Day 26:Ellen Bergstrom Nemetz

My work is contemporary representational built on self-examination and observation of my own mental process
In my most recent body of work I use reflections as a metaphor for memory. The previous series of works used 
animals to express my own insecurities and anxieties.

                                    Large reflection 40x66 acrylic on canvas "Hindsight"
                             Girl in water reflection is 30x40 acrylic and resin on canvas. "In Dreams"

The rabbits and goat is 24x30 Oil on Linen "Social Anxiety Too"

The animals in the bathtub is 24x30, oil on linen, "Soap Opera"

Day 25: James B Hunt

My name is NXOEED, or James. Call me whatever you want. I paint. I don't have a reason for doing it. It's just what I've been doing for as long as I can remember. I've done shows and participated in things, but so has everybody else. Those things are not very interesting to read about.

Probably the most interesting thing about me is that there's this person I don't know who keeps buying me shoes and leaving them in places for me to find. I think it's because of the art hunts I've been doing for the past 15-20 years. Maybe they found a painting once and felt compelled to return the favor. But it keeps happening. Every time my shoes begin to fall apart, I find a note on my bike, usually when it's parked at The Lost Leaf, telling me where to go. When I get there, I find a box of new, size 13 shoes. It's interesting. It's gotta be someone who knows I'd never actually go out and buy shoes, and also someone who gets a good look at my feet from time to time. Thanks, shoe person, whoever you are.

The second most interesting thing about me might be that I've pulled several of my own teeth, all molars. My front teeth are somehow still intact. You should not read this and become inspired to pull your own teeth. It sucks. Life becomes hard. There's no going back.

The third most interesting thing about me could be that I build antennas and monitor my shortwave radios and frequency scanners for unusual activity. People usually hear that and say, "you mean like ghosts?", to which I reply, "not necessarily". I have decades of recordings of meaningless sounds that basically go nowhere and never get listened to. I built a studio in my backyard that basically serves as a radio shack.

Painting is the least interesting thing about me.

http://nxoeed.com
https://facebook.com/nxoeed
https://instagram.com/nxoeed
https://twitter.com/nxoeed

Day 24: Sam Fresquez

My name is Sam Fresquez, I’m a calligraphy-based intermedia artist. My work is largely about cross roads and intersections. I have always seen myself as a human bridge between communities I use my art as a tool to discuss and explore this experience. My goal for my art is that it helps connects communities that are often seen as opposing, and challenge the viewer to hold the space for dualities in their own life.
https://www.instagram.com/samfresquez/
http://samfresquez.weebly.com/

X-ray

Cut Paper

tristyn 1

Between Words Steffi2

Between Words Steffi 1

Tristyn 2

Post 23: Sarah Kriehn

I am a printmaker who creates one-of-a-kind Monotypes and Collagraphs. My abstract prints depict my reaction to experiences and emotions resulting from particular events and locations. The message I strive to convey is diverse, yet consistent.  I utilize a personal visual vocabulary comprised of organic and geometric forms. My original, hand pulled prints are created with lithography ink, on plexiglas and transferred onto paper with an etching press. My finished prints are either framed, coated with resin or mounted on metal. I live and work in Phoenix.
Email: sarah@sarahkriehn.com
website: www.sarahkriehn.com 

Fissure, Collagraph

Sun and Moon Series, Monotypes

Tokens, Monotypes

Two Agaves, Monoprint

Day 22: Leyla Havok

"Really all you need to know about me is I'm one unique cookie that loves Halloween, has a taste for heavy metal and a determination to make it to the top in the art world."

www.leylahavok.com

Facebook: I am Havok

Spawn

:"Malkia" The Queen of God

                                              The Rescurrection of Afro Sam

  Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Halloween Pumpkin

Day 21: Lexie Bowers

Alexandra Bowers 

W. Alexandrabowersart.com 

E. Lexiebowersart@gmail.com 

Bio: Alexandra Bowers is a Phoenix based artist who received her BFA in 2012 from Arizona State University. Inspired by the natural surrounding environment, Bowers utilizes data collected while exploring to produce wood burned studies of plants and animals she finds along the way. Bowers has had the privilege of showcasing her work at the Tempe Center for Art in their TCA Juried Biennial:Wood show, as well as at Eye Lounge, a contemporary art space, where she debuted her solo exhibition Crossed Paths. In 2014 Bowers was a finalist for the Big Brain Awards through the Phoenix New Times, for their Visual Art category. In 2015 she displayed her solo show Alexandra Bowers: Onloaded 2, curated by phICA, where she showcased over 100 wood burned portraits of moths from North America. She was also one of seven chosen for the 2015 Governor’s Arts Awards. In 2016 she was a finalist for the “Good N’ Plenty” artist award granted by the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art. Her work is currently in Sky Harbor International Airport’s Museum Gallery, where she was handpicked to display alongside three other Arizona based artists. As Bowers continues on her journey as an emerging artist, she is continuously looking for opportunities within the arts community, including exhibiting both nationally and internationally. 

