Lynn primarily enjoys painting outdoors. In the studio, she refers to paintings created on-location. Her impressionistic work is a painterly abstraction with realistic undertones. Organic shapes, the ever-changing colors in nature, texture and shadows are important elements in her work.

Raised in Michigan, Lynn has spent much of her leisure time outdoors; camping, biking, hiking and kayaking. These activities instilled a lifelong passion for nature within her. Lynn earned degrees from Michigan State University and Western Michigan University. She has participated in numerous art shows and has been represented in galleries as far as Florida and Hawaii.

STATEMENT

What can any artist do but reveal what they see? Inner vision reflects emotion, intellect, color and spatial relations. I reveal my personal vision of the world through my painting. While we all may see the same landscape, the same color and experience the same climate conditions, I work to expose a specific personal vision for viewers to consider and enjoy.

I juxtapose energy with bright, clean color and purposeful brush strokes. My subject, the landscape, brings the calm of quiet waters and pastoral stillness to the viewer. When I paint in plein air, I am thinking of the small works of Vermeer, the quick and deliberate brushstrokes of Van Gogh and the dappled sunlight of Renoir. I explore my own reactions and interpretations to the color and subject.

My work is produced with intuition. My intent is to convey mindful balance and harmony. I revel in a peaceful place of contentment, as the busy world can be chaotic and difficult to navigate.

A native of Traverse City, Michigan, Mary E. Andersen has resided and maintained a fine art studio in Grand Rapids, Michigan since 1991. She is a graduate of Northwestern Michigan College (A.A. Liberal Arts, 1972), John Wesley College (B.A. Fine Art, 1979), and Lansing Community College (A.A. Design, Illustration, 1990).

Her deep interest in landscapes stems from spending many summers on her uncle's cherry farm on Old Mission Peninsula in northwestern Michigan and traveling across the U.S. on family camping trips. After many years in the graphic arts field, she spent several years employed in horticulture/landscaping which brought her once again in close contact with the land. This has provided rich inspiration for her recent work.

The artist is continually challenged by the endless possibilities for study in light, color, and design that landscapes and botanical images afford. "I would like to invite the viewer to revel in the unique and varied landscapes of Michigan as well as ponder the great beauty and majesty of God's creation all around us. I feel I have succeeded when the viewer has come away challenged to see beyond the literal and be uplifted in spirit."

The artist’s original paintings and drawings have been steadily acquired for private and public collections across the United States and abroad over the past 30 years. In October 2009, she was honored to be Guest Artist in Residence for the Forest Hills Fine Arts Center. An exhibition of oils as part of the Gifts of Art Program for the University of Michigan Health System, Ann Arbor, Michigan followed in December 2009.

Exploring the relationships between colors and shapes inspire me to push paint around and explore its possibilities. I look for unusual ways to create using the visual stimulus around me to inspire my work. My primary media are clay and oil painting. My work is about connecting these elements with the viewer, but it is also about connecting with people. In 2015 I began organizing group shows most of them are POP-UP, one-day art shows. The mission of these shows is to bring artists, community organizations and businesses together through art. In 2017 the Lakeshore Visual Artists Collective began and received its non-profit status. I am currently enrolled in Savannah College of Art and Design's MFA in painting program and teach art full time for Hudsonville Public Schools. My Home and studio are in Grand Haven, MI where I reside with my husband and son.

Kathleen Bechtel grew up in Comstock Park, Michigan, near Grand Rapids. She attended Kendall School of Design and majored in Illustration. Kathleen has studied with various workshop instructors that she admires and is part of a plein air painting group in her area. She feels that art is a form of communication and that it reflects the things that move the artist. "People will know me through my paintings. My paintings will speak to people I will never see or know. I am profoundly affected by this." Kathleen has exhibited in numerous group and one person shows and received many awards. Her paintings, in both oil and pastel, portray a variety of subject matter. She continues to create landscape, still-life, and figurative works from her home in Wyoming, Michigan.

My artwork is a mixture of acrylic paint and mixed media, full of layers, detail, and metallic elements. To create texture, I specialize in using pebbles, glitter, broken glass, mirrors, and gold leafing. I am inspired by life experiences, emotions, colors, layers and a lot of texture!

Beyond my artistic abilities, I am a wife and mother. My husband and I have been together 11 years. I am a stay at home mom to 3 young children. We have boy/girl twins that are 4 and another daughter who is 2. Our 4 year old son has a genetic disorder called Neurofibromatosis 1 (NF1), where he grows tumors on his nerves. This disorder is heart breaking and stressful. Painting helps with my anxiety and provides some peace. It has also brought back a sense of ME vs mom/wife.

In each painting, Deborah develops a beautiful, complex surface that reveals her voice. She is a non-objective, abstract painter. She wants the viewer to see a balanced painting with compelling color and a clear value pattern. She invites the viewer closer to see what is barely visible on the painting’s surface. There is history in the layers of paint, mark and line, recording the discoveries made while creating the painting.

