Abstracted Abstraction Artwork and Statements

Sharon Aach

Statement:
I delight in making art the elicits a positive message. Painting behind glass symbolizes reflection and transparency, tangible yet esoteric.. I try to be transparent and be what i am, not what i am not. I hope to not only connect with individuals, but also inspire one to seek purpose, look below the surface, explore possibilities, and find the hidden truth. It is my hope to encourage one to go beyond the physical aspects of the material world and transcend into an intellectual spiritual experience of reflection.
Like life, my work is an ever-changing process of discovery and connection, always evolving to meet the demands of inevitable change.

Website: www.SaachArt.com

Jess Bass

Statement:
With purposeful deep play at my core, I am interested in exploring networked systems between myself, objects, and time so as to intentionally move between the learned, the inherited, the automated, and the internalized.

Website: http://jessicabass.com

William Brueggen

Statement:
My paintings involve color relation, flowing form, texture and intense feeling which define the painting. The use of acrylic paints and Asian inks on canvas allow for an uninhibited, sinuous, flexible style creating exhilaration and conflict as the mediums converge on the canvas.

Jim Burwinkel

Statement:
I like to work with the old dictum that “light reveals form” as a starting point for the work that I make. It seems to be a simple enough proposition and is at the core of how we experience the world around us. For this piece, I use a restricted palette of colors and materials to allow the light to become a full partner in the work. Sometimes it is to reveal something hidden and sometimes it is to create interesting reflections and shadows. But it is never fully alive until you turn on the light.

Tom Casey

Statement:
I look to capture the beauty of the world all around us, whether in nature or in urban settings, and share them through photographs. My main focus in media has been printing on metal, which does an amazing job of bringing to life in high definition my images.

Website: www.tomcaseyphotography.com

Emily Choi

Statement:

As a native of South Korea, my work reflects the influence of my early experiences with the East Asian style of ink painting, I have always been intrigued by the idea of leaving space for breath in my work.

I want my artworks to draw the viewer into a relaxed and flowing space, so I work to create a subtle interplay between the positive and negative spaces in my work, inviting the viewer to engage freely with these flowing landscapes.

MaryJo Clark

Statement:
Since childhood, art has been an integral part of my life. I have always enjoyed the creative process and have made the study and practice of art my life’s work; from my art making to my more than 30 years as an art educator.

Drawing has been the foundation of my artistic endeavors and, more recently, I have turned my attentions to design through the technique of collage.

My collage pieces grew out of a lesson on shape that I had developed for my students. I became intrigued by the arrangement of shapes, colors and textures as elements for creating unique compositions. The additional embellishments of beads, tiles and/or other media add a dimensional aspect to each design.

I particularly enjoy expressing myself through the non-objective and abstract subject matter of these pieces that, in turn, evoke unique responses from each viewer.

Website: http://www.clarkart-stl.com

Brenda Cross

Statement:
Brenda Cross is an abstract painter and mixed media artist. Her work has been featured at Art Saint Louis and Soulard Art Gallery. Cross has a B.S. in Public Health from Saint Louis University and currently works in community engagement for a non-profit organization. She lives in Florissant, Missouri, with her husband Louis and their dogs Gloria and Stella and cat Cashew.

Cross’ most recent series ‘Beyond the Horizon’ explores the ways that our individual perceptions of time and place are influenced by the collective of our emotions, mental states, and experiences. Each day as the sun rises then sets, our view of the horizon is determined not only by where we exist physically in the world but also by the chaos or calm within and around us. This series represents life’s constant push and pull between looking ahead and glancing back.

Website: https://www.etsy.com/shop/bcrossstudio/

Decheng Cui

Statement:
The purpose of my work is to use it to fight fear from death. Since the demise of the flesh is inevitable, then I can only find ways to plant the fragments of my soul among human civilizations, to root it to console myself. Therefore, it is unimportant to me that what kind of art language I use, and it play a whole key role in my work that what kind of my concept, my soul, in it.
I never totally believe and follow my feeling to create art works, and I believe my thinking and logic are much more trustworthy.

