CFA Artist of the Year: Thomas W. Schaller
"Why we paint is far more important than how or even what we paint. It is always my aim to paint the expressive experience of my inspirations rather than any physical reality. My work is always a study in contrasts: light / dark, vertical / horizontal, warm / cool, the real / the imagined, and elements of the past, present, and future."
Unseen Cosmic Connections: Betsy Stewart
"I create paintings of microscopic and macroscopic nature: origins of life from a drop of water to systems in the vast cosmos I honor the words of the naturalist John Muir: "when we tug at a single thing in nature we find that it is attached to the rest of the world"."
The Formalist: Bryce August LeFort
"I believe an artist is responsible for listening as well as communicating. While the individual artist can only create from their own perspective, it is experienced by many. An artist can look beyond oneself to give the viewer the opportunity to participate with the work. An artist is a vessel for creation, that does not conclude upon completion, it continues with the viewer in their thoughts and memories. It is an honor."
Quietly: Marc Aronson
“My process relies on the redoing of an image, destroying and restoring. This rephrasing produces a work that is rife with references of the history of its own making. Through the layers of paint an internal light is produced. It is this imagined light that is my memories of a particular place.”
Observing and Interpreting: Marcel Jomphe
"In the context where nature is the great creative workshop, drawing and photography are for me the ideal tools for capturing and reinterpreting its works. This is not a mechanical reproduction of what nature produces. Nature is rather associated with my creative process in which I favor aesthetic validity. I explore the elements in an intuitive way in search of balanced compositions."
Something out of Nothing: John Ralston
"This work accelerates and embellishes natural forms of accumulation and erosion. While it could be said that they are emulating nature, specific methods and materials are used to disrupt the relationship between our earth-bound perception and evoke the true synthetic characteristics within each piece. Jarring color changes and manic tooling are employed to convey alien topography while the reflective surface disrupts the immediate association to scenery that we collectively understand."
What's good art? Xiong Yanni
"Sincere touching, full of power, full of sensibility, let me see the painting can roughly feel the character of the author, is one of my criteria for good art. I think it takes a lot of hard work to make anything successful. The experience of one person as well as the trajectory of his life and strong sensibility are the key factors in making a great piece of work."
Pure Paint: Maria Trautwein
My work was born almost unconsciously. For a very long time, I was carrying the image of two close but separated young people. The white stripe symbolizes the screen of the gadget, which can only be touched by fingers, and the people themselves are separated. Who are they? Beloved ones? Brother and sister? I left it to the viewer to come up with it, I think that the viewer is a full-fledged participant in art. Outwardly, the picture resembles the characters of the Renaissance. I love this particular era in painting, the ideals of those artists, the idea of humanism are close to me. And I hope that after the crisis we will have a new Renaissance.
Misheard Dialogs: Daukante
"I'm Daukante, an illustratress from Lithuania with a passion for quirky objects. Art schools that I have attended encourage conceptual thinking and experimentation, however studies led me to seek inspiration in the opposite direction. It's the casual everyday situations that I find most intriguing."
The Photographer: Bruce Cowell
From Australia, Bruce Cowell has been photographic for over 30 years. Primarily working with film he produces analog photographs that capture fleeting moments.
Seeking Sublime Peace and Creative Chao: Michael Potts
Archival Epson Digital Photography Print - $500 - 11x14 image on 13x19 paper
I think art should first be for art's sake, but if an artist is able to see outside of the box of daily life and question "why are we doing what we're doing?" then the role is to provoke the question and perhaps offer a possible solution.
Memento Mori: Heather Allison
"Preoccupied with mortality most of my life, the unexpected loss of my father inspired my fine art work with focused on grief, memory, and death. I embrace the long-standing tradition of vanitas tableaux in an effort to acknowledge death and the beauty of living."
Jae Young Park: Pop Art
"I paint on canvas as if I were writing a diary every day. He reinterprets images from a unique point of view and continues to pursue new possibilities of 'paintings that are not paintings'. We look at modern society with a positive and warm gaze."
Captured in Stone: Terence James McGinity
"For the past 27 years I have been carving stone and wood as a means to play. I am drawn to reveal inner lives; often touching on fragility and vulnerability; Attachment and Separation."
"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." - Pablo Picasso.
The Anatomy of a Leaf: Linda-Saskia Menczel
“My intention is to bring small and unnoticed things into focus, to track down the hidden diversity of artistic architecture and structures and to find what is characteristic of their peculiarities. Against the light, delicate network structures are transformed into "natural" works of art.”
New Work: Bernd Steinert
“Stories of political power and of day-to-day politics do not particularly interest me. There are too many imposed patterns and simplified versions of the truth in play. I find the subjective approach much more fruitful. My pictures are not simple to read. Already in their technical realization, they are too complex for easy access. Whenever I realize that a picture is becoming too harmonious and slick, I intervene and destroy what is pleasing.”
From Australia with Love: Bruce Cowell
Australian photographer Bruce Cowell is an acclaimed artist whose work has been exhibited internationally, including in Germany and New York. His photography has been featured in various publications, and he has won prizes and honors in prestigious competitions. Cowell's expertise spans wildlife, landscapes, and artistic photography, and he has contributed to several books, cementing his position as a prominent figure in the field of photography.
The Language of Line and Form: Nicola Barth
The Dance of Colors: Christa Schmid-Ehrlinger
"I am concerned with vital processes such as growth, nature and inner structures and their transformation into abstract paintings. Which movements, which gesture, which rhythm and which activities of my hand create corresponding lines and forms?"
Breaking the Vortex: Nicola Barth
“My paintings, sculptures and photographs reveal what lies behind the obvious: Transitional worlds, shape changes, processes in flux. Everything is constantly in motion, time and space are questioned. I paint to break the vortex, to capture a moment.”
Residual Cultural Memory: Todd Jones
Mystical Quest: Nicollage
"Striving for the purity of the ineffable or rather, for the transcendent, I am guided by irrational forces and intuition, myths, dreams and mystery, in order to build an endless labyrinth in which even I may get lost. My art practice feels like a perennial exploration of the inner universe."
Powerful Abstract: Paula Menchen
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