Deborah’s art is process driven. She has no planned idea of what the painting will be. It is in the making that the direction to completion will be made clear. Each stroke points the way to the next. When a mark is made, a decision is needed to determine the consequent move.

Deborah hopes that her paintings will invite a conversation with the viewer, where a connection happens and where the viewer can fall beneath the painting’s surface and explore the road to its creation.

Deborah’s pursuit of art began after retirement from a 26 year career in dental hygiene. She began painting landscapes in oils and pastels. The next challenge was two years of breast cancer treatment. This led to the need to move forward and not go back to the way life was before cancer. Since then, Deborah has been devouring non objective abstract painting. Painting abstractly is completely fulfilling Deborah’s need to let what is inside her out! Her preference is to use oils mixed with the buttery texture of cold wax medium.

Deborah studied art at Grand Valley State University, has mentored with Pamela Caughey and Jane Davies. Her paintings are in private, corporate and university collections. She participates in juried shows and has been the recipient of many awards.

Deborah Bowen – Artist Statement

I am a non-objective abstract oil painter. I paint large and small expressing an emotion of place and time.

Each painting is an exercise in developing a beautiful and complex surface to reveal my voice.

I want the viewer to see a balanced painting with harmonious color and a clear value pattern. I also want the painting to invite the viewer closer to see what is barely visible under the surface. This is where the struggle and the discoveries are made.

My art is process driven. I have no planned idea of what the finished painting will be. It is in the making that the direction to its completion is made clear. Each move I make leads me to the next. Selecting a size and color palette is all I need to begin.

I want my paintings to invite a conversation with the viewer where a connection happens.

I fell in love with paint and making marks in Life Drawing art classes at the University of Michigan. Mignonette Yin Cheng required we work intuitively and use all of our media. Teacher and surrealist Gerome Kamrowski challenged my art boundaries and surprised me with “maybe you are a painter.”

The University of Wisconsin graduate art program invited many contemporary artists to work with us. I would watch and talk with Wayne Thiebaud while he created his colorful, impasto paintings. MFA in hand, I left for Greece and Crete, first to Amsterdam and Belgium to study van Gogh, Rembrandt and Vermeer. Then to the Parthenon in Greece and to walk Knossos on Crete. Back in Wisconsin I exhibited assemblage installations at the Madison and Kohler Art Centers, while designing at the University of Wisconsin Press. Buying land in northern Wisconsin, I lived close to Lake Superior. The Wisconsin light and our landscape of 40 acres inspired more than 10 years of Realism painting that I exhibited and sold in Madison WI, Duluth MN, Chicago and New York. My rural mailbox brought me volumes of art.

I grew up near Lake Michigan, later lived near Lake Superior, now study the ocean along Long Island, NY and the Dingle Coast of Ireland. Researching painters is a joy. The masters Turner, Ryder, Bierstadt, Church, Heade and more. Expressionists Pollock, de Kooning, Kline, Soutine and Nolde. Joan Mitchell and Wolf Kahn — and many contemporary abstract and landscape painters. Museums, galleries and visiting artist studios are vital to my painting. Yearly visits to New York to immerse myself in art and, while there,weekends to the ocean at Southampton, NY. I love this ancient ocean, to study the breaking waves, smell the sea air, and bring these experiences home to my work. My paintings are intuitive and visceral — physical paint trumps the horizon line. Using paint and an expressive surface — painting turbulent waters or a calm shore — this is the mirror I hold up to reflect our human spirit.

I have been working as a freelance illustrator since graduating from Kendall College of Art and Design with a BFA in 1992. My commercial career has included projects for many national and regional clients; American Greetings, Mc-Graw Hill Publishing, Booth Newspapers, North Star Teacher Resources, to name a few. The crossover from illustrator to fine artist seems to be a natural one for me. Much of my mispent youth was spent in Northern Michigan, where I developed a love for the serenity and beauty of the woods and the "Big Lake". Time and time again, I find I am still drawn to those places. I have exhibited work in galleries in Traverse City, Harbor Springs and Grand Rapids, MI.

I was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and raised in Freeport where I spent much of my youth hiking through the fields or fishing along Coldwater Creek.

After graduating high school I worked as a welder and commercial painter, but my creative side kept emerging: lunch breaks spent welding scrap metal into abstract sculpture; custom painting cars and motorcycles for myself and friends.

When I turned 30, I spent three months in Arizona mulling over who I was and what I wanted to do. When I returned to West Michigan, I enrolled in Kendall School of Design as a sculptor. I quickly switched to painting, and graduated with a BFA. I then moved to New York and completed an MFA at Parsons School of Design. While out East, I cultivated my love of landscapes with time spent in the Delaware Water Gap area.

