Best in Show (Traditional)
Mike Welton
Best in Show
(Digital & Photography)
August Naude
Best in Show
(3-Dimensional)
Rob Lenihan
2nd Place (Traditional)
Kathy Christian
I am an American artist residing in Australia on the land. As a realist artist specializing in wildlife and animals I have always painted the subjects I am most familiar with. This includes big cats, African wildlife and working sheepdogs. A lifetime of working with animals hands on has given me an opportunity to “see” underneath the skin and understand the soul of the animal. I believe a knowledge of the anatomy of the animal being portrayed is essential to achieve realism. My colored pencil work has earned me many international awards including being featured two years running in the publication “Strokes of Genius” featuring the top 132 pencil artists from around the world. In 2006 I was selected to paint the painting for the World Trial Sheepdog competition held in Wales.
To see more of Kathy’s work please visit her website.
2nd Place
(Digital & Photography)
Codie Moore
It wasn’t until the day Codie was told she was going blind that she finally started to see; to see both the big and little things all around her in every day life and be amazed by the beauty the world has to offer. It has been the most wonderful and joyful experience to watch Codie begin to be amazed by the simple and fantastic sights around her, to start seeing and appreciating; “amazing lighting”, “crazy dramatic skies”, “northern lights” the “intense glowing red hue of a cardinal that only happens right at twilight”, “mist covered mountains”; and the new “tiny worlds” of Macro Photography. When Codie started her journey to really “see” what was around her… really, truly see… is when she fell in love with photographing the incredible things most people take for granted. Hopefully her new journey will inspire others to appreciate, notice and constantly be amazed, because it really is an amazing place out there…
To see more of Codie’s work please visit her website.
2nd Place
(3-Dimensional)
Haimi Fenichel
Haimi Fenichel lives in a society in flux, still in search of its cultural identity. Born into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and a society divided by politics, his art engages with an elusive Israeli quality, of which he is part yet which he also confronts and questions. His work is informed by images and materials that are part of growing up in this country, such as sand, Terrazzo tiles, puddles and mud, ants in the back yard, local architecture, factory-made furniture impaired by humidity and heat, exposed concrete, thistles, open fields devoured by construction. All these elements of Israeliana are accompanied by the constant hum of bereavement and loss, a collective memory of those who died in battle. In Fenichel’s work, such elements are explored and manipulated as components that make up a new, charged whole, allowing multiple emotional and conceptual readings.
In his studio Fenichel pursues an uncompromising search for new connections, concocting one-of-a-kind artworks out of common materials. He is particularly interested in the latter, for each material has its own cultural and local memory, and is part of a frame of reference and field of associations. Materials, working tools, technique and craftsmanship – such as carving, reducing, grinding, sifting – all have conceptual and emotional overtones. At times he manipulates the material in its natural setting, at other times he decontextualizes it and puts it into a novel perspective; in both cases, media is a means to constructing meaning.
To see more of Haimi’s work please visit his website.
3rd Place (Traditional)
Kathleen Giles
Kathleen Giles is an artist that works primarily in watercolor. Her work is defined by strong values and intense colors on a variety of subjects. The artist is self-taught and works in a realistic style that also showcases the “washy” look of watercolor. She teaches weekly classes at the Kenan Center in Lockport, N.Y. and teaches workshops in the U.S and Canada The artist’s painting “Queen of Hearts” won first place in the Watercolor USA show at the Springfield Museum in the spring of 2018. Her painting “My Oarsman” won the Trails and Streams Medallion for Woodland Theme in the 2018 Adirondacks National Exhibition of American Watercolors.
