Best in Show (Traditional)
Barbara Mosher
Best in Show
(Digital & Photography)
Mac Titmus
Best in Show
(Sculpture)
Marlene Siff
2nd Place (Traditional)
Julia Hamilton
As a multidisciplinary artist, Julia Hamilton enjoys creating traditional media artwork and new media artwork with equal passion. She lives and works in her hometown of Columbus, Ohio, where she is currently attending Columbus College of Art & Design’s Master of Fine Arts program.
Her inspiration comes from the cosmos, science, nature, and the mystery of the human brain. Hamilton uses color to set the mood of her abstract paintings and drawings. She uses her unique vocabulary of intricate shapes to pull viewers into her work, where they can enjoy getting lost in mesmerizing layers of patterns and shapes.
Hamilton’s mixed media paintings are made with alcohol inks on clay board. She lights the ink on fire while it’s wet. This creates texture, interesting shapes, and chaos. After the burn, Hamilton draws intricate shapes, taking control of the piece. The result is artwork that contains chaos and order.
To purchase this award winning piece or to see more of Julia’s work please visit her website.
2nd Place
(Digital & Photography)
Bette Ann Levine
Bette Ann is a full-time resident of Palm Springs, CA. Photography has been part of her life since childhood, taking her small camera everywhere, and then learning film developing and darkroom techniques from her amateur-photographer father, “The emerging image was like magic, ” she recalls. Her mother was a canvas artist, and palette knife, brushes, and paint skills were equally exciting. Fast forward to this new age of digital photography and post-production and she now no longer has to choose which to work with – photography, or paint. Now it all merges together: photo-art. The magic of the darkroom, the motion created by added a line, the attitude of a texture. Her work is displayed both online and in local art shows.
To see more of Bette Ann’s work please visit her website.
2nd Place
(Sculpture)
Stephanie Robison
The sculpture of Stephanie Robison plays with multiple oppositional relationships. Created out of wood, fabric, stone, steel, foam, and plastic her works synthesize and fuse: organic and geometric, natural and architectural, soft with hard, the handmade and the uniform industrial. Robison’s work often uses humor or the absurd to address uncontrollable aspects of the body, the self, the environment, and relationships. Originally from Oregon, Robison currently resides in California teaching sculpture at the City College of San Francisco and serving as President and Educational Director for the California Sculptors Symposium. Robison holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Marylhurst University and a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the University of Oregon.
Robison’s work has been exhibited in California, Vermont, Washington, New Mexico, Georgia, Florida, Virginia, Alberta Canada, Ohio, New York, Hawaii, Oregon and South Korea. Her work has been shown at: Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, C2C Project Space, Kala Art Institute, ProArts Gallery, Berkeley Art Center, The Art Passageway, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, The Carving Studio and Sculpture Center, Whatcom Museum, Tacoma Art Museum, Center on Contemporary Art in Seattle, Coastline Art Gallery, Platz Gallery, Plunkett Gallery, 4Most Gallery, Peter Robertson Gallery, Manifest Creative Research Gallery & Drawing Center, A.I.R. Gallery, Manoa Art Gallery, Linfield Fine Art Gallery, The Art Gym, Worksound, Autzen Gallery.
To purchase this award winning piece or to see more of Stephanie’s work please visit her website.
3rd Place (Traditional)
Michelle Silverman
Michelle Silverman is a Contemporary-Abstract, Fusion artist living in Saint Paul, Minnesota. For her, painting is the ultimate meditation and creative expression. Most of her works are created in the early morning hours, reflecting the stillness of the pre-sunlight morning, allowing her to hear and listen to spirit and her inner world. She paints from the heart.
Her art and meditation process begins around 4 AM, with soft music, the cat Gilmore, and a blank canvas; approaching the canvas not knowing what the final outcome will be. She uses resin and acrylic paints to pour, drip and brush directly onto various substrates and mix them on the surface. The interaction between the paints and the smooth surface creates a dynamic movement of color. The process requires many layers of paint and is not premeditated, allowing for a spontaneous creation that is highly unpredictable. The finished abstract painting allows the viewer to see the images or feelings that speak to them.
Michelle is an Artist, a Creativity Coach, and Certified Zentangle Teacher. Michelle creates and sells and licenses her fine-art for homes, businesses, corporations, healthcare and the community at large. Her art is also available for license on clothing, home goods and more. She donates art to charitable causes that are important to her. Michelle has a creative solution to nearly every problem. Prior to becoming a full-time artist, Michelle was the founding Executive Director of both Free Arts Minnesota and Gilda’s Club Twin Cities. She is well recognized in Minnesota for being a visionary leader and a leader that “gets things done”. Michelle creates all of her art from her morning rituals that begin with meditation, creativity and faith. Michelle has love, joy, hope and faith embedded in all of her artwork.
To purchase this award winning piece or to see more of Michelle’s work please visit her website.