Painting is my life now, and has been since 1983. I can't see any other way to spend the time or energy allotted me.

STATEMENT

My art is an internal process, translating onto canvas the feelings and memories of places that have captured my imagination, living nearly all my life closely connected to the land.

This connection with the landscape - its mystery, awesome beauty, serenity - is a source of inspiration and comfort. I work to capture the mood, the spirit, of the land. My work reflects the life I try to lead: living in harmony, without stress, calm, contemplating nature.

I've chosen to use the Impressionist "language" because of its dream-like quality. It's a kind of poetry. I feel like I'm working with the unconscious - partly controlling what happens, partly just letting go. The balance is so mysterious; you never know what will show itself next. How do you explain it? To me, that's part of the gift.

My love for color, interiors, shape and form has inspired my most recent group of paintings and drawings. Finding places to rest, places to stop and breathe and daydream reflect a need in our lives to slow down to take time to gaze upon beautiful colors. 
I trained in painting and graphic design at Kendall College of Art & Design. My work has a certain close up and cropped look, bringing the viewer into a scene to recall a feeling or space the viewer may have experienced, like the feeling and energy of someone about to enter a room or having just been there. Working with color, light, and brush stroke, I capture a moment where one is aware of the energy or sense of being in that very moment.

Anne Corlett was graduated from the University of Wisconsin with a BS in Fine Art. She continued her studies at the Art Institute of Chicago, The Royal Academy of Art in London, the Kalamazoo Institute of Art and Oxbow in Saugatuck, MI. After raising a family, Anne became a full-time artist, working and showing out of her studio on the Kalamazoo River in Saugatuck. She draws her inspiration from the power of Mother Nature, and most enjoys working outside, en plein air. Anne’s artwork has been included in multiple publications and is in public and private collections nationwide.

STATEMENT

“Creating art satisfies my need to communicate the awe I feel about the natural world. While painting en plein air, I record my visceral reaction to the landscape through color and mark-making. In this way, I celebrate the beauty and the power of life itself.”

Elaine Dalcher has earned a reputation over the last 35 years for creating bold and colorful oil paintings. Dalcher’s subjects offer the viewer vivid images from a close-up perspective.  Whether it is a still life depicting a space in her home or studio, or a landscape with a tree standing as a figure against the sky, she renders subjects in a way that is at once honest, fresh, intimate and familiar.

Dalcher received her MFA from Western Michigan University in 1988 and is represented in public, corporate and private collections throughout the United States and abroad.  She has shown her work in many galleries and juried competitions around the country, including Lafontsee Gallery in Grand Rapids, Synchronicity Gallery in Glen Arbor, The Nines Gallery in Holland, Michigan, Artemesia Gallery in Chicago, the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Muskegon Museum of Art, Western Michigan University, Aquinas College, The Krasl Art Center in St. Joseph, and the Buckham Gallery in Flint, Michigan.

Dalcher is a founding artist of the Tanglefoot Building Artists in Grand Rapids, which is celebrating its 27th Anniversary this November.

Dalcher received the 2012 Grand Rapids, Michigan YWCA Tribute Award in the arts.

ARTIST STATEMENT

In my paintings, I focus on authentic subjects from my immediate surroundings, concentrating particularly on nature and the landscape, the interior and the still life.

My process begins with direct observation: I often work outdoors on location or from a still life in the studio.  I render initial observations in a value-based series of drawings; through these, I seek to understand the space and emphasis of the composition.  I then draw my subject until it becomes a comfortable part of my visual language.

Once I have achieved this level of familiarity, I translate the composition onto a canvas that has been undercoated with a ground – sometimes a traditional raw umber or earth green, but more commonly a lively, but toned down color: dark red, deep orange, yellow ochre, blue violet or yellow green. My palette is bright and vivid, a collection of colors, complements, values and intensities that ranges across the spectrum.  I start with the main subject and work outward to the edges of the canvas. Following this, I rework the image until I am satisfied. 

A recurring feature in my art is the simplified composition, one that relies upon close-up perspective, regardless of content. This reflects the way I see things in my world: clearly, directly, and concisely. Because I am not concerned with elaborate detail, I am able to incorporate expressive brushwork and bold finger-painting in a way that would otherwise not be possible. My overarching goal is to create a balanced piece in which subject, composition, brushwork, and color are blended harmoniously.

Royce Deans was born of parents that understood the important role that art plays in society and how crucial exposure to and participation in is to the development of a young person. He was raised in the western suburbs of Chicago with access to museums and concert halls of every variety. Graduating from the American Academy of Art in Chicago gave him the foundations to build a life in the arts.

“Moving to Traverse City some thirty years ago set my art on a wonderful trajectory. I count each artistic endeavor I have embarked on as a rich experience that has shaped the artist I am today. Living in such an incredibly beautiful place the landscape has, of course, become an overwhelming source of inspiration.