Kathleen had a six page article published in the February, 2017, issue of Watercolor Artist Magazine. Her work was featured in the French magazine Pratique des Arts, in 2017. A four page article in magazine #135 and a two page article in magazine #137, in a special portrait feature. She also had a ten page article published in the International Artists Magazine Dec/Jan 2014/2015 issue and her painting was featured on the cover. The artist is a signature member of the National Watercolor Society, American Women Artists, the Pennsylvania Watercolor Society, the Niagara Frontier Watercolor Society and a member of the Watercolor USA Honor Society. Kathleen’s work has been shown with the American Watercolor Society, Watercolor U.S.A., American Woman Artists, the Signature American Watermedia Exhibiton, the Adirondack Show of American Watercolors, Transparent Watercolor Society, Blossom ll, the Art of Flowers, and many others. Her painting “A Sustaining Passion” won awards in 2017 in the Northwest Watercolor Society show and in the 2018 Richeson 75 International figure/portrait competition. Her painting “Mallory’s Hands” won second place in the Transparent Watercolor Society Show and the Grand prize in the American Women Artists Online show, both 2016.
To see more of Kathleen’s work please visit her website.
3rd Place
(Digital & Photography)
Nancy Jo Ward
“I create, collect, decontextualize, combine and reconstruct digital images to create a hybridized form of art that embraces new media technologies and multi-layered processes to build personal narratives.” My art involves combining digital techniques with traditional materials and embraces a practice of inquiry that allows for exploration via a fluid process of transformation. Women, dreams, experiences, and conversations inspire my work, and I am compelled to turn to the figure for content – experimenting with a new approach to a familiar subject. My goal is to engage the viewer and evoke some kind of emotional reaction. I am haunted to make the subject sacred and, as Donald Kuspit writes in his book The Rebirth of Painting in the Late Twentieth Century, “to convey what is subjectively fundamental in the human experience.”
I recently graduated from the University of Arts London receiving an MA with Distinction in Fine Art Digital from Camberwell College of Art. My practice explores pushing the edges of digital photography, the art-of-remix, painting and drawing. I embrace randomness through collage techniques and chance through the unexpected results and interactions of algorithmic processes. I work with my own photos of people, places, and art. I collect pictures from friends, magazines, the web and social media to create multi-layered digital underpaintings that are woven together with brushstrokes of color and re-contextualized whereby patterns emerge, and interactions are experienced that are not present individually, but thriving collectively. Archival prints are hand finished by drawing and/or painting with traditional media and/or applying gold or silver leaf accents and patterns. I cannot get past the need to be physically connected to both the process and the result.
To see more of Nancy’s work, please visit her website.
3rd Place
(3-Dimensional)
Gale Rothstein
Gale Rothstein had worked for all of her professional career as a jewelry designer through her company, Gale Rothstein Designs, Inc. Originally trained by a local silversmith in Tucson, Arizona, she returned to her native New York to hone her skills, working in many areas of the jewelry industry, including costume, sterling, and high-end gold and diamonds. She opened her company in 1981, through which she designed and manufactured an extensive line of fashion jewelry in her Meat Packing District studio, employing several artisans. Her pieces have been sold in hundreds of retail stores and craft galleries worldwide, and appeared in many fashion publications, including Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Glamour, Women’s Wear Daily, and several industry magazines. Recently her early pieces have been surfacing on the websites of vintage jewelry dealers.
Though no longer producing jewelry, she currently creates one-of-a kind collage and assemblage art pieces. Rothstein’s assembled boxes and environments (Inter-Exteriors) emerge from a strong narrative and historical frame work. Referenced through re-use, the work is informed by the artist’s former career as a jewelry designer, as well as a life-long pursuit of collecting antiques, collectibles, found objects, the harvested innards of discarded and broken appliances, hardware, and other damaged objects. Re-contextualized and juxtaposed in discordant and surreal environments, these destinations provoke the viewer to ask, “Where are we? Who is here with us? How big or small are we? Are we awake or dreaming?” As we enter and journey through a crumbling amusement park, abandoned bathroom consumed by nature, or bedroom that is situated simultaneously inside a room and on an Italian piazza, the visitor is challenged to reevaluate one’s sense of time, place, and orientation.
To see more of Gale’s work, please visit her website.
