Fine Art

Each month, the editors select their favorite entries in fine art (paintings, drawings, sculpture, illustration, etc.).
Thanks to all who shared their work.

CLICK ON IMAGES to go to the artists' individual pages.

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© Patricia Watwood

Patricia Watwood is the May 2022 Featured Artist. She is a leading figure in the contemporary figurative movement. She has exhibited at the Beijing World Art Museum, The European Museum of Modern Art (MEAM), and The Butler Museum. Her work is included in the collections of the St. Louis University Museum of Art and the New Britain Museum of American Art. Her commissioned portraits hang in institutions, such as St. Louis City Hall, Washington University, Kennedy School of Government, and at the Harvard Art Museums. Patricia is the current First Vice President of the Salmagundi Club (2021). She is also a Signature member of the Portrait Society of America and was named a Living Master by the Art Renewal Center. Her first book, The Path of Drawing (Monacelli Studio Press) will be released in late 2022.

© Ivonne Fernández y González

Ivonne Fernández y González, M.Sc. is the April 2022 Featured Artist. Ivonne is a German-Spanish multidisciplinary artist and social psychologist. Since her autism diagnosis, she has been active in the autism rights and neurodiversity movement and founded the German nonprofit association NeuroDivers e.V. Ivonne understands art as catharsis, a constructive way to banish dark feelings and thoughts - fear of transience, death, meaninglessness and emptiness, anger in the face of everyday lies, exclusions and injustices in the world. Ivonne believes that art and education are essential for human well-being. She conceives art projects for children on the autism spectrum. It is through her work with children that she expresses her sunny, light and colorful side.

Hilda Demsky

Hilda Demsky's "The Gratitude Project" was inspired by the poetry of U.S. Poets Laureate during the height of the COVID pandemic. Hilda created the artwork and project designer is Louise Londin Design, NYC. Hilda was inspired by poems sent to The New York Times regarding the prompt, “what the people in their states would be thankful for” while reflecting on the difficulties faced at the height of the COVID pandemic. She created a series of paintings capturing the spirit of the poetry in a visual representation. The paintings contain geographic elements, symbolic use of color, and a subliminal outline of the referenced state's border.

© Carole Kunstadt

Carole Kunstadt is the March 2022 Featured Artist. Carole's works often invoke a metaphysical quality. Her pieces reference antique books, bookplates and artifacts - deconstructing paper and text and using it in metaphorical ways. Through the exploration of the materials, history, memory and time merge in a hybrid form. She has won numerous awards and her works are included in many private and public collections, including the George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives, Bowdoin College Library in Brunswick, ME and The Book Arts Collection, National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC. The PBS/OFF BOOK Book Arts mini documentary featured Carole in the segment, "Transforming the Sacred."

© Viky Garden

Viky Garden is the January 2022 Featured Artist. She was born in Wellington, Aotearoa and currently lives in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland with her husband Steve Garden, co-founder of Rattle Records, a contemporary music label in New Zealand. Since the age of 15, she has predominantly used herself as the model for her work. Through this singular practice, Viky primarily explores the nature of impermanence and similar themes that reflect personal and universal aspects of the female experience. Unable to attend art school, she began painting in earnest at the age of 27. Since then, she has had 26 solo exhibitions and has participated in numerous group shows, both in her homeland and internationally. Viky’s work is held in private collections in New Zealand, Australia, UK, Canada, U.S. and Europe.

© Tracy Hayes

Tracy Hayes is a mixed media artist who has been exhibiting her work since 2012. She is a native of Montreal and has lived in the U.S. since the 1990s when she attended the University of New Hampshire and received a B.A. in French. Tracy also earned a B.F.A. from New Hampshire Institute of Art in 2012 and recently completed an M.F.A. at Lesley University in 2021. As to her work, restless mark-making explorations build across media, from intimate drawings and collages to larger paintings. Themes of amplitude and de-escalation, compression and expansion are pervasive, as is the overall subterranean feel of her work which is echoed by a tonal palette preference and hinged to an interest in the metaphoric space of below and behind the surface.

FINE ART 2021

© Linda Louis

Linda Louis is a New York-based, award-winning artist, art consultant, art juror and curator whose work has appeared in the New York Times and other high-profile publications and has been shown in galleries throughout New York City and the Greater Metro Area. Linda’s 21-foot Fam*ly of Humans Installation Triptych was awarded special honors by Brooklyn Museum. Fam*ly of Humans is currently receiving widespread recognition for its message of respect without discrimination via billboard display. The portraits aim to illustrate how each human is connected to all others and is thus entitled to equal and respected membership in the fam*ly where, regardless of obvious differences, there is no exclusivity.

