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David Liittschwager is a freelance photographer who, after working with Richard Avedon in New York in the eighties, left advertising to focus on portraiture and natural history. Now a regular contributor to National Geographic Liittschwager has produced a number of books. Among his many honors is a World Press Photo Award in 2008 for his article “Marine Microfauna” in National Geographic.
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Michelle Lougee’s work is a collection of tactile pieces produced from a range of often-repurposed materials including plastic bags, fabric, cast-off electrical wires, fur, and clay. The work is based on organic form but often with an uncomfortable twist.
The delicate balance and struggle of nature versus human society and its technology is the focus of Lougee’s art. The duality of this relationship is explored in both materials and subject matter. The combination of the two factions produces mysterious yet familiar forms. For example, the labor-intensive process of transforming bags into yarn and then into artwork has produced colorful, whimsical, and lifelike interpretations of sea life including jellyfish, anemone, coral, and octopus.
Described as “very rich” and “thought provoking”, Lougee’s work forces viewers to reconcile its whimsical yet simultaneously dark nature.
Michelle Lougee is an environmental artist, sculptor and ceramicist. Her artwork has been shown in many New England museums, including the Peabody Essex Museum, Chesterwood, the Danforth Museum and the Art Complex Museum. In addition, she teaches ceramics at several local institutions. She holds a M.F.A. and a B.F.A. from Boston University and lives in Cambridge, MA with her family.
Michelle Lougee joined Boston Sculptors in 2004.
To see more of Lindsey’s work, click here.
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Lindsey Lenette von Borstel was raised in Seward, AK. She’s a senior at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and in the BFA program for computer art, painting, and metal-smithing. She’s also working on a minor in business and film studies.
The main focus of her artwork is expressing herself through the ocean. Lindsey has lived by the ocean her whole life and feels connected with it. It’s not just the ocean that she loves, but life under the sea.
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“Memories.
Of sustainability.
Of a stable economy.
Of abundant resources.
Of animals walking the plains.”
Combining a love for nature and animals with my passion for creative expression, I love painting, drawing and photographing landscapes. This along with my experience as graphic designer birthed the “Nuances” series of photographic-digital landscapes. Inspired by landscapes from across South Africa, this series aim to capture the essence of the areas that surround us and make part of our existence on earth. The vastness of the Karoo and Kalahari, the presence of water around us, the stimulating combination of textures, colours and stillness in nature, and the joining of human living with the natural environment.
The series subtly represents the natural landscape as a memory instead of reality, as humankind fails to change habits, uses, abuse of resources and unsustainable lifestyles and in this way causes the extinction of natural life on our planet. Urbanization, agriculture and conservation are some of the bigger issues that are hinted at in the works – this is more evident in some of the works than in others. Nuances are also meant to celebrate the beauty of nature and encourage us to appreciate what surrounds us, cultivating a new respect and connection to everything. A focus on traveling through landscapes is also evident, as I merge photographs that I took in different cities, towns and areas into a new unity. We live in a beautiful country and due to our busy lives we often neglect focusing and appreciating the vastness of the ocean, the serenity of the veldt and the expanse of landscape up to the horizon.
View more work by Janet Botes, and the rest of the Nuances series on http://www.janetbotes.co.za/
The Nuances series are sold as limited edition prints of 5 editions each, and are available for sale at www.StateoftheArt.co.za
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Bill Dan is a sculptor and performance artist specializing in rock balancing. He creates seemingly impossible, temporary balanced sculptures from un-worked rock and stone in public spaces near his home in San Francisco.
Dan was born in Indonesia, and worked as a warehouseman before discovering the artistic possibilities of rock along the San Francisco Bay shoreline and his emergent skill in manipulating them.
Bill was initially inspired by rock piles he had seen on the Big Island of Hawai’i, the cairns of the Inuit, and later by the work of Andy Goldsworthy.
In 2004, he was featured on San Francisco public television station KQED as one of the artists in a show entitled “Collaborations with Nature”. Since then, he has been the subject of interviews and shows on TV stations in Japan, Korea, and the Philippines, as well as other U.S. stations.
Photos of his art have appeared in “Coast and Ocean”, the magazine of the California Coastal Commission, where he was the subject of a lengthy article, and have been used for book, magazine, and educational materials. He has been a featured presenter with the California Academy of Sciences and the Zeum exploratory space in San Francisco. A DVD compendium of video clips taken of Bill Dan at work by himself, by a professional filmmaker, and by a local amateur, entitled “The First Bill Dan Collection” is currently sold-out.