3rd Place
(Digital & Photography)
Michal (Mitak) Mahgerefteh
Michal (Mitak) Mahgerefteh is a multi-media abstract artist from Virginia. She creates with various materials, in many styles and finishes… she does not limit her creative expression to one style or one medium. Currently, Mitak creates abstract paintings by using three artist apps on iPad Pro. “Bee Bold-Bee Beautiful” series was inspired by visits to natural parks and botanical gardens during her world travels. “Bee Colorful” — like the people of the world who gifted the earth with diversity. In 2018, Mitak received many awards for her pastel and oil creations: Special recognition and Honorable Mention from LightSpaceTime.com; Finalist from Artist’s Magazine 35th Annual Competition; Juried into The Chesapeake Bay Artists Juried Show; Second Place from PrimeTime Juried Exhibition; Artist Spotlight Portfolio Solo Show from Fusion Art; Juried into Norfolk Academy Annual Show.
To purchase this award winning piece or to see more of Michal’s work, please visit her website.
3rd Place
(Sculpture)
Janet Rutkowski
“Great art, whether it be visual, sculptural, functional or audio, has a presence, a spirit which it truly felt. I seek to incorporate that presence, that spirit into every piece I create. Art is an unfounded religion whose inspiration comes from a divine source. the power is within each of us, and we should use it in everything we do, in all walks of life. It is the power of transformation. Transformation of the mundane into the divine.”
Born in Staten Island, I am a native New Yorker. I attended the High School of Art and Design but didn’t find my calling until ten years after art school. At first I took some life drawing classes and the New School but then I found sculpting. I happened upon the studios of Arturo DiModica. (Who is the creator of the renowned bull on Wall Street.) This is where I started to learn stone carving. Then afterwards I studied with Mr. Sabastiano Mineo and his son Ron at Art Life Craft Studios on the upper east side. There I worked in traditional stone and wood carving along with sculpting clay. I was fortunate to have a teacher and to this day, dear friend, Ron Mineo who directed me onto my true path of metal working. I studied at the Sculpture Center on the upper east side. Steel/welding was an instant love and I have been working in it ever since. My career in metalwork has gone full circle over the past thirty five years. I began with the abstract, moved on to the functional, extended to the architectural and now have returned back to the sculptural with all disciplines under my belt. I am truly living my dream.
To purchase this award winning piece or to see more of Janet’s work, please visit her website.
4th Place (Traditional)
Stuart Lehrman
My practice involves the dialogue between order and chaos. I am very physical when working, going to a place where I lose control of the painting or drawing, Struggling back to achieve a balance between wild spontaneity & emotional restraint. This is the challenge that drives me on to the next work. My work is inspired from the natural and manmade phenomena I observe in the world around me. The historical context of my work is that of Abstract Expressionism, Post-painterly Abstraction.
To purchase this award winning piece or to see more of Stuart’s work, please visit his website.
4th Place
(Digital & Photography)
Patrick O’Brien
Patrick O’Brien has always been fascinated by the dichotomies or polar differences in our existence: light / dark, love / hate, true / false. He believes we can define all things under these basic categories. His visualizations are interpretations of the light and the dark, often using vibrant and radiant colors, and natural and man-made symmetrical patterns and shapes. The motivation for his images and the desire to create them is a philosophy he shares with one of his greater influences, the surrealist Rene Magritte, who justified his work with this statement: “Too often we tend to reduce what is strange to what is familiar. I intend to restore the familiar to the strange.”
To purchase this award winning piece or to see more of Patrick’s work, please visit his website.
5th Place (Traditional)
Beatrice Dauge
Beatrice Dauge Kaufmann was born in Lausanne, Switzerland. She currently lives and works in Montreal and Boston. Through her profession she had the opportunity to travel all over the world. She lived in Lausanne, London, Paris and Florence, Boston where she studied art history, drawing, painting and sculpture.
Through her travels, Beatrice explored the colors around her. She is not afraid of her own emotions and can express them in abstract pictures or landscapes. She frequently uses square shapes to structure and define the space of her paintings and uses a wide range of colors. Her love for the sky and the sea inspires her use of blues and greens in her paintings. The fall season in New England and Quebec has introduced her to the infinite palette of oranges, pinks and reds. The color effects of her work evoke the feeling of freedom, density and space. She hopes to give peace in her work and around her.
To purchase this award winning piece or to see more of Beatrice’s work, please visit her website.
5th Place
(Digital & Photography)
Bill Burgess
My work focuses on combinations of music, video, painting and photography within built environments to capture the parallel but ephemeral world of the human soul. There is a primal, timeless layer built into each human being. There I’ve found a goodness, but also been shocked at the power of my own malevolence. Try as we might to paper over this inconvenience with our beloved scientific rational, it will appear silently by our shoulder during tragedy or loss, or the birth of a child or a close call with death. The shadow is a powerful metaphor for this dimension. This series of five digital paintings is based on photographs of my own shadow, and depicts the tumult and exaltation I see within.
I’ve worked in a creative partnership to design immersive environments for TEDx Austin, FuseBox Festival, GSD&M SXSW Industry Party, Microsoft Research Brazil World Cup, American Repertory Theater, Boston Museum of Contemporary Art, Boston Ballet and X-Games Austin. Our street wide environment depicting Dust Bowl anguish and loss was one of ten (out of 100) featured art installations at Dallas Aurora Convergence of Light 2013. I’ve also written music for Apple, NBC and Disney, but sketching and painting remain at the core of my expression.
To purchase this award winning piece or to see more of Bill’s work, please email him directly.