Website: http://www.cuidecheng.com

Annette Cummins

Statement:
I like road trips! When painting abstract I am going on a road trip with no destination in mind. I don’t follow a map but my inner guide instead, excited to see where it will lead me.
As I travel shapes and colors merge into pictures before my eyes, some fleeting, others staying with me a little longer. I stash them away in my memory box before leaving them behind, only to discover new and exciting views emerging in front of me.

Miguel de Aguero

Statement:
The pattern embodies a set of rules, principles and assumptions.
The pattern provides the skeleton that supports the rest of the image.
The pattern evokes a certain time, a certain flavor, or a certain memory.
The pattern sets the eye?s clock as it ticks around the image.
The pattern defines a very small world, but it contains everything.

Dion Dion

Statement:
Inspired by the natural environment's beauty, design and diversity - as observed in my garden or other gardens discovered - I'm initially challenged to capture and interpret the perceived organic movement and energy through my visual marks, lines, structural layering and the blending of exaggerated colors. The results become a newly different and other worldly interpretation. Current work concentrates in building up the surfaces with 3-d elements.

Tamara Eberle

Statement:
The artmaking process has been a lifelong necessary & fundamental part of the human existence for me. Trained as an art educator and then an art therapist, I have had the opportunity to be exposed to many artistic materials and processes. My body of work is diverse: ranging from fibers, photography, digital art, and sculpture. I use art as a way to cope and share my life experiences with others. As an art therapist I encourage others to do the same. In my career I constantly hear stories of tragedy. These stories lead to feelings of vicarious trauma, if left unattended. Making art about these experiences is one way I consistently reflect on the heavy work being carried out. The unique year of 2020 has provided additional time to create artwork and process the vacillating highs and lows that have existed in this alternative isolating reality. Emerging themes in my artwork from this year include personal narratives, relationships, nostalgia, mental health, coping, isolation and trauma. Art continues to be my first language in communicating with others and contributes to my ongoing wellbeing.

Website: instagram: @smilefortheTamara

Genevieve Esson

Statement:
I have a very strong desire to convey the beauty and spirituality of the natural world. Being an acrylic painter and multimedia artist I manifest an energetic color palette to create contemporary art on a 2D or 3D surface. My inspirations are varied: nature, animals, music, color, dreams, spirituality and art history. My goal is to transport people to another dimension and enlighten their minds with love, hope and beauty.

Web site: https://pixels.com/artists/genevieve+esson

Rosalyn Farney

Statement:
I am an artist from San Antonio, Texas recently graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Before moving to Chicago I studied at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco and the Southwest School of Art in San Antonio. My artistic practice is interdisciplinary, recently focused on printmaking and fibers with an experimental approach. I am interested in how artwork may be understood as organic, often incorporating the use of stencils and collage through a painterly and poetic mode of visual language.

My artistic processes allow for performance, improvisation, and learning from doing. Process art is something I appreciate because the point of the work doesn’t necessarily exist in the end product. I allow my art practice to have its own sense of becoming versus predictability. In this way of working I explore rhythm, sequencing and how working automatically may function in art and meaning making. Color and gesture are central to my work which is informed by my experience in performance, animation, sculpture, and painting.

Shelley Gilchrist

Statement:
In my current sculptural paintings I continue to explore line and color. From investigating these elements by using flat surfaces and creating curvilinear and organic designs, I have moved to using painting surfaces that are curved or undulating. On these I apply line patterns that gain their motion from the sculptural surface. Seemingly random colors give the pieces a sense of play, and saturated colors create energy and a sense of visual vibration.

Although they are abstract in nature, my works are inspired by specific experiences or memories. These pieces in particular are derived from the sight of fabric billowing on a clothesline, making the wind visible. My intention is to convey the moment of lift and capture by an invisible current.

Website: http://www.shelleygilchrist.com

Brenda Gilliam

Statement:
I am an Illustrator / Graphic Designer by profession.
However, I have recently begun to devote more time to my own creative pursuits. Primarily self-taught, I just paint what I like the way I like.
Shapes, colors, patterns, movement, balance, the simple moments in life ... come into play as ingredients of my work.
Not stuck on one style or subject, I look forward to the next challenge and what is to be learned.