My love for teaching and art has allowed me to travel far and wide. I feel so fortunate that my artwork has made it possible to work in many of the countries of Western Europe and Israel presenting classes, workshops, and retreats.”

Christi M. Dreese is a contemporary expressionist painter who lives in her hometown of Spring Lake, Michigan. Her distinctive style radiates joy and peace and expresses the laid-back spirit of the lakeshore life she grew to love from an early age. You will find colorful landscapes, flowers and abstract paintings brought to life with vibrant paint.

Growing up, Dreese participated in numerous art programs and received awards for her artistic talents. She went on to earn a Bachelor of Art degree and Business Major from Aquinas College.

Dreese’s artwork has been shown in several exhibitions and a recipient of various awards from the Grand Rapids Regional Festival of Arts and Winterfest Juried Exhibits. She is established in several galleries throughout Michigan and Ohio. Galleries include Journey North Gallery of Harbor Springs, C2C Gallery of Grand Haven, Art & Soul Gallery of Traverse City, Art Cats Gallery of Muskegon, Sleeping Bear Gallery of Empire, and Andy’s Frame Setting & Gallery of Columbus, Ohio. She works with art consultants and interior designers to meet their project expectations and her artwork can be found in numerous private and corporate art collections throughout the United States.

When I was in preschool, my favorite time of day was when I was allowed to draw and paint. As I got older, this love never faded and eventually I went to college to study art.

As a Kendall Grad, Hallmark Greeting Cards came to recruit and they hired me. I have illustrated hundreds of Greeting Cards, and all of those images show many styles, but watercolor is pre-dominant in my work...and oil painting.

For myself. For inspiration, I plein air paint, like the artist: Moinet, I love to paint in nature, it is illustration art..

Bradley Goff is originally from Holt, MI. I graduated from Central Michigan University with a Degree in Art Education. My wife and I spent a decade living out west, mainly in Southern California. We returned to Michigan to start a family in 2012. We resided in Kalamazoo, MI for 6 years, and recently moved to Grand Rapids, MI to start a new chapter.

Whether it be a Michigan landscape or a canoe paddle, Michigan outdoors themes my current body of work. Texture and color influence my oil paintings. Living on the edge of abstract and impressionistic style, some or all of a piece can be left to the viewers imagination to decipher. My abstract paintings mainly consist of vertical and horizontal lines. I like the way images or landscapes can emerge from the paintings, and how everyone seems to see something different.

Michele Gort is an artist living and working in Holland, Michigan. Most recently, Michele has been accepted in the 2015 Artprize, an international art competition with anywhere between 1,500 and 2,000 applicants. She will be showing several of her “City Reflection” paintings at the Woman’s City Club September 23, 2015 through October 10, 2015. This venue will also be one of Artprize’s central locations. At this location, Michele will be showing several abstract reflection paintings of the Grand Rapids skyline and the bridges throughout the city.

In addition, Michele was accepted into the 2014 Artprize competition. Her entry, “Gestalt,” was in a large puzzle format, approximately 4’0” x 8’0,” made from pressed wood and painted abstractly. Her entry was displayed at 50 Monroe (Grand Rapids, MI). Michele also did a solo exhibition between February 14, 2015 and March 30, 2015 which featured her work at Terry Berry Gallery (Saint Cecila, MI).

Michele’s work has been shown in both one-person and group exhibitions. In 2012 and 2013, she had a solo show at Lake Effect Gallery. Also in 2012, she had a show at Calvin College Chapel and Terry Berry Gallery (Grand Rapids, MI). In addition, Michele had an exhibit in January 2012 at Holland Art Council titled “Letting Paint Be Paint” with two other abstract artists. The three artists displayed many paintings which show the unique and expressive qualities of paint, as a means to express its subject in addition to the expression of paint itself. Michele has also had both solo and group exhibitions at Washington Square Gallery, Uptown Gallery, and Thistle Gallery (Holland, MI).

Michele received her bachelor’s degree from Kendall College of Art and Design. She graduated with honors, and received scholarships while attending KCAD. She also received the 2001 Studio Elect Award for her graduating class.

I have been an artist all my life. Some of my earliest memories are of being given paper and pencil in church so I would sit still while drawing. Creating and spirituality have been linked in my life ever since.

The art on this website is inspired from my heart, expressions of emotions from joy to peace. Some of the art is a narrative from the Bible, the landscapes are my interpretation of what I saw and others are visual images of songs I find especially inspiring.

If you have an idea that is dear to your heart and would like to see it created as an original watercolor or acrylic painting on canvas feel free to contact me. I love bringing other peoples’ ideas to reality.

Kathleen Kalinowski is a painter known for her poetic interpretations of the Michigan landscape. Her paintings explore the nuances of nature inspired by working outside on location, en plein air in all seasons. 