Artist Statement: Having grown up in the Sonoran Desert, I’ve learned it’s easy to forget what exists naturally just beyond our backyard walls and stucco-covered developments. Technology, automobiles, and airconditioning all help to detach us, physically and psychologically, from our arid surroundings. My work brings awareness to the unique plant and animal species that survive in an extremely harsh climate while simultaneously adapting to human encroachment. Utilizing the wood burning process, known as pyrography, allows me to illustrate with heat, portraits of these living entities. Much like a photograph, they are captured in a specific state before they disappear. Urban sprawl has forced our habitat to either dissipate or move further away. As we pave, develop, and grow our urban cities, the desert diminishes and is forced to change and adapt to its human neighbors. My work is concerned with preserving these living organisms before they’re gone.

 Microcosmic Dandelion  Wood Burning/Water Color  20 in. Diameter   2016

Desert Seeds Wood Burning/Water Color 5 x 5 in. 2016

Seed Migration Wood Burning/Water Color12 x 60 in, 2016

The Queen of the Night  Wood Burning 32 x 32 in. 2016

Day 20: Bill Jamison

Artist Statement:

These objects represent experiments in contrasting processes, where digitally fabricated elements are paired with hand-crafted ceramics and found objects such as roots and rocks. Through his work, Bill seeks to reconcile his identities as an artist and an engineer while referencing a broader search for balance through intuition and logic. 

About me:

Bill Jamison is a structural engineer turned ceramic & mixed media artist from Anchorage. When not making art he enjoys hiking and snowboarding in the mountains. Bill currently lives in Arizona with his talented wife and creative collaborator Emily Longbrake. His upcoming show: "Bill's Thesis" will mark the end of his 3-years as a graduate student at Arizona State University. It will be on display March 27-31 at the Harry Wood Gallery, with an Opening Reception on March 28th from 6-9pm

Website: billspots.com

Instagram: @billspots

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bill.jamison.397

Numerical Control 010

Numerical Control 010

Numerical Control 002

Complementropy Entropy 014

Complementropy Entropy 015

Day 19: Noe Badillo

Over the last twenty-three years, my work has changed and evolved a lot. I've gone through what I would consider five successive periods, where the style and subject of my work have shifted at a certain point in time. My work also changed a lot when I got married and started a family—since then my wife Elizabeth and our kids have been almost my sole subject matter. I often paint my wife and family as a kind of allegory. 

This March, my work will be included in the exhibition "Exploring Arizona Talent" at the Udinotti Museum of Figurative Art in Paradise Valley. If you want to come to the opening, its on March 19th, from 2–5. Please feel free to contact me about my work, or to arrange a studio visit as well. 

Email: eon.badillo@gmail.com

Website: www.noebadillo.com

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/groups/noebadillo/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/EonBadillo

Pinterest:https://www.pinterest.com/noebadillo/

Google Plus: https://plus.google.com/+NoéBadillo

 Elizabeth and the Boys in Springtime

Allegorical Scene

Elizabeth with a Flower Halo

Elizabeth Nursing Elliott

Elizabeth, Elliot and Griffin as the Madonna,

Day 18: Sergio LePore

These five paintings are the artist's most recent works completed. I call them abstract expressionistic surrealism. The following is an exerpt of the artist's concept behind the paintings:

The process involves stream of consciousness approaches to writing; a personal favorite writing method adopted by the artist for over 40 years. However, in visual art, juxtaposing imagery was mainly employed resulting in fantasy, and surrealism art works. Still working in this fashion, as well as illustrations for fiction, the artist began employing a sort of automatic drawing method using various materials ranging from pen and ink, graphite, then charcoals. Only later succeeding in being able to capture this ‘mystery’ of image-emergence via oils.

The auto-imagery coming into play and the suggestive imagery, which is not being dictated in the traditional conscious fashion known and used for over 2 millennium, brought on by an interaction of the artist and medium fully conscious (though) is at best described as ‘dreaming awake’. The forms begin to suggest natural and at times manmade (also alien made?) things, all of which together may serve as the starting point of stories, or myths. When we look at a medieval illuminated manuscript, or read an ancient Nordic myth, we are unaccustomed to its imagery, but are subject to certain experiences that have begun to inform Carl Jung for most of his professional career. That the symbols, which includes the handling of the art work (process and style), are more than what was intended: visual stories abstractly known by the group. The real underpinning scope of certain imagery being ‘organic history’. We are also reminded of the ‘power of myth’ as we view hundreds of years of sculpture and paintings of both mythical and religious subject matter.

