drawing – Circle Foundation for the Arts

Diane Kazakis

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Diane Kazakis is an award-winning Australian artist who has worked in the fields of art and art education in Australia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and now Asia. Drawing on her experiences from living in these diverse environments, her desire is to inspire an appreciation and concern for the fragile world around us.

Diane has exhibited extensively in solo and group shows, with work in public and private collections around the world.

Trained as a sculptor, Diane applies this background to produce a variety of art which is tactile and diverse. She uses a range of media, layers and overlapping segments to present depth and capture movement. Her work ranges in media and formats, dissolving the boundaries of traditional sculpture and painting.

Whilst studying Visual Arts at the University of Melbourne, she was the youngest artist to win the prestigious Andor Meszaros Sculpture Prize in 1994. In subsequent years, Diane has received other awards, including first prize in the 2001 acquisitive Moreland Sculpture Award for her sculptures depicting nature's decline.

Diane was commissioned for numerous large-scale projects such as an enormous robot sculpture for the Village Roadshow Cinema Complex in Melbourne, Australia and a large model earth for the Body Shop's International Environmental Conference in 2001.

In her role as Vice President of the Association of Sculptors of Victoria (2000-02), Diane coordinated events such as the sculpture exhibition at the International Flower & Garden Show in Melbourne and the Association's Annual Exhibitions.

In recent years, Diane has worked on private commissions, including a series of paintings installed at Sahab Hotel in Jabal Akhdar, Oman. This series of paintings is based on the fossils, natural vegetation and stunning views that this beautiful boutique hotel has to offer. In 2022 she installed a series of paintings in Healin' Spa, Suzhou, China which are based on natural elements to enhance the tranquil setting.

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Carmen Schaefer

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Carmen Schaefer holds an MA in Art History and an MFA in Photography and Drawing. She has studied with Allan Kaprow at Stony Brook University, Henry Holmes Smith at Indiana University and Arnold Gasson at Ohio University.

This schooling, along with a life of early constant travel as the daughter of a career Navy man, is reflected in her work. There was no “home town.” There were eight different schools before high school. It was a very peripatetic and isolated life.

Carmen has shown photographs at the Everson Museum in Syracuse, taken first place for photography at the Central New York Art Open and second place at the Plymouth Center for the Arts National Photography Exhibit and Competition and shown photographs internationally at PH21 Gallery in Budapest, Hungary. She has exhibited drawings at over 40 venues and galleries. She has won awards for drawing at the 33rd Bradley Print & Drawing Exhibition and 29th International Drawing & Print Competitive Exhibition at Gormley Gallery Notre Dame of Maryland University, 53rd annual Drawing and Small Sculpture show in Corpus Christie, Texas, Connecticut Academy of Fine Art CAFA+ show and for the 2020 American Art Awards competing with artists from 62 countries.

Carmen has been featured in Lake Affect magazine, Along magazine, and Artisstonish Magazine.

She is a signature member of the Rochester Art Club, a member of Rochester Contemporary Art and an elected member of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Art.

Her work is in many private collections.

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Petra Knezic

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Petra Knezic is a self-taught artist from Slovenia that focuses on ink art. She uses precise technical pens (isographs) with drawing ink, that let her create very detailed drawings on paper or canvas, for the sake of exploring an idea with the smallest line.

Her art is based on creating stories, using empty-faced, gridded people (Soulies) or skeletons, to invite the viewer to mentally collage their person into the drawing and experience it for themselves. She seldom steps out of the black and white variations as she sees her love of ink as an upgrade from previously used pencil and charcoal and a possibility to strip down a situation into its building bricks.

Petra has been published in international art magazines around the world and has been awarded the first Leonardo da Vinci Award - The Universal Artist in Florence, Italy as well as the Canaletto Prize for outstanding work in her art career in Mira (Venice), Italy. She has been published as one of the ten finalists in the abstract and experimental art issue of the leading art magazine International Artist Magazine. She has also been distinguished as one of the 20 jury-selected artists in the CCBA International Milano Art Competition, finishing 2016 with an international group exhibition at the Bakery Pavilion and later the Art Passage gallery in the heart of Milano, Italy. Since then, Petra has focused on only one collection, the "Grids and Bricks - Underwater" works, which she completed in 2018.

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Roland Reinert

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Josea Bee

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What themes does your work involve?

Part of the inspirations of my current artworks comes from an exploration of ancient religious cultures; together with my own unique perceptions and abstract memories of consciousness, soul, etc., and delicate brush strokes, my artworks try to convey philosophical and religious thoughts of life.

Describe your creative process.

Essentially speaking, sensations, feelings, insights, fantasies - all these are private and personal, and art is one way to give one peace of mind and inner tranquility, while philosophy is one way to understand life. Everything is narrated through symbols and combined with relevant experiences and messages, she strives to convey a harmonic integration of philosophy, art, rituals and society.

What influences your work? What inspires you? Why do you make art?

If one is aware of the otherness of things and visualize closely, one can easily enter the realm of spiritual vision and transfer. Even situations, things and sensations encountered and experienced in daily life can penetrate into the subconscious unconsciously. Yet in dreams, they turn into something like sailboats and guide you through the sea. Being taught, informed and experienced, I am like a recorder on a voyage.

What is good art? What makes a piece of art great?

Nowadays, humans cannot live without communication channels like verbal and body languages and other sign systems. People need to understand and transmit information through them. Any symbols, signs, verbal and body languages, etc., that run through and ripple across people's hearts also can be regarded as “good art”.

What is the role of the artist today?

Our society is overwhelmed with materialism nowadays and the blindfolded focus only on the immediate illusion. But reality is actually far beyond the things in front of us. We are just living in an illusion that is falsely treated as the only reality. Artists are one of those roles who can awake people's souls and guide them into another reality.