Website: http://www.bgrtst.com

Nancy Grimes

Statement:
My recent work is about color and pattern. I am influenced by pop culture, artists such as Matisse, and the world around me. Sculptural work in wool and paintings in gouache have color and patterns in common.

Wade Hampton

Statement:
What makes an artist? I am not sure that’s a question that really has an answer. I assure you, I?m not the person most would see walking down the street and say ?hey, I bet that guy has a small studio area in the basement of his home to create!? I?m a husky guy who is in his early 40s, I played football in college, I work in sales full time now. I don?t scream artsy at all, but I have a passion for art, it?s my release a place of retreat. I started dabbling in painting again a few years ago, life had taken me away from the time or place to create art. I went through some changes in my life and needed something, something that would allow me to release my energy, help me feel good about myself and my journey. I grew up drawing and took art classes in school and even a few in college. I have always been interested in abstract art, I love the theory of color and movement. I try to make my pieces feel alive with depth and flow. Thank you for the opportunity and I hope you enjoy my work.

John Hardecke

Statement:
I love the serendipitous outcomes I get from painting, starting a piece with little or no preconception and simply enjoying the process of exploration and discovery.

Website: https://www.instagram.com/hazel_mopes/

Hattie Hardt

Statement:
I isolate and elevate visual phenomena, specifically working at the intersection of light, motion, and material. To create these abstract images of transformation from the body of work 'Lines Under Movement?, I move the camera in front of the vertical blinds in my living room. The gaps between the blinds form vertical lines of light and are the basis for my mark making. I create thousands of images by lengthening the shutter speed and moving the camera in a pre-rational gesture to exploit all of the unique visual characteristics of the material. I have culled these images in order to demonstrate what is possible in this ordinary space. Each work reflects the meditative state I can sometimes find when I am alone in my house and focus on blocking out the concerns of the outside world. For the viewer, I hope the work creates a calming focal point on which to meditate. This homebound process has been especially valuable over the last year, allowing me to find joy while standing still.

Terry Hinkle

Statement:
St. Louis artist, Terry Hinkle, has been creating art since he was old enough to hold a crayon. He received his Bachelors Degree in Commercial Arts and Business from the University of Kansas and, after graduation, began his career as a commercial artist, illustrator, and designer. He quickly moved to the creative business of advertising, promotion, and marketing.

It took a lot of work, but Terry finally found the way to break the confining bonds of commercial art and dive into the exhilarating flow of the unstructured, pure creative energy that makes up his new artwork.

Terry explained that many times he wakes up from a dream with a complete visual of a finished painting in his head and has to rush to capture it before it fades away. But most days, he does a simple meditation before entering his studio to clear out all of the ?human? noise and set his creative intention for the day. Then, with a clear, uncluttered mind, Terry selects the wood or paper or canvas that he will start with, and happily enters that intoxicating stream of creative energy, never knowing where it will take him.

Quite a few of Terry’s new paintings are created with Iron, copper, and bronze paints that are then oxidized to weather and rust. He very seldom seals the paint when finished so that it can continue to live and make beautiful subtle changes over time.

Website: http://www.hinkle-art.com

Bo Hubbard

Statement:
I have spent the last three years creating rugs and discovering the process of machine tufting. My mindset and education are rooted in painting; however, fiber processes have always been conducive to working fluidly between 2D and 3D. I am interested in the connotation of rugs and the distortion between functionality, decoration, and storytelling. The pieces are meant to hang on the wall, challenging the expectation of the material.
My practice has been consistently focused on abstraction. I am interested in creating objects that have their own ambience and discovering this ambience through the manipulation of formal elements; playing with color, shape, and composition to find a story. My work explores biomorphic shapes and how color can simultaneously guide interpretation. I often look towards a combination of microscope and aerial viewpoints to confuse the composition and distort the pictorial space. I want the rugs to be unknown yet familiar, constructed yet playful; to find a place in memory that is not immediately attainable.
Prior to working with yarn and tufting, I worked in paper-making. My use of fiber mediums comes from an interest in traditional craft practices and an emphasis on processing materials by hand. I enjoy having time to consider my intentions for each piece as I prepare materials. My concepts often come from my interests in home décor and interior design, natural phenomena and plants, myths and fantasy. I look towards modern painting to better understand my own work and I?m continually inspired by the work of artists Arthur Dove, William Baziotes, and Vuillard, to name a few. Creating rugs has been an effective way to combine my interests and continue to learn more through my work.

