Born in Poland in 1978, Tomasz Kowal is a painter, photographer and graphic artist. As a youngster he began drawing in school notebooks, realizing his calling once the drawings in the back far outnumbered the class notes written at the front. He received a degree in Artistic Education from the University of Silesia—Cieszyn as well as graduating from Malopolska People’s University in Wzdowie and Mining Technical School in Sosnowiec. His style ranges from steampunk-influenced drawings straight from the world of Roland Topor, Jules Verne, and the films of Jean-Pierre Jeunet to classically inspired painting. He creates luminous landscapes, portraits, and mesmerizing Tolkienesque map worlds. Tomasz also creates logo designs and weaves wicker.

Marian Fountain is a New Zealand artist who has lived in Paris for 22 years and returns regularly to the country of her birth. She takes her inspiration from simple and recognisable forms in nature: a fish, a leaf, a pea pod – food from the earth. And on the surface of these forms the traces of underlying life – movement and energy are evoked with fine reliefs of waves, camouflages or tattoo. Her work has been exhibited at the British Museum, The National Gallery of Scotland, the Museo Archeologico of Milan, York Museum, Auckland Museum, and the French Mint. Some of her creations include the winners’ medals for the Commonwealth Games in 1990 and the America’s Cup in 2003, and the “Entente Cordiale” centenary medal in 2004.

Artist Soraya Bradley utilizes traditional techniques to compose romantically modern oil paintings. With a strong grounding in realism, Soraya is devoted to create paintings that are poetic rather than illustrative.
From her studio on the rural west coast of New Zealand, Soraya constructs artworks that can be loved and treasured, to stand the test of time in a fast transient world.
She is currently working on a new collection of paintings, a selection of which can be seen at www.soraya.co.nz.

Lauren Worsley is a South African Auckland-based self-taught artist who started her art career in 2008. Born in 1977, Lauren spent much of her childhood outdoors camping, fishing, and playing sport; she moved to New Zealand in 2003 after marrying a gorgeous Kiwi man she found in London. Her bold oil paintings are inspired by a constant quest to capture a sense of energy and life force in her surroundings and to transport the viewer to a different place/time. She favours the luminosity, challenge and depth of oil paint and currently most of her work involves capturing the drama, gesture, life essence and rhythm of the human form by using contrasts and rich colour. Fascinated with creating mood and presence, her work attempts to discover and portray these by experimenting with layering, colour, contrast and texture.

Anthony Wigglesworth is an Irish artist and composer who lives in Dublin. Anthony’s visual work details nature in strange and unexpected ways. He uses pen and ink to draw both abstract and representative scenes of flora, fauna and landscapes from the natural world. Each piece is made up of thousands of tiny, fine pen strokes which build up to form the overall image. Close up, the minutiae and detail of the work is revealed. More of Anthony’s work is available at www.anthonysart.com.

Born in Dublin in 1970, Conor Walton studied painting at the National College of Art and Design, graduating in 1993. After further studies in Britain and Italy, Conor returned to full-time painting in Ireland in 1996. Five successful solo exhibitions followed with Jorgensen Fine Art in Dublin. Conor now exhibits widely outside of Ireland, with recent solo exhibitions in Britain, Denmark and Norway. Future solo exhibitions are planned for Dublin (Nov. 2013) and San Francisco (Sept. 2014).

Pacific Northwest native Eric Reygers has been biting the ear of social consciousness with satire in his teeth through fiction and collage for several years now. His visual artistry ricochets thematically between the tragedy of love, the death of history, and the curse of culture, all without misplacing the loving and confused, almost fatherly, nature that he carries like a stone cross into the deep black briny waters. Showcasing appreciation and understanding for architecture, art history, and human obscurity, he will always ask: Where are we? — Alex C. McGregor

Montreal native Jihane Mossalim studied Fine Arts at Dawson College and worked in the media industry as a special effects and beauty make-up artist before transitioning to full-time painting. Her works have been shown in galleries throughout North America, including Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago and Colorado. Currently exhibited in Montreal as well as in private collections, she is now represented by Corinne Asseraf of Galerie 203 in old Montreal, where most of her paintings can be found. She is interested in how the human mind works and its selective way of remembering certain things and not others; in the way the brain views memories as still frames and how only a very select few will make it to old age. Representations of children are an essential part of Jihane’s work; people’s deepest fears, craziest dreams and beliefs, and fondest memories are born in childhood. The older we get, the more mysterious it becomes, and that fascinates her.