Her award winning work has been accepted into many prestigious regional and national juried exhibitions, and numerous gallery and solo exhibits. Kathleen is an established artist who is widely collected in private and corporate collections. She is honored to be represented by three Michigan galleries. 

Kathleen is a life long resident of west Michigan. She lives north of Grand Rapids, rooted on land that has been in her family for many years. Her vibrant paintings capture the sense of place and tell the stories of lakes, streams, woods and farms, near and dear to her heart. 

In the spring, summer and fall of 2015 and 2017, Kathleen was chosen to participate in the Land Conservancy of West Michigan, Preserved! a partnership with thirteen local artists to produce art on Land Conservancy protected areas. The art was shown in two separate exhibits and a documentary about the program was shot while she was plein air painting.

https://youtu.be/EaECknux590#mce_temp_url#

STATEMENT

Painting a landscape, for me, starts with an emotional response to what I observe first hand in nature. The spark of inspiration is often the poetic play of light that creates contrast and mood. Envisioning the painting before I start, I think about the story I would like to tell. Thoughtful consideration of composition, color harmony and descriptive brushstrokes, portrays an intimate portrait of a landscape that is both engaging and inviting.

Interested in art from a young age, Ms. Kontorina began formal art studies while in architectural college in Gorky, Russia. She continued her art studies while earning a graduate degree in architecture from the Architecture University in Kazan, Russia.

Ms. Kontorina has worked with oils, watercolors, gouache, and acrylics for the past thirty years and is currently concentrating on watercolors. Subjects of her recent work include still life paintings, landscapes, architectural motifs, and portraits.

After having formally studied film photography in Baltimore, Maryland, I moved to Grand Rapids in 1996 where I worked as a natural and social landscape photographer for many years. In 2008, I began the transition to becoming a painter. Since then, I have kept a studio practice in Grand Rapids, exploring oil painting on canvas and wood panel, often without any initial conscious concern for pre-visualization of imagery and subject matter. My working methods are similar to spontaneous composition or improvisation, as jazz musicians sometimes call it. Beginning with bold color and energetic marks, most of my paintings emerge from a gradual building up of the surfaces and usually take several years to be completed. These paintings are my personal interior landscapes, paintings that are also a response to external environments I live in or near—the land and lakeshore I encounter in West Michigan, as well as urban/suburban Grand Rapids. Some of these works explore the growth and destruction of nature, as well as despair from human losses. I also seem to carry back to my studio some of the landscapes that I have seen and internalized from travel in North America and France.

Since I was young, I always had a natural ability to draw and paint. As I got older, I pursued a career in the creative arts at Kendall College of Art & Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Once I received my BFA in Visual Communications, I was able to design powerful advertising campaigns for industries that provided both services and products to consumers.

I use many traditional mediums such as oil, acrylic and watercolor paints. I also create vector-based commercial art with the aid of a computer. I find the ability to work with my hands and utilize the technology of Adobe Creative Suite software enables me to create dynamic and creative compositions.

I consider myself to be a problem solver because I like to work with clients to create cohesive concepts to meet their targeted goals. Building relationships is one of my greatest assets when it comes to the overall success of a project. I want to let my clients know that I am listening to their ideas and that I am not forcing my own creative agenda.

Charles grew up in South Haven, Michigan where he led the Art Club. Skilled in many creative fields and in many different types of media, he created his own illustrated stories, murals, lettering, painting touch-up/restoration, animation and portraits. Additionally, Charles created a character that he later sold to the local newspaper. He worked in animation and one of his pen and ink pieces was selected to become part of the permanent art collection at the local library. He also participated in local art shows, and was hired for several other artistic odd jobs and worked as an art teacher assistant.

He moved to Grand Rapids after high school graduation, where he attended what is now called Kendall College of Art & Design. In 1982, he graduated with a degree in Illustration and Design and then took a three month sabbatical to informally study art in France. During his time at Kendall, he was on the Dean’s List and did freelance illustration for a number of businesses. He worked primarily in black and white during this time and his images were reproduced for both advertising and purely pictorial uses. He began to develop as a fine art painter and was doing more eclectic commissioned work.

Following his time at Kendall, Charles straddled the commercial and fine arts fence, working in both approaches. He began exploring what would become his prime subject matter (architectonic fare mostly) and growing sufficiently as a painter in developing a recognizable style.

He was part of a stable of artists in various galleries including MercuryHead, Mattie & Flynn, Heffner Galleries Ltd, Amway Grand gallery and Pepper Moon. He was doing consignment work and beginning to participate in various local and further- afield art shows, festivals, competitions and exhibitions. Charles has garnered numerous competition awards and some of his work traveled internationally to numerous private, corporate and public collections.

With a keen interest in the science of seeing and visual perception, he incorporates aspects of what he has learned in his work. He also gives occasional talks in the nexus between science, art and perception.

Charles continues to participate in, or coordinate, group and one-person art shows.

