Within a darkened space a man stands with a toy doll. The painting is still but it Poses a question of what came before and what might emerge latter. Something Is strange, the doll, the cartoon tee shirt, his look but at the same time silence pervades the space and a mood persists of withdrawal. As if to hint further the painting is called ‘Stranger’.
Maritza Bernal, was born in Bogota, Colombia. At an early age she excelled in drawing, painting, and other art skills. Her talent has been cultivated with patience and dedication through decades. Her studies in oil on canvas began in Bogotá, while working as an Occupational Therapist.
When she moved to the United States, she entirely devoted to explore different styles of painting. She focused on oil on canvas and after that, she became actively involved in numerous exhibitions in Argentina, Ireland, Dublin, Dubai, Beijing, Colombia, U.S.A, Zurich , among others.
I am an Italian-American, multi-cultural and polyglot artist. My paintings are colourful, profound, and uplifting. I am a self-taught artist, and this is my profession. I learned a long time ago to trust the teacher within and go to my inner world to fetch ideas for painting.
My voice in fine arts has been influenced by the Impressionism and Post-Impressionism painters for my figurative compositions and some Modern artist for my abstract compositions. Sometimes, in my dreams, I am visited by the ghost of Maestro Salvador Dali, and some surreal compositions come to life.
Lise uses her art as a global voice to get attention and call for action around important issues such as sustainability. Lise Vestergaard collaborates and is represented by galleries globally.
'If we keep nature as a prisoner, we will be the ones to suffer. The best way to predict a sustainable future is to act and handle was is with love and care. Then magic will appear so strong that everything will be awakened to life...'
Since 2018 Lise Vestergaard has, through her art project, being able to donate kr. 100.000 to green NGOs. The donation has supported 500 trees to be planted, 6 fields of rainforest to be maintained and donation for the NGO Plastic Change. Today she is an ambassador for Klimatræ.dk, which means that she donates trees to be planted every time the art project er realized or sold.
What kind of an artist do you ultimately see yourself?
My dream is to spend the rest of my life in Arizona, where we moved to two years ago, work in my art studio and complete thousands of painting projects secretly stored in my mind. I know that abstract art suits me the best. I feel totally free and happy with it, although I love to exercise with landscapes and portraits.
I am a fine art painter and video artist with 30 years of experience. My current research project is based on creating visual responses to my observations of people, who are suspended in the vacuum of hypnotic repetition. I have travelled the world interviewing and recording individuals who genuinely struggle with their existence in the context of their survival. I have gathered substantial primary sources and evidence from destinations across the globe. Perhaps, the most significant research findings were from Haiti and Myanmar and resulted in producing the most spectacular paintings. They have inspired me to develop new and innovative ways of working and experimenting with image-making, which are appropriate to the subject. They combine the best of traditional achievements and the power of contemporary thinking and deep reflection.
Franco Baldazzi was born in Florence in 1969. Today he lives in the province of Sondrio. After finishing school, he abandoned the practice of painting for some years. From a very young age, he accompanies, in fact the passion for art in a parallel working life, which often involves significant setbacks in his creative journey. Periods of fervid production, alternating with deep moments of reflection, outline the stages of a painting that absorbs and intertwines the emotional life of the Tuscan, in style increasingly personal, not ascribable to schools or movements.
Can you tell us about the moment you decided to pursue a career as an artist?
I have to confess, I don't even know if I consciously decided that. However, I can still remember when, shortly before finishing my elementary school, it was a question of what you wanted to become and what goals you wanted to pursue in life. At that time I said I had one dream: I would like to officially call myself an artist one day – as I have painted and drawn since I was a young girl. So I enrolled at the Vienna School of Art and studied Multidisciplinary Art.
Andrew Binder is a contemporary visual artist from the United States. His work combines new and traditional media, featuring both figurative and abstract elements with Expressionistic and Disrupted Realist tendencies, focused on conveying a sense of memory, feeling, emotion, atmosphere, and subjective transitory human experience.
Dominie Chan (b. 1995) is passionate about eco-art and eco-aesthetics; she produces ephemeral, site-specific installations and paintings in which the body and mind and nature interact and influence each other in the process of creation. As an eco-artist, she is aware of the impact that poses of artists, not only in the artist community but also on society and the environment. Her goal is to use fine art as a way to raise awareness about nature and the need to conserve it.
Can you tell us about the moment you decided to pursue a career as an artist?
My decision came after a period of intense grief and in a moment in which my duties as a university professor of computer science were scaling down. My need for creativity has been fulfilled by my research activities for a long time, but as my interest in computer science started to wane, I found that photography was the right thing for me. As I have been photographing since I was a kid, I already had all the technical expertise and this allowed me to concentrate on content and creativity rather than on technique.