Lysa Rhean Provencio is a Los Angeles based, self-taught artist who has shown in over a dozen group shows in Los Angeles galleries such as La Luz De Jesus and The Hive. She has curated six themed group shows, and did a series of paintings for Fender Guitar on custom made guitars. Her art can be described as a world woven between spectral dreams that celebrates the ebb and flow and fragility of the human experience. For Lysa, art is a light, fast prayer, a dimly lit spell, and supple confession. Currently she resides in Orange with her boyfriend and her feline muse, Babyhead. You can find her latest updates at lysarheanprovencio.blogspot.com.

Born and raised in New Zealand, David Valentine initially studied at Auckland’s nascent film schools of the mid 1980s. Deeply impacted by the social and cultural changes in New Zealand at that time, David turned his attention from film to political activism. After extensive travel throughout Asia, he settled in San Francisco, where he found inspiration in the early 1990s underground dance and DJ culture and began producing rave flyers, club promotions, and magazine spreads in his own distinct and instantly recognizable style. He co-founded the design/activism collective Shimako-Dominguez and has also worked independently as a graphic designer for a range of clients including Sony, Showtime, Chronicle Books, London’s Globe Center, and the MadCat International Film Festival. In his artwork, he fuses themes of myth and magic with an urban state of mind. His focus is often small, fleeting moments drawn from folklore and fairytales that are relocated to more contemporary settings. This meeting of the fantastical and the real is emphasized through his use of everyday materials like particle board, varnish, and glue alongside more painterly elements.

Nelson-based artist Marilyn Andrews works to create vibrant images from her environment. She finds landscapes a wonderful excuse to play with shapes, colours and textures on the canvas surface. It’s the juxtaposition and resonance of colour that she really enjoys…light and vibration. Gabriele Munter, Monet, Kandinsky, Gustav Klimt, Doris Lusk and Toss Woollaston have all influenced her work, each artist taking her through experimental paths of exploration. Marilyn has been a finalist in the New Zealand Wearable Art Awards, multiple finalist in the Telecom Artawards, winner of the Yellow Pages Arts Scholarship in 2003, and has had work selected for exhibitions nationally.

My art has always been my own interpretation of the people I’ve met and the places I’ve been; my life and experiences along the way — from shearers in dusty Maniototo sheds, painting Rawhiri’s descendents at Whiria Pa in the Hokianga to Nervous Jockeys preparing to race at Mosgiel’s Wingatui track, orchard workers at Mariakakaho, Hawkes Bay, NZ soldiers on long-range missions high in the mountains of Afghanastan’s Hindu Kush, wharfies tying down container ships at Wellington port, the theatrical world of Wellington’s late-night burlesque performers…I feel fortunate as an artist to have had the opportunity to investigate and capture these rich experiences in art.

With each new work, I endeavor to express fresh ways to represent ideas about relationships and connections with my environment; the inside thoughts combined with outside influences. Each artwork attempts to articulate an observation that has struck me as somehow worthy of further thought. I don’t believe that art is about discovering ‘truth’ as the word truth implies universality or a collective rule. I think that being true to my environmental influences is to endeavor to be ‘honest’ about how I perceive my world.

All my subject matter are organic and each have been captured outdoors in the natural environment in which they flourish with nothing more than a DSLR camera. What elevates these flora forms into sublime expressions is a delicious cocktail of natural light, a closer than close viewpoint, and a searching eye that can discover the beautiful and unusual in what seems to be often quite ordinary and mundane at first glance…….so look closer…much closer…..close enough to indulge in an delightfully indulgent affair with a flower……..

Drawing inspiration from women, relationships, emotions, music and the African American experience, Otha’s mixed medium paintings have been sold to collectors and art enthusiasts throughout Los Angeles and the Southeast region of the U.S. With only a few months under his belt on the Los Angeles art scene, Otha has showcased his art at the Noho Art Gallery, The Key Club, The Holding Co. Studios and the Rochester Art House, amongst others. He also just closed a solo exhibition at Atlanta’s Emerging Art Scene Gallery.