Website: http://bohubbard.com

Suzanne Galli Koenen

Statement:
I love to paint. Working all my life in a series of grids, circles and squares no matter the medium. Always working outside the box making Color the star. Color is what makes me happy.

Website: http://www.sgkart.com

Robert Kokenyesi

Statement:
I intend to tell bursts of stories of elegance, beauty and vulnerability of the creatures that live on beaches and in the oceans, stories of the humbling and unstoppable power of the waves and currents, stories of menacing and enigmatic mysteries emerging to us on the beach or in the depth of the oceans.

Website: http://www.beachfrontpottery.com

Mary Koszut

Statement:
My artwork strives to investigate the curiosity of contradiction that encompasses the growth process. My visual vocabulary is inspired by the forest environment, where I feel most spiritually whole. I abstract branches, roots, and rocks which appear as linear and circular shapes. These elements metaphorically represent individuals in search of physical, emotional, and spiritual stability. Unable to transcend their environment, they support one another to achieve a fragile stability, which at any moment, could, and often does, collapse.
I allow these elements to interact with one another, repeatedly overlapping and removing imagery; a process analogous to building upon successes and letting go of unfortunate life events. This progression results in unexpected passages of color and shape, evolving through a series of unplanned situations. I invite the viewer to find the beauty in this struggle of contradiction and see hope in the effort to maintain balance.

Website: http://marybethkoszut.com

Andrew Leicht

Statement:

I am a mostly self-taught artist who began my career as a member of the Lemp Studio Artists and participated in several Inform shows in the early 1990?s at the Lemp Brewery Complex. My awards include an Excellence in Painting distinction at Laumeier Sculpture Park Art Fair in 1990, a Member Select of the Missouri 50 show at the Missouri State Fair, and selection in several juried shows at Art St. Louis and Truman State University. My abstract paintings are strongly influenced by my surroundings, especially the Tower Grove neighborhood where I have lived most of my life.

Dee Levang

Statement:
Dee Levang is an abstract artist working in encaustic, oil and cold wax,
and fiber. She studied graphic design at California Institute of the Arts,
and has been teaching encaustic and fiber classes and workshops since 2015.
She often creates her paintings using an intuitive process, not having a
solid plan or a desired design intent before beginning a piece. Instead,
she relies on play, exploration, and discovery, as each piece begins to
take on a life of its own. Her encaustic work often includes embedded
fibers like cotton, rayon, wool, and silk.

Website: https://www.deelevang.com

Jim Lynn

Statement:
My art includes painting sculpture wood and mixed media. I strive for content and work in multiple genres. Hopefully, I have something to say in my work no matter what form it takes. In today's rapidly changing world, I am concerned with how technology has affected our view of art. For Freedom, I try to show how we overcome barriers (social, physical and cultural) to carry on in our lives.

Sarah Marjanovic

Statement:
My strong sense of place and my love of nature and the outdoors stem from the work my family and I do to restore and manage healthy natural communities on our lands.

At times my act of mark-making communicates the destructive aggressive aspect of the spread of exotic botanical species within an ecosystem. The process by which I create my homemade papers includes the removal of those detrimental invasive plants from our restored prairies, wetlands, and forests. Thus, the utilization of those papers in my art takes on significance, announcing the presence of threat and revealing efforts toward bringing about ecological balance.

Artwork of another vein investigates the ambivalence between the microscopic and macroscopic landscapes or the miniscule and the monumental. Drawing with thread, I create intriguing interplays between representational cellular forms and abstract multilayered landscapes.

A significant catalyst for my artwork is the concept of landscapes in flux. The idea of the map is used as an index to a particular place. Yet, a map possesses the possibility of alluding to the vast or the minute formation. Also, the likelihood of a map becoming unhinged emphasizes the dynamic nature of the landscape.

I recognize the complexity of ecological systems and I acknowledge my own imprint upon the landscape.

