.

Gayle Madeira is a contemporary artist who paints in the classical tradition. She lives and works in Astoria Queens, New York City. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Art from the State University of New York, College at Purchase (1992) and has also studied anatomy, drawing, and painting at the Art Student’s League, School of Visual Arts, Grand Central Academy, New York Academy of Art, and Salmagundi Club. Gayle’s work has been exhibited at The National Arts Club, Salmagundi Club, Williamsburg Art and Historical Center, Principle Gallery, Foundation Gallery, and the New York Hall of Science, among others. Her paintings have appeared in various magazines, books, and films and have been finalists in the Artist’s Magazine (2009, 2015), the Art Renewal Center’s juried salons (2015, 2016, 2017), and the Portrait Society of America (2016) competitions, among others. Stephen Mangum is a representational painter born in 1954 in Mississippi and currently living and working in San Francisco, California. After studying painting as a young man, he pursued creative writing at Washington & Lee University and then switched majors and earned a degree in finance. Over the next 35 years, he rose to become CFO of several major international retail companies. In 2012, he made the decision to change careers and return to painting. Two years later, he enrolled in the San Francisco Art Institute with a merit scholarship, was awarded an honors studio, and earned a BFA. Subsequently, he has been juried into and won awards in numerous competitions in the U.S. In 2017, he was a finalist in two categories of The Artist’s Magazine’s 34th Annual Competition. His work has recently been published in the Circle Quarterly Art Review, Create!, Studio Visit, and Artist Portfolio Magazine. Painting directly in an expressive realism style across figurative, portrait and still life formats, he pushes the boundaries of color and light to create contemporary phrases in the verse of life. His work is in private collections across the U.S. Susannah Martin was born in New York City in 1964. She studied at New York University and received a SEHNAP scholarship for painting. Among her most notable teachers there were; John Kacere, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine and Peter Campus. Following her studies she was self-employed as a muralist and painter of sets for film and photography in New York, Berlin Germany and finally Frankfurt am Main where she currently lives and works. In 2004 she returned to fine art and portraiture. Over the last years her work has focused exclusively on contemporizing the classical subject of the nude in landscape. Avoiding a falsely idyllic scenario, her work focuses on mans´ estrangement from nature. The figures may appear absurd stripped of all social indicators and possessions or ecstatic in unexpected reunification with their natural selves. Martins´ work creates a stage in which mans´ struggle between the two poles of his identity, the natural and the synthetic, may be contemplated. Her work is exhibited internationally throughout Europe and the United States of America. Edgar Mendoza was the winner of the First Prize of Portrait ModPortrair gallery artelibre in 2013. His painting is part of the collection of the MEAM European Museum of Modern Art in Barcelona, as ​​ well as private collections in Spain and Mexico. He was part of the painters of the Gallery Santiago Echeberria in Madrid. He has participated in art fairs like ARTmadrid and in the competitions of the Foundation of Arts and Artists, obtaining Honorable Mention in 2008 with his painting “La merienda”. His collective exhibitions stand out in the MEAM, in the MUA University Museum of Alicante as well as his individual exhibition in the Godoy World Art Gallery in Madrid in 2007. Currently lives in Alicante Spain. Erin Milan was born in a small town in Kansas. She graduated from Azusa Pacific University in Los Angeles where she studied painting. After a hiatus from painting to focus on having children and on family, she is painting full time from her studio on Mercer Island, near Seattle. Milan’s high realism figurative oil paintings explore desire, nourishment, and loss, and what it feels like to be human. She hopes her work expresses the value of the human, and especially female, form. Her work has recently been exhibited at RJD Gallery in New York, the new Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art, Sirona Fine Art, as well as Suzanne Zahr near Seattle for a solo exhibit

