Mr. McKay’s figurative sculptures capture the essence of humanity in contemporary society: humans are equally products of both culture and nature, and are as irrational as rational, as emotional as pragmatic, and as traditional as progressive in this globalized contemporary world.

PAUL McKAY
“Eternal Stomp (Dionysus and Amphictyonis)”
Fired Clay with Patina
15” (61” on Pedestal) x 9.5” x 11.5”

Paul McKay’s dynamic expressions and the tumultuous tensions physically presented through his twisting forms modernize the ethos of the Greek Hellenic Period. Like the artists’ during this paramount period in the development of sculpture, Mr. McKay channels aggressive emotional strife and turmoil through the human form and uses the body to physically express the perplexing dialectical tensions between the moral and ethical binaries of good and evil in our contemporary world.

Mr. McKay seeks to symbolize the trials and tribulations of the psyche through the physical body, stating, “My art is a pursuit of the psychology and philosophy of human existence. My hope is that the conceptualization of Existentialism will resonate within the viewer. My current work can be defined as Etherealism: the psychological, philosophical, social, emotional and sensual realm of Existentialism.” Mr. McKay’s Etherealism captures Existential trials of the subject thrown amidst an ever-expanding global community, representing the individual’s heroic battle to maintain personal autonomy. His return to the body and its subsequent emotional and physical expressions is a return to an investigation of modern man’s primordial relationship with nature, an almost lost reality amidst our global contemporary society.

Ann Gores’ magnificent plein air landscapes demonstrate an unparalleled ability to capture the essence and spirit of the natural world. Her gorgeous depictions of pastoral vistas transport the viewer to idyllic locations through her vivid color palette and tantalizing texture.

ANN GORES
“Cherry Orchard – Les Baux, France”
Oil on Canvas
24” x 30”

Ann Gores is inspired by her many travels around the world, most notably a trip to Provence, France and Giverny to paint in Claude Monet’s garden which fulfilled a lifelong dream for the artist. Ms. Gores channels her Impressionist inspiration into her beautiful paintings of everyday life, stating, “For many years I painted still lifes and figures in studios, but eventually found my passion – plein air painting. I have traveled all over the USA and Europe with my Pochade box, capturing the effects of light and color on forms, finding inspiration everywhere.”

Wishing to enshrine that which is beautiful, Ann Gores freezes joyful scenarios and offers a permanent remembrance of charming moments that inspire through their peaceful serenity. In her current series, viewers are whisked away to the pastoral peacefulness of France’s sprawling terrain during the height of summer. Misty white cumulus clouds linger throughout calm, cyan blue skis, with viewers able to feel the warm sunshine brighten the forested lands bursting with peaceful fauna jetting upwards into the illuminated skies. Punches of warm orange and sun-dappled highlights add depth and movement to her heaven-on-earth vistas. Both modern and timeless, Ms. Gores’ compositions provide beauty and inspiring concepts to the viewer as she commemorates the splendor of nature and immortalizes the permanence of our natural world.

Bregje Horsten creates chromatic paintings, filling the canvases with thick layers of paint that visually stir emotions through sensational perception. Ms. Horsten implements a rigorous color palette comprised of deep, saturated hues, juxtaposing pure fields of voluminous color with organic shapes abstractly floating amidst the voracious backdrop of her abstract dreamscapes.

BREGJE HORSTEN
“Land of 1,000 Dances”
Oil on Canvas
47.2” x 31.5”

Bregje Horsten explains her abstract oil on canvas creations as personal expressions of her emotions and ideas about contemporary society, stating, “If you look through doors of perception, the art will unfold itself as a place where color is tamed by form and ideas are formed by personal experiences. This is what I try to capture in my work.” Ms. Horsten channels her perceptions of our external world through the design elements of line and color, creating opulent over-sized canvases meant to express rather than represent internal ideas.

The gracious application of densely rich oil paint builds structural layers atop the flat canvas, exciting viewers with luminescent forms mesmerizingly soaring through the background plane. Her spectral palette ranges from deep cool hues to fiery warm highlights, and together with her multifaceted brushwork ranging from long swooping streams to rapid thin strokes creates a momentous canvas bursting with active energy. Ms. Horsten titles her art with poetic expressions, allowing viewers to playfully conclude the joyful anecdotes independently by engaging with the voluminous canvases. Ms. Horsten inspires viewers with her color-field paintings, enacting ample emotions through her energetic colors and gestural brushwork.

 

Isa D’Arleans’ close-up portraits of men and women simplify individualism for betterment of the community by allowing all to equally interact with these angelic faces and through her art, experience communal bonds by sharing universal feelings and emotions.

ISA D’ARLEANS
“Hurt”
Acrylic on Canvas
36” x 24”

Isa D’Arleans defines art as a uniting force meant to bridge isolation between individuals through realizing shared emotional experiences, stating, “The depth and power of some extraordinary emotions can propel us into places where colors, space and time take on a whole new and significant meaning. My pictures come from that world, communicating values that make a difference in our communities – values such as optimism, the appreciation of beauty, caring, sharing regardless of religion or race.” Her acrylic on canvas “Angel” portraits interject universal experiences, dispelling seclusion by allowing all to consciously realize individual thoughts towards art and the emotional appreciation of that beauty as communal ideas mutually shared by all walks of life.