Website: www.sarahmarjanovic.com

Barbara Marshall

Statement:
I fell in love with photography in college and for years took mostly nature photos. I love the challenge of capturing a photo of an animal, insect or person in just the right lighting, at just the right time I began taking photographs of the “pictures” that I find in the tar on streets, sidewalks and parking lots while on daily walks ten years ago. My “TarArt” photography is often abstract, and surprisingly rich with texture and color. I never stage or Photoshop a photo, and have been constantly amazed and surprised by the beauty that I see in the tar. Some photographs clearly look like a picture to me while others are more abstract. What other people drive over or walk on as non-descript tar and asphalt, I photograph because it resonates with richness and often profound beauty to me.

J. Kent Martin

Statement:
I enjoy working with various mediums and techniques, exploring how they react to each other and the conditions of the particular day. There is an unpredictability and element of surprise that I believe parallels life in general.

How we view life, how we see both ourselves and others changes as we grow as people. Our perspectives and attitudes are influenced and adjusted. Like life, the image I create, the meaning and what the piece represents is realized through the process.

With the world in an unprecedented state of conflict, there has never been a more dire need for open and honest dialogue. Issues of global health, racial and social injustice, political divide, and environmental crisis can only be managed when we are able to look at one another as fellow members of the human species.

My work as a home furnishings designer is very different. With furniture, I have a very clear vision of what the finished product should be and I am disappointed if the final product does not meet that expectation. With my art, I can explore more freely, without the confines of a specific end goal.

Website: https://www.jkentmartin.com

Suzanne McCudden

Statement:
Used to working with data/numbers where planning/exactness is necessary,I have found moving from the planned to free form to be relaxing and fulfilling. Using new media in non-representational, free form projects, capturing color, light, design, and texture is meant to produce enjoyment for the viewer.
Learning that some results are pleasing and others not, but still OK, has been freeing. Art work is a new world with the media the new language.
I am learning and hoping others will enjoy the results.

Web site: https://www.elmwoodavearts.com/

Kelsey McDowell

Statement:
There is joy to be found in every day, regardless of circumstances. Using raw canvas, acrylic, and charcoal, I create pieces that capture my joy. Inspired by the hymns I grew up with, and still hold dear to my heart as an adult, I paint abstract works from a place of self-abandonment.

I may begin a painting with an idea of the direction I want to take. I have found, though, that my most dynamic work comes when I allow a dialogue between the hymn that?s serving as inspiration and the work instead of allowing my preconceived notions to force a composition.

Ron Mcllvain

Statement:
My objectives are simple; but, creative work in paint for me has been and continues to be an intellectual process of applying paint to canvas in order to communicate a thought with line, shape, color, space and texture. I have no philosophical, subliminal or emotional agenda. My reward evolves as the statement is revealed. Hopefully, a person viewing one of my paintings has a positive experience, as well.

Website: RONMCILVAIN.COM

Alison McMahon

Statement:
'I am not an artist.' -most people

Art, to me, is about removing my armor, putting down my sword and sharing my experiences, emotions, and myself authentically. My intention as an artist is to illicit feeling(s) within the viewer.

I am grateful to discover I am not 'most people'. I am an artist.

Katy Neale

Statement:
I’m a painter who primarily works in acrylics but also experiments in multi-media, collage and chalk paints on a variety of surfaces. My visual inspiration is sourced from the interior design and home decorating industries, specifically traditional floral wallpaper and textile patterns from the UK/Europe.

I am constantly drawn back again and again to pattern that evokes nature, specifically plants and flowers. Floral patterns, for example, provide a huge database of visual imagery that come with their own rich historical and culture significance. Within this context, I can explore a wide range of subject matter.

Bringing the beauty of nature inside to decorate our homes and interior spaces is universal and cross-cultural. It's almost like it's own language with symbols and stylized motifs. But it's not nature itself as these patterns represent an idealized version of our perceived beauty of what nature can or should be for us. And it's even more relevant today since globally we are increasingly becoming more separated from nature then we've ever been, so we feel the need to surround ourselves with imagery that inspires us.

Color is also another important aspect of my work, primarily drawing from pre-mixed palette swatches from hardware stores. About half of my color palette are pre-mixed colors from swatches in local hardware stores. Lately I have been experimenting with chalk paint, a unique decorative paint sourced from the UK.

