3rd Place (Traditional)
Arden Rose

Arden Rose is a collaboration in ink and charcoal, brought together through serendipity and fueled by a love of art and wine. Our work is a fusion of influences, insights, and ideas that we use to challenge ourselves and create something beautiful. Each piece, we begin with a cohesive vision, though what we end up with is rarely what we expect. The composition is planned in gestures, words and sketches, but ultimately, we cannot truly see the vision in each other’s minds or account for individual tweaks and deviations along the way. Accepting these uncertainties as part of the process has resulted in new and powerful experiences. When the ink is dry and the forms are rendered and we take a step back, we see our visions brought together in ways we couldn’t have imagined at the start. Movement is key. We favor forms that are not just beautiful, but dynamic. Our inkwork establishes the direction of the piece and creates our negative space. Abstract forms that float and move reinforce this direction and contrast with the realism of our figures. Our figures move with force into the voids. For us, it is in this space that the weight and meaning of our art is found, in the uncertain and the limitless. What truly characterizes our collaborative work is the process itself, the conversations had, the bottles of wine shared, and the many hours spent working toward a common goal. We challenge ourselves and each other to hone our craft and develop our vision. As a two man team, we move with force toward an uncertain and undefined destination.

To see more of Arden’s work please visit her website.

4th Place (Traditional)
Osmar Reyes

I was born on March 10, 1973 in San Antonio de los Baños. Cuba. From 1985-88 I studied at the Juan Pablo Duarte Vocational School of Art. I have participated in numerous personal and collective exhibitions where I won numerous awards. I have also worked as a drawing teacher at the Provincial School of Art.

Since May 2016, I have lived in Miami, where I continued with my career. Artistically I am focused on developing the sensitivity and aesthetic awareness of people and mine as a being and as a creator. The development of my work over the years has been based on the constant exercise of drawing and color.

To see more of Osmar’s work, please email him directly.

4th Place
(Digital & Photography)
Joe Calleri

Joe Calleri is an Australian fine art and live performance photographer, and theatre reviewer. Joe’s intimate, exciting, colourful, dramatic images have been exhibited in Australia, in the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain, Hungary, and Russia, and have been published in several books and many other publications. Joe’s theatre publicity images have featured in The Age, The Herald Sun, MCV and Real Time magazine. Joe’s images reflect a profound statement – now a mantra for Joe – by famous Japanese Artist and Photographer, Hiroshi Sugimoto: “Art Resides Even In Things With No Artistic Intentions”. Anything around Joe can be beautiful: a red door with gold handles, the façades of buildings, a green wall with dark shadows photographed at 3pm one afternoon, graffiti on walls, water streaming from fountains, the handle on a Fire Box, a broken down VW van in someone’s front yard. What is critical to Joe is how he perceives particular scenes or objects. Each day Joe challenges himself to find beauty and simple details in the ordinary, in the innocuous, in the small things that many others walk past, ignore, step over or around, overlook or perhaps take for granted.

For additional information about Joe’s work, please send him an email.

4th Place
(3-Dimensional)
Sam Hart

Through my work I aim to empower women who have been socialized to feel vulnerable. After disengaging from an unhealthy relationship, all I could think of was how exposed and vulnerable I was; not only when I was alone, but also in small mundane actions. The moments to which others do not give a second thought, become a struggle; When alone in my room as I undress for the shower, in bed, or even just walking into a new room. Unable to extricate myself from the vulnerability, or have perspective on it all, I could only pray that others would not feel the same way. Thus, began my search for others feeling this same sense of emotional exposure during intimate moments alone. I focused on women; women in their late teens and early twenties who are just beginning to make a life, build a career, and develop crucial relationships. Often, WE do not have a guide book for these first great adventures. We share the resultant collapses and vulnerabilities as we begin to see ourselves with perspective in such novel, adult situations. In projecting them, I can see myself and other women sharing this moment of growth. Within my search, I began to study women through interviewing and photographing them in early adulthood. These women were asked a set of questions dealing with cultural belonging, sense of self, adversities faced, vulnerability, and perspectives on growth. From my research, I visually present my understanding.

To learn more about Sam’s work, please send her an email.