Ms. D’Arleans creates a global community through her portraits by painting optimistic themes symbolic of spiritual betterment, beneficent guardianship and just values. She creates a Heaven on Earth by proclaiming portraits of common people one could easily come across throughout daily activities as “Angels.” Painted amidst midnight backgrounds and bathed in atmospheric morning mists, her “Angels” genuine faces acknowledge viewers through kind and welcoming gestures, gently invoking communal conversation between art and audience. Their delicate faces and angelic stares allow all to appreciate the stoic beauty of their omnipresence, and their generalized features interject audience participation, where any one person can easily enact the just characteristics of a guardian Angel

Linda Morales’s polychromic color-field compositions burst with vibrant melodies through her expressive brushstrokes, energizing color planes and enchanting compositional harmony.

LINDA MORALES
“A Rainbow to Me”
Acrylic on Canvas
50” x 30”

Linda Morales’s use of color and texture formally energize one’s relationship with her over-sized oil on canvas paintings, in turn producing an emotional effect within the body. She expresses color as a cause and effect entanglement between visual perception and emotional response. Ms. Morales paints color as a sensation, and one psychologically reacts to the brilliant color planes within her kaleidoscopic canvases. Viewing the dark, cool-colored forms enlivened by gem-like hues of navy blue and emerald greens in her brilliant painting “Dawn,” one feels calm, intimate and even romantic, enacting idyllic day dreams of midnight candle-lit rendezvous.

However visually enticing color is to our senses, Ms. Morales shows that color is not only about seeing, but is about feeling, being touched and inspired by our emotions. Ms. Morales’s harmoniously myopic canvases entice cognition to experience appearance both visually as an external object and emotionally as an internal effect. Color regains its autonomy in Ms. Morales’s work, and the bold use of broad color planes enlivens our experience not only with her paintings, but with our relationship to the colors seen in the world.

Zoë Ann Fischer finds the beauty in all landscapes and exhibits nature in all of its splendor by capturing the luscious colors of sprawling landscapes overwhelmed by the luminescent streaks of warm sunlight beaming and illuminating the artist’s forested meadows and mountaintops.

ZOË ANN FISCHER
“Line Dancers”
Oil on Canvas
36” x 36”

Zoë Ann Fischer’s landscape paintings reveal her individual style inspired by the personal expressionist brushwork of Impressionism along with the sublime open terrain subject matter of American Hudson River School masters. The artist works from experience, recalling these sublime vistas from personal memories and photographs, stating, “As a landscape painter, the challenge to capture the spontaneity of a moment in time before it slips irretrievably into nonexistence fascinates me. I allow myself the freedom to work from my mind’s eye, memory, and photographs, embellishing and rephrasing the landscapes I encounter.”

Her attention to natural light manifests itself through her adept skill with color; her thoughtful transitions in color, from luminescent highlights to deep shades of single hues add spatial density to her sprawling landscapes. Ms. Fischer’s color palette is filled with soothing earth tone hues, ranging from deep, forest green fauna to the subtle burnt sienna hues of the desolate mountainside terrains juxtaposed to the light cyan skies filled with nebulous clouds gently drifting through the open air. Ms. Fischer reminds viewers to always appreciate our given surroundings, because nature, in all its manifestations, is a pleasurable scene to visually experience.

Diane Holland’s mixed-media paintings abstract commonplace passageways in order to transform the normality of the gateways one crosses daily into extraordinary visual metaphors replete with nostalgic interpretations grounded in one’s haunting imagination.

DIANE HOLLAND
“The Back Fence”
Mixed Media on Canvas
40” x 30”

Diane Holland’s current series’ earth-tone color palette and rich textures remarkably transform her abstract expressionist paintings into rusticated portals that initiate lasting narratives. She builds her simple palette comprised of rich wooden hues through layers of quick, expressive brushwork that mimics the tactile surface of an aged wooden surface filled with rough, chipped edges beyond repair. Her titles serve as keys to unlocking the buried mysteries in order to push beyond abstract expressionism into a guided meaning filled with brilliantly fantastical intrigue and loose in its absolute implications, leaving room for subjective interpretations. Ms. Holland’s intended narrative includes antiquated wooden doors and boarded windows, inventively prescribing surreal intrigue to ordinary objects through her intentional choice to keep these gateways barricaded from the outside world.

Ms. Holland’s intentional appropriation of untreated wooden surfaces is far removed from the slick modernized resources of streamlined metal and glass prosperous in our contemporary age, and such anachronistic materials unearths thoughts of secluded cottages or cabins in the woods surrounded by the unbridled adventures in nature. As viewers her oneiric paintings haunt our imaginations as we assume the roles of actors in her masterful story, becoming the ones either trying to enter these abandoned homes or even more thrilling, the characters trapped within the paintings imagined spaces. Looming before our eyes, Ms. Holland’s brilliantly textured thresholds interact and create compelling stories that continue to thrill viewers’ wildest imaginations.