My art resides in the tension between the eternal and the temporal. It explores the human need for security and the inevitability of an impermanence I have difficulty accepting. I paint to capture moments of time that reveal frailty and vitality, joy and sorrow, decline and glory. Born in Rakitno, Hercegovina, I have lived and studied in Vienna, Paris, Munich and Zagreb. My influences include Bacon, Balthus and Tom Thompson. My work is included in numerous private collections throughout North America and Europe. My gallery and studio are located in Cambridge, Canada. Contact: zlomislic@hotmail.com.

Leah Givens spends arguably too much time photographing store mannequins, trees, and her beautiful niece. Her images have been published in literary journals including The Bellingham Review, The Colored Lens, and Splash of Red, and a piece will appear in an upcoming juried exhibition. She received her M.D. from Washington University in St. Louis and has focused on medical research. Her roommate is a talkative cat named Tiger who likes to watch TV. Leah’s website is www.leahgivens.com.

Eddie Paul Benedetto, a graduate of Bowling Green State University, is a self-taught artist and licensed teacher from Ohio. Working with many different mediums, his favorites are: painting and sketching, graphic and digital art, and creating pop-art. Eddie started off drawing and sketching as a child and progressed to painting while in high school and college. His artistic influences are Van Gogh, Monet, Paul Signac, André Derain, and M.C. Escher. Eddie would like to thank his grandmother Doris, Bob Ross, and Alex Brendel for teaching him how to paint.

Sanchari Sur is a Bengali Canadian who was born in Calcutta, India. Her photography, poetry and short fiction have been published or are forthcoming in Map Literary, Barely South Review, Red River Review, Black Fox Literary Review, The Misfit Quarterly and elsewhere. She is a graduate student of Gender Studies at Queen’s University. You can find her here.

MANDEM is a symbiotic pair of artists originally from Cleveland, OH. Maize and Moco Steinman Arendsee work together in what might be awkwardly described as a Vulcan Mind Meld. Their art generally deals with transmutation and evolution—capturing the metamorphic moments of life where everything changes. Recent projects have included solo and group gallery exhibits, CD and book covers, and the gestation and nurturing of their now 14-month-old child, Kitsuko. See more art by MANDEM on their website [www.MythpunkArt.com].

Matthew Jordan is a Cincinnatian who strives to find some fresh perspective and inspiration in the sometimes stagnant Midwest. The camera enables him to transcend the obvious and into a world of light, color, emotion, oddity, humor, and abstractness. Matthew studied Electronic Media at University of Cincinnati, AV Production at Cincinnati State, and is now branching out as owner of Sugar Cell Productions (a recently founded photo, digital design, and music freelance business). Matthew also believes in Unicorns and the magic they possess. Please visit www.facebook.com/Sugarcell.

Eleanor Leonne Bennett is a 15-year-old international award-winning artist who has won first places with National Geographic, The World Photography Organisation, and Postal Heritage. Her photography has been published in the Telegraph, the Guardian, BBC News Website, and on the covers of books and magazines in the United States and Canada. Her work is globally exhibited, having been shown in London, Paris, Indonesia, Los Angeles, Florida, Washington, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, Canada, Spain, Germany, Japan, Australia and at The Environmental Photographer of the Year Exhibition.  [Photo: Eleanor Leonne Bennett / Accessories: Jane Faye of Gaia Noir]

Leonard Kogan is an artist currently living in Baltimore, MD. He participated in a number of solo and group shows in Europe and the United States.
A compositional structure in his works represents fragmentary set-stages. This body of works appoints amid a psychic catechize via interplay of imagery. His artworks are personal apperception, which embody paradoxical sensations and structured into a painting.
He attempts to address the issues of contradiction and irrationality, dehumanization and deformation, assimilation and dissimilation. These opposites are often expressed in the counteracting movements of the figures, as well as in the contrast of colors.