Katie Miller is an American artist born in 1984. She is best known for her colorful, hyperrealistic oil paintings of children. She was raised in New Hampshire, Florida, and California. Miller graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art in 2007, with a BFA in painting and a minor in art history. She studied traditional fresco and egg tempera in Umbria, Italy, at the International School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture. Miller earned her MFA from Hoffberger School of Painting, Maryland Institute College of Art in 2011. Miller’s first two solo exhibitions were at Connersmith in Washington, DC. Her work has been shown in art fairs including Pulse Miami, Volta Basel, The Armory Show, (e)merge, and Art Palm Beach. Group exhibitions include the Smithsonian Institution, Fort Wayne Museum of Art, and 21c Museums. She is a winner of the Wynn Newhouse Award and an artist grant from the State of Maryland. Her work has been published or reviewed in publications including The Washington Post, Washington City Paper, New American Paintings, and PoetsArtists. Miller’s works are represented in public and private collections internationally, including The Rubell Family Collection, Miami, and 21C Museum Hotels. Miller lives in Maryland and works as an artist full-time. Miguel Angel Moya was born in Valencia in 1970. He began his Fine Arts degree at the Facultad Politécnica de Valencia in the late 80s, giving up two years later, disappointed by the method of teaching at the Faculty. Around the same time he met the realistic painter Francisco Ugeda, in whose workshop he learned the technical fundamentals of painting. In 1992 he has his first exhibition in Denia, Spain. Moya also studied the Violin receiving an advanced degree in the discipline. He combined painting with his work as a musician for years, but left the violin in 2002 to fully focus on his career as a painter. Since then, Moya has exhibited his work across Europe, United States and China. In 2008 he had his first solo exhibition in Madrid (Santiago Echeberría Gallery) in 2011 he had a solo exhibition in New York. In 2014, Line and Stylish Art Magazine chose him between the seven most outstanding figurative artist born after 1970 in Spain. His painting is characterized by a realistic language that does not bow to matter or gesture. In his work we can find influences from the baroque European masters to contemporary artists. After an initial period marked by musical themes, his interests in Jungian psychology and alchemy gave rise to a series of works with a symbolic charge, sometimes obvious and others more subtle, as in his series of Indoor Scenes. At the end of 2013, his subject matter was still lifes with biological content, where marine creatures appear in a mysterious atmosphere, sometimes as scientific collections. In 2015 Miguel Angel began showing with Arcadia Contemporary. Chicago-based symbolist painter Jason E. McPhillips creates enigmatic images inspired by the intersection of myth, perception, and scientific theory. Beginning his career as an aspiring filmmaker, he found himself called to drawing, painting, and sculpture while visualizing his short films. His passion for figurative subjects led him to continue his studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. Concentrating on artistic anatomy, landscape, and the illusionistic methods of the renaissance, he developed his aesthetic through a close study of nature. He launched his painting career in 2003, with a project entitled “Travelogue”. Painting and journaling daily, he traversed twenty-five states, exploring without and within. He exhibited the paintings alongside journal excerpts and musings on his experiences. Landscape remains at the core of his practice. Between 2013 and 2017, Jason worked closely with Galerie Fledermaus in Chicago as Artist Liaison, drawing inspiration from fin de siècle masterworks in the gallery’s holdings. He has exhibited nationally, placing work in many prestigious private collections. McPhillips’ most recent works employ metal leaf and relief effects such as pastiglia and sgraphitto, exploring the tension between illusionistic space and decorative effect. Much like gold leaf in a Russian icon, the gilded surfaces function as reminders of the divine light that surrounds us all. Tim Okamura investigates identity, the urban environment, metaphor, and cultural iconography through a unique method of painting – one that combines an essentially ‘realist’ approach to the figure with collage, spray paint and mixed media. The juxtaposition of the rawness and urgency of street