© Carolyn Mae Lassiter

Carolyn Mae Lassiter is the November Featured Artist. She has lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico since 1982 with her husband, Edmond Rabkin, and their daughter, Lara. Carolyn’s art is representative of her soulful and thoughtful self-expression. Her early work consisted of drawings using black ink on paper which evolved into paintings using mixed media (acrylic, oil, decoupage, wax, fabrics, paper maché). Carolyn was never afraid to experiment with new materials. She also creates sculptures using found objects. She uses a variety of mediums and applications: bold saturated color, ink with muted watercolor accents, and mixed media (incorporating her sculpture into her paintings). The core spirit of Carolyn’s art is unmistakably hers and undeniably her as her mediums change, evolve and combine. She has shown her critically acclaimed work throughout the U.S. in solo and group exhibitions.

© Charity Henderson

Charity Henderson is the October 2021 Featured Artist. She is a figurative artist based in Queens, NY. She received her B.F.A. in Painting at SUNY Brockport and an M.F.A. from UMass Dartmouth on a Distinguished Artist Fellowship. Charity has also studied painting in Italy, Sicily and France. Currently, she exhibits at the Salmagundi Club in Manhattan and regularly presents her work in solo and group shows throughout the U.S. In early 2018, she held her first New York City solo exhibition, Beneath the Surface, through the arts nonprofit Chashama. In October 2019, she presented her first commercial solo exhibition with John Davis Gallery in Hudson, NY. Charity works in administration for the American Watercolor Society. She serves as Vice Chair of the Public Relations Committee at Salmagundi, co-managing the organization’s social media.

© Sherridean Skeete

Sherridean Skeete is an award-winning, Barbados-based artist, singer, entrepreneur, art consultant and art teacher who describes her creative style as bold, expressionistic and inspiring. She has had great success in national art competitions and her work and teachings have touched others in a positive way. Sherridean has exhibited her work in Barbados and internationally. As a teacher, her love and passion for the arts and sharing knowledge is unparalleled, whether she’s working with students at Harrison College, where she heads the Art and Music Department, with teachers from Erdiston Teachers' Training College, or with individual artists whom she mentors.
Sherridean is a go-getter and always looking for creative ways to uplift, inspire and motivate others through her brand and business Creative Art Well.

© Silvina Mizrahi

Silvina Mizrahi is the July 2021 Featured Artist. She is an Argentinian American artist and art educator based in Boston. Her works are fueled by her beliefs in art as a tool that helps us to connect, to heal and to embrace our differences. Silvina likes to work with different mediums and techniques. Her works encompass figurative bronze sculptures, abstract expressionist mixed media paintings, recycled material sculptures (created with diverse communities) and public art. Her art is a mirror of her experiences as an immigrant, memories from her childhood, Jewish traditions, and her commitment to environmental causes. She has exhibited her work in numerous galleries and museums in the U.S. and internationally and has been the recipient of many highly-respected community and arts awards.

Photo Courtesy: Harry Anderson & T'Alyne

T'Alyne is currently living and working in a zero-emissions, off-grid solar home and working in a solar-powered art studio in the mountains of South Colorado. She is interested in balance and environmental stewardship as well as modeling a positive impact for an ecologically conscientious way of life. Her abstract works, which are comprised of powdered pigment suspended in water-based varnish on fiberglass paper and wood, are meant to capture the temperament of her surroundings and to reflect the ever-changing environment. She has held visiting artist and resident artist positions both in Europe and the U.S. and has an impressive exhibition history, having been included in shows at notable venues throughout the world.

Photo Courtesy: Suprina & Lisa Winika

Suprina and Lisa Winika share their journey creating a large-scale, collaborative installation project titled We Are The Forest. They've developed a global portraiture that recognizes both the enchantment of the spirit world and the harsh realities of human existence. By taking ‘trash’ out of its typical, haphazard environment where the passerby avoids or ignores it, the purposeful and completely different placement raises its visual status, thereby encouraging the viewer to examine the objects more closely and to empathize with the ‘story’ behind the myriad discarded objects. The objects have not changed, only their place in the world. The Forest also speaks to our unrelenting need to purchase. Everything we buy will become trash - sooner or later.