Bill Dan has frequently been asked about the “meaning” of his work, and he often replies that “Some people try to make things too complicated. This is the opposite.”
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Ben and Raisa Gertsberg, a husband and wife artist duo who collaborate under the name It’s a Beautiful World!® have always known that all one needs to do to find beauty is look around. They share a passion for life and their art is inspired by nature and contemporary design. In their work, they blend their rich sense of color, light and composition with unusual versatility of the digital medium.
Ben and Raisa are originally from Russia. They lived in Chicago until they moved to one of the Orange County, CA, beach cities. Living on the beautiful Pacific Coast triggered their inner creativity and inspired them to develop and share their unique artistic interpretations of the new environment.
The Seashells Spectacular series is the artists’ tribute to the awesome beauty of Southern California coast. Images from this series decorated the Music Room of the beach-themed Sunset Magazine 2005 Idea House in Ladera Ranch, CA. The series went on to become popular with residential and commercial designers and decorators, as well as those who enjoy coastal living.
To see the entire Seashells Spectacular collection, please visit
http://www.itsabeautifulworld.biz/seashells_spectacular.htm
Facebook fan page
https://www.facebook.com/ItsaBeautifulWorld
©2011 Ben and Raisa Gertsberg. All rights reserved.
Artist’s Statement
Well into my career as an artist, I was fortunate to discover the pleasure and challenge of painting Koi and the world they live in. It was a subject that to me had it all. It was beautiful and meaningful, (more deeply so than I could have even imagined at the time). The last time I felt that way was when I met my Jo-Anne. Love at first sight, sums it up I guess. I discovered their uncanny ability to cast a sense of calm and tranquility onto anyone willing to spend a little time with them. I was pleased to find that my paintings were able to convey the effect, allowing buyers to take a bit of paradise into their home.
After gaining confidence in painting the subject, I began to experiment both visually and symbolically, blending ideals and concepts relevant to the Koi and their history into my art. The fusion of eastern and western cultures and style has opened many new dimensions for me to explore. Drawing on Zen, Feng Sui and other old and even ancient philosophies and symbolisms and merging them with the new, offers a enormous creative freedom and endless innovative possibilities, giving my art a distinctive purpose, style and voice.
As I continue to explore and paint this seemingly boundless subject, I have learned that over the relatively short, but remarkable history of the Koi, countless people from around the world and all walks of life have been touched by this colorful descendant of the humble brown carp. I have found there is much more to this subject than the aesthetic. I have discovered a subject whose origin, diversity and evolution is deeply engrained with our own and that the “Koi” species, as we know it today, would probably not have survived to develop to what it is today without our involvement in their world.”
Perhaps for our trouble, the offering of a sense of peace and serenity and the clear and creative thinking that comes with it will show us that even the most humble inhabitants of our planet have important lessons to teach us about our own diversity, evolution and survival as a species.
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Terry Gilecki creates beautiful paintings of Koi that transport the viewer to a world of quiet reflections. Gazing down into their watery realms, the stresses of the day drop away as we take in the glow of the golden stones and the lily pads floating lazily as the colorful Koi fish glide by below. Gilecki brings over 35 years of experience as a professional artist to his meticulously rendered waterscapes. Born in January of 1954 in the frozen Canadian prairie city of Saskatoon, Terry demonstrated a gift and passion for art at an early age. By the age of 17 he took the fast track into his career and embarked on a journey to college to earn a degree in commercial art, launching him on a successful and diverse career as a free-lance artist, mastering the airbrush and eventually producing art in his studio for several international advertising corporations and painting murals for many private and corporate clients. Like most commercial artists, Terry also explored fine art in his private hours.
Gilecki’s Koi paintings are a culmination of many of the skills he has mastered in his career. Together they form the unique style that is his own. It begins by first applying texture mediums and numerous texturing techniques to create an organic and 3 dimensional surface on his canvas. Even after applying multiple translucent color glazes and finishing with highly realistic renderings of water plants and the brilliant iridescent colors and varieties of Koi, the characteristics of the texture is evident in all elements of the painting and are essential to the finished art. This combination of techniques results in an incredible sense of depth and motion. The viewer gazing into a Terry Gilecki painting shares the same sense of calm reverie they might enjoy while sitting by an actual Koi pond, exploring the real and sometimes surreal below, on and reflected in the water’s surface. Although he uses only acrylic paints, his paintings have rich luminous blended color and are often mistaken for oil paintings.