art and academic ideals has created a visual language that acknowledges a traditional form of story-telling through portraiture, while infusing the work with resonant contemporary motifs. Okamura – a recipient of the 2004 Fellowship in Painting from the New York Foundation for the Arts – has exhibited extensively in galleries throughout the world, including the U.S., Canada, Italy, Japan, Ecuador and Turkey, and has been selected nine times to appear in the prestigious BP Portrait Award Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London, England. In 2006, Okamura was short-listed by the Royal Surveyor of the Queen’s Picture Collection for a commissioned portrait of the Queen of England. In 2013, the University of North Carolina hosted a retrospective exhibition of Okamura’s work that focused on nearly a decade of production. In 2015, Okamura received a letter of commendation from the Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden. He was honored in 2016 to have a piece hanging in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Tim Okamura’s art is on display in the permanent collections of the Davis Museum at Wellesley College, The Alberta Foundation for the Arts, the Toronto Congress Center, the Hotel Arts in Calgary, Canada, and Standard Chartered Bank in London, England. Celebrity collectors include Uma Thurman, musicians John Mellencamp, Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson (The Roots), director Ben Younger, as well as actors Bryan Greenberg, Vanessa Marcil, Annabella Sciorra, and Ethan Hawke. Omalix is a figurative painter born in Valencia, Venezuela and based in Orlando, FL. She graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Central Florida where she earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in Painting. Her work has been shown in various group exhibitions in galleries around the country including RJD Gallery, Bernarducci Meisel Gallery and the Zhou B Art Center, as well as in a solo show at Sirona Fine Art Gallery, and it has been featured in The Huffington Post, American Art Collector Magazine and PoetsArtists. She was a finalist in two different categories in the 12th Annual international ARC Salon Competition hosted by the Art Renewal Center. She also recently participated in the 21st edition of Art Palm Beach International Fair in an exhibition curated by Didi Menendez. Victoria Selbach is a New York painter best known for her powerful larger than life-size images of contemporary women. Her gaze is directed through a deep connection to the individuals who carry their unique strength and beauty into the paintings. Selbach’s work enables her to better understand and champion the diversity, complexity and trajectory of contemporary women. Her work celebrates the immense potential of embracing the individual and maximizing the universal feminine. Selbach’s work has exhibited in museums and galleries nationally, including the Heckscher Museum of Art and The Butler Institute of American Art and is in private collections across the country including the Collection of Howard and Judith Tullman and The Bennett Collection of Woman Realists. Patricia Schappler looks to the decorative expressiveness of Indian miniatures as well as the heft and weight found within Renaissance and Baroque master works. The connection to home, its elevation or possible destruction is always in the back of her mind when working with gesture, pattern, shallow space, and story. Growing up in a large family, she and her siblings brought varied spirits literally and figuratively to the table each night. Among them and still present in her work, are the wild man, the saint, the victim, and the champion…a range of characters frequently found in pieces that attempt to understand the ever changing cultural environment as viewed through myth, and fairytale. Schappler has her BFA in Drawing from the University of New Hampshire and her MFA in Painting and Drawing from Brooklyn College. She currently teaches at the New Hampshire Institute of Art in Manchester, NH. More recent exhibitions include New England BioLabs, Inc.in MA, ‘Mama’, at Plymouth State University, NH, ‘Five Visions’ at the University Place Gallery, in Cambridge, MA, the Annual International Exhibition of Contemporary Drawing, in Asheville, NC, the National Figurative Drawing and Painting Exhibition at the Lore Degenstein Gallery in PA, the Regional at the Danforth Museum in Framingham, MA, and the Annual at the Pastel Society in NY. Her work is published in Manifest International Drawing and Painting Annuals, Direct Art,