The artistic journey is a joyful one for him; one of thoughtful aesthetics.

STATEMENT

My work does not correspond with any school or tradition. I do not emulate the work of any of past or present artists of whom I admire.  While there is growth and change to be seen in my work, I do not tend to go through phases, periods or stylistic constants. Each piece takes on a life of its own and becomes what it wants to be as it develops. I may have three works in progress, simultaneously, and all will be quite distinct in approach, style, feeling, and content.

If I were to describe my vast body of work and underlying approach in a single term, it would probably be “painterly realism.” My most abstract pieces retain a foundation of how objects behave in natural environments, while my most high-realism works are tinged and touched with abstract notes.

I am also smitten by constructivist and architectonic sensibilities and feel as though I am piecing my works together with the discerning measure of a craftsman. My artistic trajectory has gone from highly geometric with architectural fare to organic combined with natural elements as seen in my recent work. All of my work is linked by a sense of construction, building up and assembly from discrete colored fragments. This is how my eyes take in the world around me. I deconstruct what strikes my artistic sensibilities into components and reassemble them into a gestalt. This gestalt takes on all the feelings I have experienced for each part in the process and synthesizes them together. The completion of my work reflects my painterly interpretation of the experience.

It is the process rather than the product that excites me. It is the underlying mechanisms that pique my interest and drive me to further explorations.

The inherent structure of my newest work is defined and expressed by the hues themselves, to a greater degree than with my previous work.

The artist is like the young child who rushes home to tell the adults what simple wonders and joys he has seen that day.

After raising a family with my husband and working as a registered nurse for 40+ years, I decided to take some drawing classes to see if I could still draw after a lifetime of not using that skill. Drawing classes confirmed I still had the "stuff", so then I took some instruction in oil and pastel with an artist friend. Pastels were so much fun to use that I continued in that medium, entering some art competitions at the suggestion of my art friends. Surprisingly, some of my art was juried into local and regional exhibits and my kids started asking why I had never painted all the time they were growing up. My only answer was that I didn't have the time to use that part of my brain! I am still surprised myself at the images that emerge from the paper, seemingly on their own volition at times. It has been a wonderful ride finding this hidden gift in me at this stage in my life. It has provided much joy and satisfaction for me, and I hope for those who view my art as well.

Cathy Marashi incorporates a visual language that spans science, mathematics and geometry. She received her fine arts degrees from Franklin College in Lugano, Switzerland, where she was awarded the Excellence in Fine Arts Award, and Schiller International University in Paris, France. She has exhibited in numerous solo and group shows and competitions. Her work is in numerous private and corporate collections, including Steelcase Corporation, Amway, Pella Corporation, Parke-Davis, Spectrum Health, and the Fred and Lena Meijer Heart Center in Grand Rapids.

Armand Merizon was a seeker of truth and beauty. He was an artist who refused to be held to any one style or template for how art should be represented. He threw off the mantle of tradition, worked through his disabilities, and refused to let go of the brush that both defined and bound him from his earliest years to his last breath. Armand Merizon was an artist’s artist.

As a boy growing up in Grand Rapids, MI, he was possessed by a wandering spirit, and resisted the confinement of his early years among his family of strict Dutch immigrants. Armand would hitchhike and ride freight trains to bigger cities, no doubt gathering the visual fodder that would later be expressed on his canvases. He struggled with illness and the confinement of schools. He lived through the Great Depression, joined the military during World War II, and studied art in New York and Europe. Merizon was a visionary who experienced the world at-large to be both his most suited classroom and greatest teacher.

Merizon’s work never stopped expanding throughout his life and his restlessness was clearly illustrated on canvas. He painted the gamut from stark realism to lyrical and geometric abstraction, employing layers of transparency and color. He was a master of oil, acrylic, casein and tempera, as well as a constant experimenter in new grounds, brush techniques, and color relationships. Merizon was also a student of the scientific aspects of paint luminosity and preservation. He was a generous teacher and leader of the art community in western Michigan. In 1968 Merizon bought a farm and, along with his wife and five children, settled into a quiet landscape of rural living that would feature in many of his works.

In the mid-80’s, Merizon was diagnosed with macular degeneration, a progressive disease that causes vision loss, particularly in the sharp, central focus area. Rather than giving up at such a life- altering diagnosis, Merizon continued to paint, vowing to do so until his nose touched the canvas. Throughout his life, classical music was one of Merizon’s greatest muses, not only as a constant accompaniment as he painted, but perhaps helped drive his creative spirit to new heights.

Armand Merizon passed away in 2010. The beautiful and thought-provoking work he left behind lives on at Merizon Studios.

Digging deep into the human drive to create what we need to see, Kathleen Mooney uses water and pigment, inspired by Neolithic art and archaeology to form thoughtful and thought provoking contemporary abstract paintings. Art / Artifact / Abstraction collide, combine and cooperate in highly individual paintings that reveal more with each view.