Michael Repoulis hails from Athens, Greece, spending several years in Johannesburg, S.A., before moving with his family to Canada at age 19.  He is a lifelong guitarist, songwriter and composer who studied at the Eli Kassner Guitar Academy and the Royal Conservatory of Music. Michael has not only created numerous prototype drawings and paintings but has also written many orchestral works and string quartets. His music, widely published, takes inspiration from all epochs from the archaic to the contemporary, combining melody with dissonance, modulating and syncopating contrasts.

Merlin Flower is an independent writer and artist from India. More of his work can be viewed here.

Lisa Golightly is an artist living in Portland, Oregon. With a BFA in art, she initially studied photography, the influence of which can be seen in her paintings. Much of her work explores the memory of childhood and how watching her own children influences the snapshots of these memories.

Having exhibited worldwide, she also makes her work available online at www.kikiandpolly.etsy.com and www.kikiandpolly.com.

I’ve been delighting in color and form, creating art, for most of my life, but only discovered how much I love painting in college. Since then I’ve been raising my two wonderful kids in Portland, Oregon, teaching, and painting, or drawing, as often as I can. Painting brings me so much joy and peace, and it speaks for me truth that I feel and see in the world. In my work, I’m especially inspired by light and hope breaking through the darkness.

“Indigene” Theresa Gaskin was born in New York City in 1959, the first generation born in the United States, from parents hailing from Trinidad and St. Vincent. She has been a resident of the Greater Philadelphia Area for over twenty years. Indigene is a visual artist who seeks to capture lost legacies, personal stories and silenced voices in her work. Through her painting, she explores the common threads that exist among the world of women through myths, traditions, spirituality and dreams. Indigene has exhibited internationally as well as regionally. She has been an arts educator since 2002, and has worked with various communities teaching art to the young and the elderly.
Artist Statement: “My imagery communicates a personal interpretation of archetypal imagery.  I am inspired and fascinated by the myths, histories, spirituality, cultures and different traditions of women around the world.  My unique stylized way of creating art comes through in every piece.”

My current works are acrylic and oil paintings on canvas. What I love about painting is the ability to build a visual image completely from scratch. There is no limit to what the painting can become. I attempt to create a heightened reality instilled with nostalgia and déjà vu. I combine fragments of realism and imagination in my compositions to create a world balanced on the edge of familiar and foreign. I am largely inspired by industrial areas and old architecture. I find the juxtaposition of urban landscapes and nature much more interesting than either one element on its own. I want to create a dreamlike scene of one suspended moment in an unknown history. I attempt to create an open-endedness to the stories in my paintings. There is a luring mystery in a moment recorded by only one picture. An unfinished dream is something you can become obsessed with.

I have been drawing since before I can remember, though I took a major detour after getting my BFA that ate up 18 years of my life. Teaching, traveling and starting a family paved the way for me to ‘come home’ again, and I have been trying to direct an unruly herd of ideas ever since. Oil and acrylic paint, coloured pencils and my camera all feature prominently in my toybox, and I am drawn to natural imagery, primitive symbolism, bones, crows and houses.

Christopher Bibby was born in Cheshire on the banks of the Mersey not far from Liverpool, England. He attended the London Road College of Art and Design. At the age of 20 he moved to Scotland and settled in Glasgow, where he painted and drew every day on the streets and in the alleyways. He then moved to Portland, Oregon, during the winter of 2001 and immediately fell in love with the city and its people.

Chris uses brilliant color and dynamic contrast to make scenes from everyday life take on an almost heavenly importance and attention. He illustrates the importance of appreciating every detail life has to offer.

1984 Boston College – BA
1986 Florida State University – MFA

I am a landscape photographer who is addicted to cameras, computers and Diet Coke.

I typically work with a series of photographs. Each image is made up of juxtaposed, digital images. The photographs are about relationships; the relationship of shapes and color, balance and tension and negative and positive space. Lines and color play an important factor to the sequence of the photographs. Each viewer develops his or her own relationships between the photographs when viewing an image.

I’m an architect who finally admitted that I am an artist.  I’ve been exhibiting my photographs for the last year at Saturday Market, and will participate in this October’s Open Studios.  My best work is based on intensive observation as “a walker in the city.” A New Yorker by birth and temperament, I moved with my wife and son to Portland in 1992. We live in a 100-year-old bungalow in Southeast Portland.