North Light Books’ Strokes of Genius, Drawing Discourse of Contemporary Drawing, Studio Visit, Aryis, and Poets and Artists. Suzy Smith is a Wyoming native, who currently resides in Albuquerque, NM, after living in the San Francisco area for many years. She started her career learning to draw and paint in watercolor, at the local community college in her hometown of Casper, WY. Smith was recently invited to return to WY, where she had a one woman retrospective show: “Suzy Smith: Pop Realism”, at the Nicolaysen Art Museum, where her work now resides in their permanent collection. Smith has exhibited her work internationally, and her paintings are included in many private and public collections which include: The Museo Internacional de Arte in Guadalajara, Mexico, the Howard Tullman collection, the Dryer’s Grand Ice Cream Corporate Art Collection, and the Kaiser Foundation Art Collection. Smith paints in oil and watercolor, painting female figurative work as well as still life. She is a signature member of the National Watercolor Society, and her work can be seen at Abend Gallery in Denver, CO, as well as her studio in Albuquerque, NM. Tina Spratt (tinaspratt.com) is best known for her paintings of the female figure, either in oils or pastel, her subjects are often lost in introspection, or surrounded by the fascinating textures of a myriad of fabrics. “ I have always been drawn to the female figure in my work,” she has said, “and I hope to recreate the beauty and integrity of a simple, everyday intimacy.” With an emphasis on beautiful fabrics or domestic scenes, she is influenced by artists such as Andrew Wyeth, Rembrandt and Vermeer. Spratt currently lives in Somerset, England, and studied BA (Hons) Illustration at the University of Wolverhampton. She has three times been a finalist in the prestigious International ARC Salon Competition, and also been awarded ‘Honourable Mention’ in 2018, she will be taking part in the Live Arc Salon touring exhibition for a second time this year. She has also been the overall winner of the Pastel Journal Pastel 100 Competition, and is proud to be included in exhibitions and publications by PoetsArtists. She is represented by galleries in the UK and USA. Self-taught oil painter June Stratton is known for representational figurative paintings that incorporate the female figure. Her work is collected by art collectors and art galleries internationally, including recent solo shows with Robert Lange Studios, Charleston, SC and Distinction Gallery, Escondido, CA. Collections include Texaco Incorporated, US Department of State, Bank of America, The Mayo Clinic and the St Regis Hotel. She has been featured in several publications including the cover of American Art Collector, October Issue, 2016. June Stratton’s studio is alongside saltwater marshes steps from her home in a coastal area near Savannah Georgia. Lesley Thiel is a self taught figurative artist known for her highly detailed photorealistic paintings. Working in oils, her work focuses on narrative portraiture. Her paintings have been included in numerous exhibitions, and is represented in collections throughout the world. Several pieces of her art were displayed at Terminal 5 Heathrow Airport as part of an exhibition to welcome visitors to the UK during the 2102 Olympics. She received a Certificate of Excellence from the Portrait Society of America in 2015, and a Staff Award from the Art Renewal Center in 2018. Her work will be included in the ARC Salon Tour 2018. She was born in England, but has spent much of her life in Europe and in the United States. She now lives and works in North Carolina. Feminist, expressionist painter Daena Title is best known for her obsession with modern female icons: Barbie, Wonder Woman, Beauty Pageant winners. Her latest work shifts focus from the love/hate relationship between women and societal standards, to the Selfie phenomenon: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to take a Selfie, did it happen? Now in Los Angeles, transplanted New Yorker Title has shown her work in gallery, museum spaces and art fairs since 1998 including her recent solo