© Nancy Staub Laughlin

Nancy Staub Laughlin is the May 2021 Featured Artist. She has been recognized and honored at the New Jersey State Museum and is included in the permanent collection. Other accomplishments include exhibits at the Noyes Museum, NJ, Johnson & Johnson World Headquarters in New Brunswick, Bristol/Myers Squibb,Prudential Corporate Gallery in NJ, and a select exhibit titled “Six New Jersey Masters” at Kean University’s Burger Gallery where she also had a solo exhibit. She is represented in many private and public collections and was honored to be chosen to be in the NAWA collection at the Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University. Nancy is the recipient of several notable awards, but her most memorable highlight was being reviewed by the late Sam Hunter, an art critic and acclaimed 20th century art historian, who found her work “refreshingly unique,” a common theme among many of her positive reviews.

Basha Ruth Nelson is the April 2021 Featured Artist. Basha's sculptures - constructions in paper, stainless steel, aluminum and copper - engage the viewer through surface and scale, looking at ordinary materials in a new way. Currently, she follows her heart and deep commitment to Freedom. She creates interactive installations and performances as part of her ongoing Freedom Project. Basha’s work has been exhibited widely in both solo and group exhibitions and in public and private exhibitions throughout the U.S. International exhibits include: Matinee Art Gallery (Nassau, Bahamas), NY Carlsberg Glyptotek Museum (Copenhagen, Denmark), Florence Biennale, Procidamerica (Italy). Basha was invited to the 2020 Venice Biennial for Architecture and Sculpture and the upcoming edition of 2022.

Lynne Friedman's work has been shown in solo exhibitions at the Booth Western Art Museum (Georgia), the James McNeil Whistler Museum, the Galleria Nacional Museum in Costa Rica, and eight solo shows in New York City at Noho Gallery and the Prince Street Gallery in the Chelsea District. Her work was featured at a juried show at the Albany Institute of Art & History and was selected by the U.S. Department of State Art-In-Embassies Program for the US Embassy in Djibouti, E. Africa and Colombo, Sri Lanka. Lynne’s work is in many corporate and private collections including Pfizer, McGraw Hill, IBM, Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, Pace University, Ritz Carlton Hotels and Metropolitan National Bank. She has received seven artist residency grants to work in Spain, Costa Rica, Ireland, Southern France and New Mexico.

Diana Freedman-Shea grew up in Brooklyn, NY. She earned a BFA degree from Pratt Institute and began teaching in New York City high schools when she was 21 years old. She later received an MFA degree from Brooklyn College and pursued a career in painting and printmaking while teaching full time. Diana was an art reviewer for ten years. She has exhibited her work at numerous acclaimed galleries and centers, including The Kennedy Gallery, NYC, Hammond Museum, Flinn Gallery, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Minnesota Museum, and George Billis Gallery, to name a few. Her work has been chosen for solo shows at the Noho Gallery and the Prince Street Gallery in Chelsea where she has been a member. She is a former president of the New York Society of Women Artists (NYSWA).

© Afi Ese

Afi Ese is one of two February 2021 Featured Artists. She is an African American contemporary realism and figurative conceptual artist living in Houston, Texas with roots in Togo and Mali.
The artworks of Afi Ese represent and venerate the rich history of the West African diaspora with an emphasis on generational trauma and triumph in Black America. She combines and re-imagines historical events and attributes specific to the Black American experience. In doing so, she gets to shine a spotlight on the beauty and resilience of her community by using the gifts and talents given by her ancestors. Afi’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States and in South Africa. Her works are held in private collections in England, Trinidad, Canada, Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, Kenya and the United States.

Velicia Gourdin is one of two February 2021 Featured Artists. She is from Boston, MA. She has created illustrative and graphic design work for The New York Times, Jazz vocalist Lezlie Harrison, and a host of others. She has also been featured in many publications, including Urban Bush Babes and AFROPUNK. Velicia is a self-taught digital artist whose work is a blend between traditional methods and the infinite flexibility of today's digital illustration tools. Focusing on diversity in her portrayal of beauty - as it relates to the fashion industry and beyond - Velicia seeks to communicate power, positivity and possibility in her work. She is currently teaching a college-level, virtual drawing class, planning various personal projects (including illustrating a children's book), and looking forward to safely visiting her grandchildren.

Fine Art

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