Web site: http://www.kjnstudio.com

Sean O’Coyle

Statement:
Hello, my name is Sean O’Coyle and I am an abstract artist and I come from a family of artists. I began designing and carving glass for our family business the Evergreen Crystal Company; where I also apprenticed and became a master glass carver by the age of 20. This naturally led to painting and working in other mediums while developing my abstract art style.

Over the last few years in my art making process I?ve been experimenting with recycled objects that come from my everyday work life. I like adding different types of common found things into my art that are personal to me and tangible for others to see and experience in a new way.

Alex Paradowski

Statement:
The satisfaction of being a multi-media artist is the freedom to explore and combine the endless possibilities available to create an image.

Website: www.alexparadowski.com

Brian Petrone

Statement:
Trained as an architect, I employ the processes that go into making a building - forming mass, sculpting space, manipulating light - to create art. My work deals with the intersection of architecture, painting, and sculpture. The areas of overlap between these disciplines become ripe for exploration. What traits do they share? How can one inform the other? And how can the boundary between them be blurred?

Additionally, I am interested in the analogy of the city as a living organism. Much like living things, cities grow, contract, evolve, and change. The sculptures that I create hang on the wall like paintings but include volumes that burst out of the two-dimensional plane, suggesting organic or crystalline growth, mirroring the growth of the city.

Website: http://instagram.com/studio.petrone

Kathryn Provinse

Statement:
My interpretation of a more exciting, colorful, diverse life. This piece was a break from the monotony I experience in the day to day. It’s what I dream about.

Judith Repke

Statement:
The colors I choose reflect my emotional response to what I see in that moment. In my watercolors I use free mingling of colors and soft edges to allow areas to pull back from the center of interest which I paint in more detail. I give myself challenges, new parameters and new avenues of expression constantly. I paint my delight in the world God made.

My studio is in my home. I am a member of Missouri Watercolor Society, Art Saint Louis, Northside Art Association and Artists of Grace. I graduated from the University of Missouri as an Art Education Major.

Website: repkeart.com

Emily Kay Rice

Statement:
Emily Kay Rice is an abstract artist from St. Louis. Her collection of work is multifaceted, ranging from a variety of mediums, with a primary focus of acrylics and ink.

Emily has been exploring the capabilities of mixed media fluid art since 2015. Her therapeutic process involves taking the uncovered emotions surrounding life's ever evolving experiences, and giving them a visual abstract representation. Unlike the traditional methods of acrylic pour, using a can of spray paint allows her to control each chosen color directionally across the canvas. Emily desires to express some of the dimensional capabilities of spray paint as a medium in its own right, aside from its traditional street art reputation, exploring the pull and push between the artist’s level of control and the paint’s own intrinsic qualities.

Emily continues to work professionally in a variety of trades among the fine arts. Accompanied by a Bachelors of Arts degree in Theatre from Missouri Baptist University where she is currently working as a theatrical set designer, Emily also served as a Visual and Performing Arts Educator at Visitation Academy of St. Louis years 2018 and 2019. Emily is credited in the areas of graphic design, set design, and children’s book illustration.

Website: emilykayrice.com

Bob Rickert

Statement:
The convergence of photography and digital imaging has created opportunities for images which no one really considered possible several years ago. It has also created more photographers than ever before. What separates photographers with various ability levels and training is their ability to see the various dimensions of the subjects. Being able to use a camera is not enough, one has to be able to see things differently in a way that viewers of images will find interesting or at least thought provoking. Hopefully, the way I see things differentiates my work from others and provides the viewer with a new and interesting perspective of everyday images.

Website: http://www.bobrickertphotography.com

Janet Riehl

Statement: 
Janet Riehl is an award-winning artist, writer, and educator. She describes herself as a country girl who roamed the world and then came home. Her art is in collections in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. 

Janet’s focus on creating community through the arts led her to serve as West Coast Ambassador for An American Quilt, The Peace Project, board member of EcoArts of Lake County in Northern California, and Artist in Bioregional Residence. She earned a BFA from the California College of the Arts where she graduated with high distinction as a clay sculptor. 