The artist lives and works at his home on Vancouver Island in Canada. His art is widely exhibited throughout the U.S. Canada and is collected around the world. Limited Editions on canvas are available.
Terry Gilecki: Terry Gilecki Portfolio @ Artwanted.com
In the USA: Terry Gilecki @ Coleman Studios
In Canada: Terry Gilecki Artwork in Canada House Gallery and Terry Gilecki at White Rock Gallery
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Ulla Gmeiner is a virtual artist (painting and objects) from Germany with her own studio in Bonn. Ulla’s work (paintings, collages and objects) can be described as a “controlled chance.” Her paintings and collages are based on a dialogue with experimentally induced processes and Ulla meets them with a conscious artistic development. Light, texture and colors play an important role. She likes to apply different materials like glass fiber, aluminum foil, eggshells, fragments of old books and wood engravings. Ulla’s interest in philosophy, mythology and nature subjects is strongly expressed in her artwork. There is often a hidden sense in it which is not directly visible. She always look for “poetic possibilities” that often reveal surreal features and represent the themes of transience.
Ulla received her artistic education in Munich. She is a member of different art groups and a curator of the International Competition Kulturpark Tapetenfabrik Bon. Ulla is also the recipient of the Art Majeur Silver Award in 2010 and 2011
Ulla’s exhibitions have been shown in Germany, Sweden, Austria, Italy, and France: Galerie Sassen in Bonn, KG 52 in Stockholm, ArtGermany in Munich, Vernissage Atelier in Heidelberg, Trevisan International Art in Bologna, and Carré d’Artistes in Paris.
Her artistic work was published in several different art magazines and books:
Art &Graphic Magazine: Interview and Title, 2009 and At the studio with Ulla Gmeiner
Design/Interior, Zeixs, Germany, 2010
The National Poetry Review: Title and Article, 2011
Book covers for Hachette, Paris and Harper Collins, London, 2011
Visit Ulla’s website: www.ullagmeiner.com
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Born in Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia, on March 24, 1963, Hengki Koentjoro is an accomplished black and white photographer. He is a graduate of the Brooks Institute of Photography, Santa Barbara, California, where he majored in video production and minored in the fine art of photography.
Hengki returned to Indonesia to become a freelance videographer/editor, specializing in nature documentaries and corporate profiles, and now lives in Jakarta with his wife Lana and their three children. Hengki is a part time practitioner of the art of black and white photography, which he believes to be his true purpose in life’s journey of expression.
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Poet
Waterman
Rock Climber
Photographer
Born in San Pedro, California
Lives in Ocean Beach (San Diego), California
www.alabasterandmercury.com
Books In Print:
Mountain Biking Orange County, Globe-Pequot Press (in print since 1996)
Along a Ruined Sea, d/e/a/d/b/e/a/t/ Press 2008
Along a Ruined Sea, Special Edition, Avalon Press 2009 to present (Nominated for the Tufts Discovery Award)
Entrances: 30 Poems and 100 Lines About Love, Avalon Press February 1, 2011 (Nominated for the Pushcart Poetry Prize)
Something Still Visible In the Fire, Alabaster & Mercury, August 2011 (Nominated for the Pushcart Poetry Prize and the Tufts Poetry Award)
Notable Events:
Award winning poet, California Collegiate System 1981
Published in Alabaster & Mercury, Volume 1 (two poems)
Short list; Tufts Discovery Award, Claremont Graduate University
Published in Ink Spots, San Diego Writers Union (1 poem)
Published Cock Amuck and Crowing, Chris Madoch; (3 poems)
Published in Starlight Press website (2 poems)
Associate Editor, Parapluie Publishing 2010
Editor for 9 volumes of poetry
Moderator of a writing group; 2007 to present.
200 first ascents in rock climbing in 3 different countries.
Published in Rock and Ice Magazine
I live close enough to the ocean that sea lions or a big swell wakes me up, along the world famous Sunset Cliffs of San Diego, California with my overly-possessive cat, Pogo.