show at the Carter Burden Gallery in Chelsea, NYC. She is proud that her work has been featured in several PoetsArtists shows and publications, is part of the Brooklyn Museum Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art Online Feminist Art base and the Tullman Collection of Chicago. Born in New York City, raised and educated in Cleveland, Ohio, Judy Takács is best known for her ongoing traveling portrait series, book and blog, Chicks with Balls: Judy Takács paints unsung female heroes. A winner of nine Best in Show awards since 2011, her figurative work has been exhibited in solo, invitational and juried shows at the Butler Institute of American Art, Zanesville Museum of Art, Evansville Museum, ArtNEO Museum, Salmagundi and National Arts Clubs, and at art centers, colleges and galleries throughout the nation. A past chair of New Media Relations for the Cecilia Beaux Forum of the Portrait Society of America, she is now an elected member and holds a board position with the Allied Artists of America as Social Media Chair. Her paintings, projects and contributions to the figurative art world are noted on Wikipedia. As a life-long painter of people, Judy has found that fascinating individuals find their way into her paintings. Her goal is to truthfully depict a living, breathing soul whose presence invites viewers to linger, connect and think. Alessandro Tomassetti is a Canadian figurative painter based in Barcelona. He is known for his intimate painted portraits of contemporary men. Dramatic lighting and a moody color palette compliment his naturalistic rendering technique to capture the vulnerability and sensuality of his male subjects, the likes of which is most often associated with the female form. Intended to invert the male gaze, Tomassetti’s oil paintings seduce the viewer into appreciating the male form while confronting cultural tenets of masculinity. Boris Vallejo attended the National School of Fine Arts in, Lima Peru before immigrating to the United States in 1964. He arrived in the US with a suitcase of clothes, some samples of his artwork, a violin, and $80.00 in his pocket. In the years since he has become a legend in the fantasy and science fiction art world. His paintings have been seen on hundreds of the book covers, calendars, magazines, and movie posters. Many of his paintings have been collected in a number of art books including: Boris, The Fantastic Art of Boris Vallejo, Enchantment, Ladies, Fantasy Art Techniques, The Boris Vallejo Portfolio, Mirage, Diva, Fantasy Art Techniques, Dreams, Superheroes, Sketchbook. He has also published two collections of his photographic work, Bodies and Hindsight. Most recently published are collections of his works with his wife Julie Bell, The Ultimate Collection, Fabulous Women and Imaginistix. Each year, Boris and Julie also create a highly anticipated calendar together. Victor Wang grew up in Northern China and graduated BFA from The Lu Xun Academy of Fine Arts, one of three top art institutes in China. After graduation he taught there for four and a half years and was sent to The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a visiting scholar. He earned his MFA in Fontbonne University. He currently lives in St. Louis, where he teaches painting, drawing and graduate critique classes as a full professor at Fontbonne University. He has exhibited widely across the country and internationally and has won various awards for excellence, including awards for both painting and art instruction. His work has been shown nationally and internationally. Thomas Wharton studied at The Art Student’s League of New York, The New York Studio School, The New York Academy of Art, The Grand Central Academy, and The National Academy of Design. His work has won many awards, including The Georgie Read Barton Award, The Katlin Seascape Award (twice), the Windsor Newton Award, and the Richard C. Pionk Memorial Prize for Painting. He has been included in the Art Renewal Center’s Annual Salon, and his portrait work has been awarded a Certificate of Excellence by The Portrait Society of America, where he is a signature member. In addition to fine art, he maintained a long, successful career in New York as a designer, illustrator, and art director. From 1990 until he left the firm in 2011, he was creative director for the communications agency, Adventure House NYC. In this role, he headed branding and communication strategy

for a broad range of clients, including MasterCard, Citibank, The New York Stock Exchange, Cambridge University Press, Lifetime Television, and Starwood Hotels and Resorts.

Eloy Morales

He is also a published children’s book author and illustrator, and his children’s book art is included in the permanent collection the the Mazza Museum of International Children’s Book Art. He has shown at the National Arts Club in New York, The Salmagundi Club, the Dacia Gallery, the West Virginia University Museum of Art, The West Virginia Cultural Center, and the RJD Gallery in Bridgehampton, New York. His paintings have been included in American Art Collector, and PoetsArtists as well as the book, 21st Century Figurative art: The Resurrection of Art. His work can be found in private and institutional collections throughout the United States. In addition to his career in fine and applied art, Mr. Wharton holds a Bachelor’s and Masters degree in piano from West Virginia University. Pamela Wilson has built a reputation for works of art that transcend the commonplace to enter the realm of the otherworldly, the sublime unknown. She develops haunting images which create a remarkably compelling narrative. The physical and emotional isolation of her characters has emerged as a hallmark of her work. She explores the great chasm of the psyche, the abyss that opens when you seek to understand the complex human in modernity. The characters in her paintings are often called “odd or mad,” or similar terms denoting something out of alignment with ordinary reality. She believes that letting ourselves explore the inherent “distortions” in reality is part of what gives us heart, and balance. Addressing “beauty” in a painting feels too passive, and what she is seeking is a psychological moment, a different kind of beauty, the beauty in absurdity. Pamela received her MFA from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where she was awarded a Regents Fellowship, the Abrams Project Grant, and a Regents Award for her Thesis Exhibition. She is currently Mentor Faculty at Laguna College of Art & Design, Laguna, CA, as part of the MFA Program. Exhibiting consistently since 1992, her work has been the subject of 23 solo exhibitions, spanning the United States, and Australia. She has exhibited in many museums, including the National Museum for Women in the Arts, Washington DC, and a solo exhibition at the Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, NY. Her work is included in many prestigious collections, and has graced the cover of American Art Collector Magazine twice since 2014.