Website: http://Www.riehlife.com

Marilyn L. Robinson

Statement:
'Capturing the infinite beauty of 'Nature' and 'Cultural Compositions' is the essence of my mixed-media artworks and photography. My artistic creativity is the ultimate visual avenue for celebrating my own spirituality, and deep appreciation and passion for capturing the beautiful complexity of 'Nature', and vibrant artistry of contemporary cultures that have emerged from African and Caribbean ancestry.'

Website: http://www.MLORCreations.net

Kathryn Rodrigues

Statement:
My current work explores ideas of transcendence within a domestic setting and the psychology of motherhood. As a primary caregiver of young children, the majority of my time is spent at home. This can sometimes feel isolating and mundane, but beginning in the late afternoon through the early evening hours our house becomes a repository for light reflections, refractions and shadows. The ghostly patches of light always take on different and fleeting forms and the imagery morphs minute by minute before disappearing abruptly. These ephemeral images appear at a time when everyone is tired, hungry and lacks self-control, providing a transitory respite from the micro-necessities of daily life and the macro-anxieties of the outside world, and facilitating a connection to the curiosities of nature and the creative spirit.

The title of the series refers to both the historic, literary meaning of 'The Witching Hour' as the time of night, usually between 12-3am, when the spirit world is at its most active as well as the contemporary meaning that parents of young children use to refer to the hours just before bedtime when children are at their most chaotic and intense. By choosing to photograph using medium format film, I create space and time to slowly investigate and compose these images. In some, the texture of a wall or a small chip of paint is the only aspect suggesting an object or sense of place, thereby juxtaposing the ethereal and the ordinary. This ongoing series explores the urge to find and document these fleeting but sublime moments of discovery, mystery, whimsy and hope.

Website: http://www.kathrynrodrigues.com

Jeffrey Sanderson

Statement:
I have been engaged with an intuitive and exploratory home studio practice steadily for over 20 years. My work includes non-objective oil painting, along with an ongoing series of assemblages and collage. My focus over the years has been on the work itself and developing a language and voice.
Marks, layers, and the elements assembled as artworks depend upon and celebrate the remarkable sensitivity and uncanny memory that humans possess. I remember art- making as a child, when narrative, representation, detail, and intentions surrounding these were my priorities. After moving away from making art, and moving to the United States from my home in Canada at age 16, I returned to art a year later as a college student. This lucky decision has altered the course of my life. In art school, I was exposed to intuitive mark-making and I became attentive to the materials and their placement as an end in itself.
My own paintings are improvised; paint deposits notions, reactions, and even jokes, by way of the sticky colored-butters and powders. These paintings depend on form, color, and the tactile realities of paint. I think in terms of looseness, thickness, color, and layers. These marks and fields gather and feed off one another, before they somehow settle and dry. My painting moves constitute a series of spontaneous choices, as I respond to the changing whole. Marks arrive through questions about what goes where, and about what conglomeration would finally feel the thing that makes the painting done with me. I love that paint can be anthropological; it can preserve marks and evidence of a conversation between a maker and a surface. One can feel a scale, a balance, or imbalance by being open to looking and lingering for a while. Spending time with a work is all time well-spent. Improvised music may lack the touchstones or structures of other sorts of music, but relating to the sounds as they are, and the process by which this music comes together has deeply moved and excited me, and guides my own improvised practice.

Marceline Saphian

Statement:
My work is an effort to share with others feelings and responses that are difficult, if not impossible to put into words. Rather than copying nature, I use it to call on inner responses to what I observe. Subject matter is a point of departure rather than a destination. One of my interests at this time is using older work to add overlays of paint and collage. This leads me to new development as an artist, and I find it is a way of melding the past with the present and the future - a way of making time an unending continuum.

Anthony Scheffler

Statement:
”My intent and challenge is to create unique, contemporary and abstract forms which evoke a personal and consequential response.”

Growing up, Anthony Scheffler would escape the orchestration of his prescriptive suburban community, and bicycle for miles along the New Orleans lakefront and then south toward the river, passing through rows of shotgun homes and diverse communities before arriving at dawn in the French Quarter. It was a fascination with the character of "The Quarters” and how it could be continually retranslated through the smells, sounds, and shadows of an architecturally unique space that drew him back so often. This experience eventually resulted in his own artistic expression using the power and appeal of simple shapes.

