Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Meet Artist Ditas Katague, Spring Obsession OPEN DIVISION accepted artist

O-120  Roots Before Branches  acrylic  60x48  $7500

Artist Stephanie Benedict, Spring Obsession OPEN DIVISION accepted artist

Stephanie Benedict  
O-134  Malakoff Diggins  oil  6x12  $250

Stephanie Benedict paints landscapes in oil, acrylic, and gouache.  She came to painting one evening in the middle of her life, while wandering through an art supply store.  She was looking at racks of stretched canvas - small ones, big ones, square and long ones - all empty, white, and standing in rows against the wall. Suddenly, Stephanie started seeing paintings on them: cityscapes, mountains, views through windows. She decided that night to study painting, and she's never looked back.
O-135  Mustard and Goldfields  oil  12x24  $495

Stephanie earned a BA with honors from the University of California, Santa Cruz, in History/Theatre Arts. Since that night at the art supply store, she's studied painting and drawing with Kathleen Dunphy, Scott Christensen, Terry Miura, Susan Sarback, and Dan Samborski.

Stephanie is a native Californian, born in Burbank and raised in Sacramento. After sampling life in Eugene and Boston, Stephanie returned to California. She now resides in Orangevale, near Sacramento.
O-133  Heading North  oil  24x36  $1500

You can find Stephanie's work on her website, sbenedictstudio.com.  She writes about painting, nature and painting nature on her blog, sbenedictblog.com.

Meet Artist Timothy Mulligan, Spring Obsession OPEN DIVISION accepted artist

            Timothy Mulligan
 A Contemporary Northern California painter

O-131  View from Tower Bridge  acrylic 24x20  $1800


I attended Sacramento City College and received a degree in Fine Art from CSU, Sacramento. I studied under notable artists as Greg Kondos, Gerald Walburg, Peter VandenBerge, Laureen Landau, Larry Welden, Jack Ogden, and Steve Kaltenbach.
After I graduated, I worked as a printmaker creating etchings and prints, and produced several watercolors, pastels, and large pencil drawings.  I exhibited my earlier works at the Crocker Art Museum, the Haggin Museum, the California State Fair, and several local art galleries. 
In 2011, after taking a long break to teach my two children at home, grades K-12, I returned to art to pursue my passion to paint on canvas. I painted multiple landscapes, cityscapes, and waterscapes which include the local farmlands, coastal beaches, and quiet neighborhoods.

My paintings have been exhibited throughout the Central Valley and in the Bay Area, and in 2013 I received over a dozen awards in national and regional art competitions, including First Place in the 2013 KVIE PBS Art Auction. My work has also been recently recognized in two national art magazines, The Artist’s Magazine and Southwest Art Magazine.
View Under Tower Bridge  acrylic  24x20  $1600
I paint with acrylics on site and in my studio using a variety of paint knives and brushes.  My earlier works are mostly representational; often combining impressionistic and expressionistic painting styles.  My later works are exclusively expressionistic inspired by the painting style of the Bay Area Figurative Movement; synthesizing forms with dynamic raw colors and using aggressive paint strokes. 
What inspires me to paint is seeing a subject from a fresh and unique perspective. I try to minimize the details and focus on the light, shadows, colors, and shapes.  I make a new color palette for each painting and try not to follow conventional methods. Oftentimes, I allow the texture of the painted surface to help create form and movement. To separate and energize the shapes I use colorful seams, marbleized flattened planes, and lines scratched into the paint.   I’m beginning to explore combining multiple perspectives of a subject into a single cohesive image.
My recent paintings can be sorted into three groups: The Raw, The Real, and The Inventive: 
The Raw paintings are made up of basic forms, which are quick and organic.  They strive for an honesty built from intense color and light, in an open and exposed way.

The Real paintings seek to take the raw style to a strange, heightened level of reality.

The Inventive paintings embrace abstract form and restrict the raw style.  These paintings flatten shapes, heighten color, and avoid a sense of realness.


www.timothymulliganfineart.com/

Tuesday, February 11, 2014

Meet Artist Connie Carson - Romano, Spring Obsession Theme Division accepted Artist

Connie Carson-Romano                

                                           
           Art is an expression of the way the Artist views the world in which he lives.  Through my paintings, I try to communicate the emotions that made the subject something I wanted to share with others whether it is joy, serenity, or the excitement of the beauty of nature.  I know I have succeeded at my Art when someone looks at a painting or drawing and says, “That painting makes me feel….”           

            Expressing myself through art has always been a form of meditation and relaxation for me.  Acrylic paint is my favored medium; I love the way it works and forms on the canvas.  Recently I have discovered a new joy in oil paints; the viscosity of the medium that allows for extended outdoor work whether it is on a windy beach or a dry desert landscape.
         The colors that are present in nature are phenomenal and I love trying to create the same shades.  Having been raised in the mountains of New Mexico I found myself immersed from an early age in the amazing palate of nature and the challenge of trying to recreate that on canvas.  Now as a resident of Northern California, I am awed at the diversity of landscapes we live in and the unlimited array of challenges awaiting my brushes.

          Two Artists looking at the same object or same landscape will create completely different expressions of what they see.  I find it is amazing and exciting that so many different interpretations of the world around us are available through the eyes of Artists.  I love visiting galleries and museums to view the varied presentations of life as expressed by different individuals.  It is my pleasure that I am able to add my own personal expressions to this collection.