5th Place (Traditional)
Lewis Isaac Testa

Art is different to everyone. It can be beautiful or evoke emotions as well as relax you. To Lewis Isaac Testa it has been going on for 44 years now. It has been the one constant in his life that proved to be more valuable that he could have imagined and in turn has changed his life for the better. He attended the Art Students League in New York for four years and was awarded the Merit Scholarship for the last three years he attended. He studied under Fine Art Illustration under Robert E. Shultz as well as Anatomy under Robert Beverly Hale. He also studied Portrait painting under John Howard Sanden. I obtained employment with Edward Fields Inc. An Exclusive hand made rug manufacturer for the “Rich and Famous”. Bill Gates, Frank Sinatra, Madonna as well as the Whitehouse. My Last project was to help design the Oval Room Rug for the Whitehouse for President Bush. In 2003 I suffered a stroke due to a spinal fusion, which left me paralyzed on my right side. It took 4 years of intense physical therapy to feel normal again. Art was not in the forecast for the rest of my life. But then my granddaughter was born and Art came back in my life. All that you see is art after my stroke. I guess you have to loose everything to gain what really matters. I am the luckiest man alive.

To see more of Lewis’ work, please visit his website.

5th Place
(Digital & Photography)
Athalie Taylor

“Abstract art uses a visual language of shape, form, colour and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world.” Rudolf Arnheim, Visual Thinking Athalie Taylor is a visual artist who lives in Launceston, Tasmania, Australia. Her work encompasses photography and digital artistry. Her initial training was in the art/textile area but more recently she has embraced photography leading to her passion, digital art. Athalie has had work in exhibitions in Northern Tasmania including her first solo exhibition in 2015 and in 2017 another solo exhibition this time at the Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne, Victoria. She was also selected for an online solo exhibition through Light, Space and Time in April 2017. Athalie ‘s work has been shown in the Living the Photo Artistic Life magazine and Artists Down Under – Australia and New Zealand, a magazine she started but unfortunately had to pass over to anther editor when ill health intervened. Athalie has artworks in private collections across Australia. Athalie Taylor’s exploration into abstract art began when she was very young, she always drew. As she grew up doodles appeared on every scrap of paper left unattended… envelopes, her school books and later college notes, magazines, the phone book, nothing was left unadorned. As an adult she was excited and motivated by art that included simple lines, (straight, curved, and those that meandered through the piece) geometric shapes, circles, any patterned works, especially textured pieces. She was drawn by strong colours, simple compositions, unusual ideas and aspects. Many artists inspired her like Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Hans Hoffman and others, they still do today. She uses her camera in unexpected non-conventional ways. She is constantly forcing it to do what she wants, to get the starting point she needs for an artwork. The subject can be out of focus or taken pin sharp, it all depends on what she is trying to achieve at the time. Often there are different versions of the same subject which are later melded together to make the piece. Ideas develop and grow within the creation of the piece, she often gets lost in the process and when she’s done wonders how she finally reached that point. Some effects are achieved in the camera while others are developed and created in post processing. She is fascinated by shadows, sometimes her own, and reflections, and they regularly feature in her work. She draws, photographs, designs, creates, just for the love of it; the pure joy it gives her every day.

To see more of Athalie’s work, please visit her website.

5th Place
(3-Dimensional)
Christina Ellis

Artist’s Statement: If you had a dinner party, who would you invite? We’ve all been asked that. We try to think of remarkable people who would elevate us if we had an evening with them. From that premise, I approach the creation of these portrait busts, not only from the perspective of fascinating people who I would like to have dinner with, but also in terms of people who I don’t know who may be equally fascinating. What if the most fascinating people passed by us daily? I believe they do. As people we hide on a regular basis, from ourselves and others. My work is the recognition that we all want to be seen for who we are – our idiosyncrasies and our humanness. The great thing about cement is that as a medium, it’s messy and hard to predict, just like human beings. And the best part of the dinner party? You’re invited.

Artist’s Bio: For decades, I have explored storytelling of the human experience through art – capturing the emotion and idiosyncrasies of an individual, and creating art that speaks to people. I began my art career in the commercial art arena as an illustrator and art director for clients such as University of California, Raytheon, ad agencies and publishers. I went back to study sculpture under Ken Gray at the University of Alaska, Anchorage, where I showed my work in a number of student shows and the “No Big Heads” show. Years later, I opened an art school in Southern Oregon in response to the lack of funding and opportunities for children and adults interested in exploring the arts. Through the years I’ve painted in acrylics and oil, I most enjoy the challenge and immersive experience of sculpting in cement from my studio in Portland Oregon.

To see more of Christina’s work, please visit her website.