“My art lives on the crossroad of imagination and memory. The lyrical abstractions, signs and symbols, mark making and colors are carefully composed for maximum effect – the goal centers on balance, harmony and energy. Printmaking figures in many of my works – with unmatched direct delivery creating my rich multilayered surfaces”.

Mooney enjoys exploring Iceland, Ireland, the Great Lakes, the American Southwest (ancient oceans with big vistas), and US coastal regions. Anywhere the horizon is vast.

"I know that spending quality time in iconic locales with a focus on painting, sketching and photography is a powerful immersion - fueling my art practice and advancement".

Mooney is a Signature Member of National Watercolor Society, the International Society of Acrylic Painters, and the International Society of Experimental Artists.

Notable exhibitions: National Watercolor Society The First 100 Years at Hilbert Museum of California Art. International Watercolor Society - Costa Rica, Czech Republic, and Ukraine. H2OMG - The Mukenthaler Cultural Center, Fullerton, CA. Pier Arts Center, Orkney, Scotland. Big ARTS on Sanibel Island, FL. Forest Hills Fine Art Center in Grand Rapids, MI. National Watercolor Society, San Pedro, CA. ISEA/NWS CA/Wales, UK. NWS / China Exchange with a tour of 5 museums in China and CA.

Finalist Award in The Artist’s Magazine 30th Annual Competition - selected from a field of over 7,500 entries world-wide.

Grand Prize 2017 and Dusk to Dark Award 2019 at the Fresh Coast Plein Aire Competitions.

Selected by "Watercolor Artist" magazine as one of their annual "5 Talented Artists to Watch" featuring a 2-page spread of paintings and interviews.

Featured in the “Legends” Collection produced by Foreign Accents Rugs 2012 - 2018 - exhibited at the world’s largest home furnishings venue, High Point Market.

Janice Paulson began her journey as a Doll artisan in the late 1980’s. She created porcelain dolls, exhibited across the Midwest and taught doll-making for 10 years. Thirty years ago she experimented with painting landscapes. Now she paints full time in and around Spring Lake, Michigan, Laguna Beach, California and Kauai, Hawaii. She is a member of Grand Valley Artists, Grand Valley Artists Plein Air Group and The Great Lakes Pastel Society. She has studied her craft in classes and seminars in Michigan, California and most recently in Southern France. “I am surrounded by wonderful artists who continue to inspire me.” "I enjoy painting in Plein Air. My favorite memories as a child included walking on the beach and playing in the surf. I love to share my feelings of the tranquility and drama of the shore through my paintings. I am blessed to live in Michigan where the change of seasons offers a rare opportunity to paint the constantly-changing effect of light on clouds, waves, sand, fields, flowers and forests.”

Juried Shows include, Grand Valley Artist Christmas Show 2013-present, Festival of the Arts Regional Art Competition 2015, 2016, 2017 (Purchase award), 2018 (Award), 2021, First United Methodist Church Celebration of the Arts 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, Gallery Uptown Winter Arts Festival 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017

STATEMENT

Painting landscapes gives me the opportunity to go out into nature and observe it very closely. Standing in a meadow, or in a forest, or on the shore of a lake gives me a chance to soak up the essence of the land and enjoy its rhythms. Everywhere I turn, I see vignettes of these rhythms and compositions, and then need to pick and choose those scenes that express most aptly what I am sensing from that particular spot. I spend a fair amount of time walking near my home, and I love being absorbed in this landscape.

Fall is the season I most vigorously venture out to paint the landscape. The changing colors and misty mornings draw me out of bed before dawn to climb a hill, or walk around a lake, to catch that singular moment in time- no morning being the same as another. Quickly I try to capture what I see on canvas and then run back to the studio to work out details. In the afternoon I scout out new places to get the last few rays of sun in the day, when our world is again transformed into color and light! Of particular interest to me is the fog which evokes a sense of mystery and poetry that gives metaphor and meaning to some of what I feel and want to articulate about our world and landscape. I also was entranced by painting directly into the sun, where one is blinded by the light, with trees and distance assuming bright, unearthly colors.

Capturing these many scenes is a time-honored vision. As civilization has encroached on the landscape, artists have been working hard to preserve the memory of wild areas. One such group were the Barbizon painters from 19th century France, who first felt the impact of industrialization. Painters like Rousseau and Millet strove to monumentalize everyday life and their surroundings, bringing in new honesty and soul to the world of painting. These ideas were echoed a few years later here in the United States by artists such as George Inness as he endeavored to give his landscapes a sense of the divine. My own connection to the natural world causes me to want to capture what I observe and experience. As our current wilderness continues to disappear right here in West Michigan, and we spread out and build more and more, I find that what we have left is increasingly sacred in my eyes.