In 2008, Scheffler began showing his work, which includes open and closed vessels, teapots and wall sculptures. Several of his pieces are in private and corporate collections, including the Fleur Bresler Collection and the permanent collection of The Kamm Teapot Foundation. Although known for his unique, slab built wooden teapots, Scheffler’s wall hangings best reflect his fascination with an exploration of simple, and more recently, complex intersections, which he considers the ?roux? of compelling design. Although he holds a number of degrees, as an artist Scheffler is largely self-taught, having benefited throughout his life from observations of, and associations with, accomplished artisans. He now divides his time between the university and his studio in the Soulard district of St Louis, finding purpose as an educator and expression as an artist-maker. He returns to New Orleans often and remains an avid bicyclist.

Website: http://www.anthonyscheffler.com

Tamar Segev

Statement: 
In 2019, I traveled to my grandparents’ hometown of Lodz, Poland. From 1940-44, my grandmother and her family lived in the Lodz Ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland. There, I saw remnants of what was left behind, as many buildings from WWII remain intact today. In entryways and courtyards, where surfaces are marred by chipped paint and graffiti, I felt the gravity of the war and a material connection to my grandparents’ experiences. 

My paintings explore the connections between familial memory, historical narratives, and contemporary culture, as they are embedded in the architectural surfaces of Lodz. Specifically, I interpret the entryway of Limanowskiego 48, my grandmother’s ghetto apartment. My paintings are a structure for memory, a house for my family’s experience within the history of this ghetto. In each painting, I return to this site, building new records of inquiry, excavation, and remembrance. I construct the final works from cut pieces of painted canvas, fragments of memory. The physical gesture of stitching embodies the labor of remembering and conjures a lineage of textile work in my family. In these works, I foreground memory as a discursive, material practice, where active remembering ensures memory’s place in the present.

Website: http://tamarsegevart.com

Jo Louise Seltzer

Statement: 
This iconic double arch, with its one slender leg, is found in the Pickle Springs Conservation Area of southeastern Missouri. Its color changes with the light and the season, making it a perfect subject for watercolor painting.

Website: https://www.facebook.com/jolouiseart

Annette Silkwood

Statement:
My paintings are a spontaneous flow of line and color that pours through me and onto the canvas using brushes and cloth. With this stream of energy I build layers of paintings over paintings until the composition feels complete.

Website: http://wawlz.art

James Spell

Statement:
To me, art is an intuitive expression of nonverbal, visual communication.

There is something meditative in the glide of a palette knife that calls to me. Perhaps it is the element of surprise inherent to the imprecise nature of contemporary and abstract expressionist work. Perhaps it is an opportunity to explore the active and the passive elements, somewhere between the concepts of form and formlessness. That moment is what I enjoy most, where each gesture, each moment, is a leap of faith. Abstraction is a noisy art whose goal is clarity, where the clearest notes peek through the cracks in the layers of composition, revealing the hidden elements and adding their voices to the final work.

I find myself drawn to minimalist landscapes much of the time, using simplified architectural forms to invoke the shared feelings of home, establishing a narrative context for the piece and a connection between the artist and the viewer. These exist somewhere between the loud and the quiet spaces of our lives, perhaps where we might find the contentment we all seek.

Website: http://jspell.net

Joanne Stremsterfer

Statement:
'Weeds' was inspired by the greenhouse at a farmers market near me. The exploding weeds then evolved into a silk screen with pieces of my grandmother's pillowcases used as monotypes to reflect memories of going to sewing clubs with her where she crocheted these pillowcases.

Hugh Vincent

Statement:
As an artist, I strive to get in touch with my inner voice and create works that explore the perception of randomness, engaging the spectator through their interpretation of my sprawling, gestural line drawings.

Website: https://linktr.ee/hughvincent

Maggie Zografakis

Statement:
I get my inspiration for painting from my surroundings and my many travels.
Shapes and vibrant color always play a vital role in my work.
I love painting outdoors and use my sketches for developing my paintings.