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Daryl Zang is a contemporary realist painter born in 1971 in New York City and now living and working in Connecticut. She earned a BFA from Syracuse University in 1993. Her paintings are loosely autobiographical, inspired by the narrative of her own life and family. Zang is represented primarily by Cavalier Galleries in Greenwich, CT. Her paintings have been exhibited in solo exhibitions at The Bing Art Center, Springfield MA, The Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Art, MA, and at St. Peter’s Church, New York, NY. Zang’s paintings have hung in several group exhibitions at Principle Gallery and RJD Gallery. She is included in the Bennett Collection of Women Artists.

MUSEUM DIRECTOR David Hummer

EDITOR Jay Menendez

DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION Magzter

CURATORS Walt Morton Didi Menendez

PRINT-ON-DEMAND Blurb

INTRODUCTION Walt Morton

Zack Zdrale (b. 1977) takes a traditional approach to the foundations of his work, while his subjects and compositions exist in the present. He is mostly known for his figurative work, often describing a relationship to the self or his perception of the world’s emotional climate. His paintings are imbued with a stillness and silence, inviting the viewer to infuse meaning. Zdrale is originally from Wisconsin. He attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, earning a Bachelor of Science-Art degree in 1999. His training culminated in a Master’s degree in figurative painting from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. He graduated with honors and now teaches in the Graduate Fine Art Department.

PUBLISHER Didi Menendez

COVER ARTIST Print - Miguel Angel Moya Digital - David Eichenberg

Copyright © 2008-2018 All rights are reserved by PoetsArtists, GOSS183, Didi Menendez, and contributing artists, writers, and poets. All writings, artwork and images are copyright of the contributors and may not be reproduced without explicit permission. This publication may not be reproduced electronically, digitally, in print or any other form, format, or media without the explicit, written permission and approval of the copyright holders. All images and artwork are used with permission of the authors/creators or their representatives. Unless otherwise noted all sizes are in inches.

Unless otherwise indicated all the works in this issue are available. Please contact David Hummer at david@wmoca.org for details.

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BERNARDUCCI GALLERY

David Alvarado Ofelia Andrades Tanya Atanasova Debra Balchen Donna Bates Julie Bell Lauren Bergman Kelly Birkenruth Lucas Bononi Margaret Bowland Mike Brewer Noah Buchanan Joe Burns Adam Caldwell Ali Cavanaugh Jose Luis Cena Matthew Cherry Meghan Cox Shaina Craft Steven DaLuz Joshua Dean Marc Dennis Peter Drake Hollis Dunlap David Eichenberg Heidi Elbers Teresa Elliott Natalia Fabia DebiLynn Fendley Denise Fulton Santiago Galeas David Gluck Maryam Gohar Sergio Gomez

Arina Gordienko Barbara Hack Patrick Earl Hammie Dana Hawk Misty Hawkins Jo Hay F. Scott Hess David Hummer John Hyland Maria Jimenez Jason John Molly Judd Aleksandra Kalisz Janne Kearney Lisa Keay Cheryl Kelly Cameron Jon Knutson Francien Krieg Brock Larson William Lazos Dave Lebow R. Leveille Shana Levenson Hodaya Louis Gayle Madeira Daniel Maidman Sylvia Maier Stephen Mangum Susannah Martin Jason Mcphillips Edgar Mendoza Erin Milan Katie Miller Eloy Morales

Miguel Angel Moya Agnieszka Nienartowicz Tim Okamura Omalix Reisha Perlmutter Serena Potter Nick Runge Viktoria Savenkova Patricia Schappler Shane Scribner Victoria Selbach Suzy Smith Matt Smith Xevi Sola Tina Spratt Sarah Stieber June Stratton Judy Takรกcs Matt Talbert Mark Tennant Lesley Thiel Daena Title Alessandro Tomassetti Boris Vallejo Victor Wang Doug Webb Thomas Wharton Pamela Wilson Sam Woodfin Daryl Zang Elizabeth Zanzinger Zack Zdrale