4th Place (Traditional)
Elizabeth Burin
Elizabeth Burin is an independent artist working in Baltimore. Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Switzerland, she worked as a museum curator and medieval art historian before turning to studio art. She holds a Certificate of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art and is a Signature Artist member of the Baltimore Watercolor Society. Elizabeth exhibits frequently in the mid-Atlantic area and online, and she has received many awards for her work. Elizabeth Burin’s artistic inspiration derives from her travels and above all from nature’s infinite variety of forms. She values the expressive power of color and often revisits a subject to enhance a coloristic effect. She particularly favors the fluid and luminous medium of watercolor, for layers of transparent pigment provide the key to the brilliance she seeks.
To see more of Elizabeth’s work, please visit her website.
4th Place
(Digital & Photography)
Tianran Qin
Artist Statement
The billboards that line our streets and highways are the visual representations of consumer culture. Their physical structure and ability to advertise products are more important than the specific items they promote. In this body of work, I transform billboards into bodies of light to enhance their existence and critique their significance in consumer culture. Long-term exposures erase the information on the billboards and replace advertising with light. This releases billboards from their given function and endows them with a new definition: the icon of consumerism. The contrast between brightness and darkness sets off the billboards and mystifies them, providing a fresh perspective on these familiar objects. Meanwhile, as almost the only light source in the photograph, the billboard enlightens the bleak surroundings. This relationship between structure and nature becomes a metaphor for the tension of consumerism in our daily life. The holy look of the glaring rectangle overlaps with its commercial essence and becomes the monument people worship in contemporary society.
Bio
Tianran Qin is a photographer and a visual artist. Employing both the cutting-edge digital techniques and the traditional film negative, Qin emphasizes the significance of photography in his works and utilizes the photographic illusion to reveal the issues exist in the contemporary society. Born in Beijing, China in 1988, Qin started to learn photography during his undergrad study. After earned the bachelor’s degree of engineering in industrial design, Qin became a commercial photographer. In 2015, Qin went to the US and studied at the Savannah College of Art and Design. He earned M.F.A. in photography in 2018.
To see more of Tianran’s work, please visit her website.
5th Place (Traditional)
Gail Lehman
BIO
Gail Lehman lives and works in Carmel by the Sea, California. She was born in New York City and spent her childhood and young adult years on the East coast. Although her major during her years at Cornell University and Harvard University was government, her fascination with design led her to The New York School of Interior Design. She then moved to Los Angeles and worked for three major international design firms before relocation to the Monterey Peninsula and striking out on her own. She successfully designed two and one half million square feet of commercial office space, hospitals and schools and was three times the winner of prestigious international design awards including “The Prix des Femmes International” award. Her work has been featured in “The International Compendium of Women in Design International”. Her passion for painting led her to decide in 2008 to return to her painting full time. Her work has been acquired by collectors in the USA in Boston, Berkeley, Carmel, Denver, Los Angeles, Napa, New York, Pebble Beach, San Francisco and San Diego. In Europe: Amsterdam, Paris, London, Barcelona and Valencia.
ARTIST STATEMENT
When I look at a clean canvas the excitement rises in me, akin to an author beginning to tell a story, a composer creating a symphony. My vision is focused on that square of canvas in front of me. I never plan a painting, but watch it evolve layer by layer, color on color. A joy in discovery! I scrape away sections, lines, deleting and adding until over days sometimes weeks, that moment is there and I feel completion. A collector once wrote to me, “Gail’s canvases are filled with luminosity and sophistication. It is a great pleasure to own her work.”
To see more of Gail’s work, please visit her website.
5th Place
(Digital & Photography)
Zachary Ruddell
Zachary Ruddell is a working photographer currently based in Los Angeles California. He studied at the San Francisco Art Institute and Columbia College Chicago, where he received his Bachelor’s Degree.The following work is part of an ongoing endeavor to isolate the unnoticed, so as to create monuments to their unheard world.
To see more of Zachary’s work, please visit his website.