For the artist the dawning of human consciousness is parallel to the birthing of ideas, and imagery begun as beautifully illustrated animals on so many caves across the globe ranging as far back in time as 40, 000 years B.C. Although one took place long before the other, the memory of matter the artist feels is drawn upon, as we know that atoms are as old as the universe and can live on billions of years after.

So the death of Adonis (who was killed for by another’s jealousy and from whom the flower anemone emerged) can be the expression of so many molecules which lived on through so many forms. The forms being plants and animals, as well as man.

Somatic architecture, geo-soma, etc are not mere anthropomorphs , but rather references to the body world, as opposed to the classical ‘dead matter’ world. Personifications of storms, etc. can make more sense in this light.  Everything is alive in that they are in different degrees conscious. The recorded history of matter is also to include their experiences and when sentient beings like us come on the scene stories are inevitably to come.     

Sergio Lepore MFAArtist/Instructor 

480.217.1129 

Metaphysics of Love and Death. Oils on linen board, 16x20. Valued at $798. Prints w/.5in white border, 8x10 image $23. © Sergio Lepore.

The first successful of what the artist considers organic abstract art works. A previous series called Sound to Flesh done in charcoals serves as the initial starting point. In the Summer of 2016 the artist was experiencing creative block and was suggested by an artist friend to just start hitting that canvas with color regardless, to see what happens. Almost immediately the directions were showing where to go. Butterfly wings, flowers, rainbow ghosts, fish eggs/or bubbles, etc. took over the working area. An eerie profile hanging on the right from what appears to be an upside down tree trunk can only be described by the artist as alluding to one of his longtime idols, Keith Emerson (2 November 1944 – 11 March 2016) of prog rock fame, playing keyboard for Emerson Lake and Palmer ( ELP). In March 2016 the creative force to be ranked among top keyboardists of the progressive rock era took his own life due to bouts of serious depression to be compounded by nerve damage in his right hand preventing him from performing at his best. This affected the artist greatly, and he feels subconsciously to have tapped into a reservoir of memories of the great keyboardist’s passing, and also the death of a high school friend, who initially introduced the artist to the music of ELP. Basically this painting is about suicide.  

Colors of Alchemy. Oils on linen board, 16x20. Valued at $798. Prints w/.5in white border, 8x10 image $23.

Death and rebirth. Suggestions of a figure writhing with right arm extended, above the precipice of a cliff with gushing water spring amidst blue trees of flame, a bird of fire (phoenix) looming over a rainbow. The contrast of lights and darks is evocative of a baroque-ness the artist wants to explore. Ides of both Christ and Prometheus came to mind as the work drew to an end. Both were punished for the sake of humanity, etc. Alchemy was outlawed in medieval Europe by orthodox religion.  

Future Love. Oils on canvas11x14. Valued at $376. Prints w/.5in white border, 8x10 image $23. © Sergio Lepore.

Metal surfaces, green jade enshrined in a black vacuum is washed over by anything associated with the various blues of an alien world. The masculinity of the right forms seems to compliment the almost feminine curves and tones on the left. They are either machines or biological, or both.

 Tracing Brahman to an Octopus. Oils on canvas panel,14x18. Valued at $658. Prints w/.5in white border, 8x10 image $23. © Sergio Lepore.

Starting out as purely abstract very similar to the calligraphic black stokes of a Franz Klein, the images of an underwater scene began to assert itself, as did the octopus. The spiraling passages suggests universal patterns seen in nature, resulting in the decision to add the galaxies. This transformed the octopus into an exotic god. 

Day 17: Tara Koschiukiewicz

Day 16:Carolyn Watson Dubisch

 My art has been described as whimsical, fanciful, quirky, unusual, and eccentric. I try to create a storybook atmosphere with my art that reflects my commercial career as a children's book illustrator and is inspired by much of my adult life taking care of my kids.

  My goal is always to create a sense of wonder for the viewer . My art is not abstract or vague in anyway though, it longs to tell tales. Stories of fanciful worlds, and unanswered questions that one never thinks to ask.

'

The Arizona Iris

Tracing Faces Llece Italy

I wish for fish sml

The House in the Woods-Hansel and Gretel

It's a Beautiful Day 321