Weronika Raczynska was born in 1978 in Warsaw, Poland.
In the years 1997-2002 studied painting at the European Academy of Arts (EAS) in Warsaw, Poland. In 2002 graduated with a Master of Fine Arts degree in painting (distinction). From 2008-2010 studied painting at The Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts (ASP) in Cracow, Poland. In 2010 completed post-graduate studies in painting.
She has had 17 solo exhibitions of painting and more than 120 group exhibitions in Warsaw, Poland; Cracow, Poland, as well as in Basel, Switzerland; Kishinev, Moldavia; London, United Kingdom; New York, United States of America; Paris, France and Rome, Italy among others.
Rezaul Hoque is a professional artist, having completed his graduation from the Institute of Fine Arts under the University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Since 1993 Reza has been experimenting and developed a unique technique of his own signature, alongside doing regular and traditional paintings. The innovation created by Reza is painting using heat convection which creates a soft illusion adding an atypical dimension and presenting a different aesthetic.
Aomi Kikuchi is a textile artist based in Kyoto, Japan. She holds a BFA from Kyoto University of Art & Design (Japan) and an MFA from Pratt Institute (USA). Aomi has exhibited her work throughout the world including at Woman’s Essence Show 2022 (Paris),The First Suzhou Craft Biennale 2021(China), Art Laguna 2021(Italy) and Art Laguna at Villa dei Cedri 2022.
Nancy Anne Woolf-Pettyjohn from the Kansas City, Missouri metro is an artist who hand paints in the style of fine arts. Her artwork covers all genres. Nancy started out wanting to be a surgical nurse but she fell seriously ill so had to drop out. God had other plans for her life. While recuperating she owned an antique shop did appraising, lecturing and repaired and restored old laces and linens. After doing it for years she decided to pursue the legal field. Becoming a paralegal/legal assistant working for lawyers and free-lancing she found herself not personally challenged as law was much too easy.
Kat Kleinman is a photo collage artist from the Sacramento, California area. She began her career as an artist in 2016, after she retired as a psychotherapist, working with homeless people for 20 years. Her past work is referenced because it does inform her current work with a focus on positivity and making people feel better, if only for a moment!
Kat specializes in collages, because the individual flowers, leaves or succulents used will combine to create a new and cohesive form, reflective of the healing process. She takes her own photographs, with the only exception being the occasional gift of a flower photo from a personal friend. It is important to Kat that she use her own photography, because it separates the integrity of her work from those who use more impersonal internet downloads as a source. Each image is hand cut, a process she calls meditative, and a single collage may require dozens of photos.
Jose Luis “Koqui” Handal, was born in La Paz, Bolivia in 1961.
His passion for art was evident from an early age, and it was in 1997 that he assembled his first
workshop. Here he gave life to clay, accomplishing extraordinary ceramic artworks.
Entirely self-taught, in 2005, he ventured into painting, and since then, he has taken part in national and
international exhibitions.
His constant drive and curiosity led him to sculpt with ceramics, bronze and steel.
Today, his art is on permanent display in La Paz and Santa Cruz, Bolivia; Buenos Aires, Argentina;
and the United States of America.
He was born in Lands of Don Quixote (Castilla-La Mancha / Spain). His family environment and the multidisciplinary influence of his professional activity; in sports, music, engineering, inventions and art, in Castilla-La Mancha and Madrid, were decisive for the artistic creation of a very personal and different style, called Rivismo, based on the application of the Experiential Brushstroke. During the last seventeen years, his research has managed to reinforce the Concepts and Philosophy that predominate in Rivismo and that have given prominence to the material elements to which he has assigned aspects, functions and values of people.
Born in 1998, based in London. As a master's degree student at UAL currently. He got a letter of recommendation from Steve Brodner in 2019. His artwork is selected for the 5th Fida Awards Final list, jungle illustration award 2021-New Talent.
He exhibits globally, including in Shanghai, New York, and London. Wowser designed fashion illustrations for many brands, including SAINT LAURENT, L 'Oreal Paris and co-designed artwork《Mirror Garden》with Florentia Village in 2021.
Can you tell us about the moment you decided to pursue a career as an artist?
From childhood, I have been drawing and painting, but didn’t think to become an artist until I finished secondary school. From the age of 11, I was writing poems and was thinking about a writer or journalist’s career. But the circumstances ruined all my plans, I moved to another city there and I met a lot of musicians, painters and poets. My best friend was an artist she encouraged me to paint and I gradually immersed myself in the world of forms and colours. I finished Kaunas A.Martinaitis Art School with the strong desire to become a painter. Later I continued my studies at the Art Academy and I still learning and discovering something new in the field of visual art.