STATEMENT

The visual language of landscape is one that we most fundamentally share. Sky, trees, water: these are some of the most basic visual concepts that structure our perception of reality. But for all the commonality in these concrete objects, for each of us the experience of seeing is slightly different, being inevitably inflected by the perception of the observer.

As a perceptual painter, Angela translates her observations of nature into a personal dialect of color, shape, line and light, expressive marks that both describe and negate their subject matter. Using this unique language, she is able to evoke more than the landscape in her atmospheric work, imbuing it with added purpose and clarity of vision.

Beginning on location, Angela’s process moves from the generation of small plein air paintings or drawings to larger studio work. The multiple steps of interpretation allow her to both capture the immediacy of her ever-shifting nature settings, and to meditate deeply and constructively on her pieces in the more formal and removed space of the studio. Her work typically moves from a depiction of concrete details into an intensified geometry, pushing toward abstracted shapes that are reminiscent of known forms but that have a purpose in the painting other than merely describing that known form. Her visual exploration of the natural world also regularly includes painting from the figure, as well as mixed media collages combining fragments of her drawings and paintings with work from her early childhood to the present. Angela typically works in series, painting through an idea resolution and then making further way forward to a new piece as the outcome of this process.

While her painting is direct and confident, she also takes risks regularly and remains open to happy accident and creative chance: the way that a brush full of paint feels its way around the arc of a shoreline, inadvertently dragging bright green through pale blue. Contained in the open space between communication and doubt, Angela’s work is in a constant state of evolution.

Bio

Angela Saxon lives and works in beautiful northern Michigan near Traverse City — surrounded by the spectacular Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. She received a BFA in painting from Indiana University. Recent painting residencies have included Rome and the Sabina region, Italy; Tuscany and Chianti regions, Italy; Umbria, Italy; Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico; Palm Springs, California; Glen Arbor, Michigan. Her paintings are shown in galleries throughout the US and her work is held in both private and public collections; she also undertakes commissions.

Digging deep into the human drive to create what we need to see, Kathleen Mooney uses water and pigment, inspired by Neolithic art and archaeology to form thoughtful and thought provoking contemporary abstract paintings. Art / Artifact / Abstraction collide, combine and cooperate in highly individual paintings that reveal more with each view.

“My art lives on the crossroad of imagination and memory. The lyrical abstractions, signs and symbols, mark making and colors are carefully composed for maximum effect – the goal centers on balance, harmony and energy. Printmaking figures in many of my works – with unmatched direct delivery creating my rich multilayered surfaces”.

Mooney enjoys exploring Iceland, Ireland, the Great Lakes, the American Southwest (ancient oceans with big vistas), and US coastal regions. Anywhere the horizon is vast.

"I know that spending quality time in iconic locales with a focus on painting, sketching and photography is a powerful immersion - fueling my art practice and advancement".

Mooney is a Signature Member of National Watercolor Society, the International Society of Acrylic Painters, and the International Society of Experimental Artists.

Notable exhibitions: National Watercolor Society The First 100 Years at Hilbert Museum of California Art. International Watercolor Society - Costa Rica, Czech Republic, and Ukraine. H2OMG - The Mukenthaler Cultural Center, Fullerton, CA. Pier Arts Center, Orkney, Scotland. Big ARTS on Sanibel Island, FL. Forest Hills Fine Art Center in Grand Rapids, MI. National Watercolor Society, San Pedro, CA. ISEA/NWS CA/Wales, UK. NWS / China Exchange with a tour of 5 museums in China and CA.

Finalist Award in The Artist’s Magazine 30th Annual Competition - selected from a field of over 7,500 entries world-wide.

Grand Prize 2017 and Dusk to Dark Award 2019 at the Fresh Coast Plein Aire Competitions.

Selected by "Watercolor Artist" magazine as one of their annual "5 Talented Artists to Watch" featuring a 2-page spread of paintings and interviews.

Featured in the “Legends” Collection produced by Foreign Accents Rugs 2012 - 2018 - exhibited at the world’s largest home furnishings venue, High Point Market.

Joel Schoon-Tanis is an artist from Holland, Michigan. Joel has shown his artwork around the United States and other countries as far away as Kenya. Joel’s art has a presence around the world as his murals can be found in many schools, children’s hospitals and churches, including murals in Kenya, Zambia, and Bethlehem.

STATEMENT 

I strive to view the world through a child-like lens – full of color, whimsy and honesty. To do this, I often juxtapose kid-like drawings with more realistic paintings in an effort to help people consider a familiar story or part of nature.

Janet Teunis is the Project Director at LowellArts, a visual and performing arts center in Lowell, Michigan. She received her BFA from the University of Michigan School of Art in 1998. She has since worked in the artistic community for the past 20 years. In 1999, she held a position at LaFontsee Galleries. In 2000, she joined the staff of the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts (UICA), where she held various roles in artistic leadership, program management, and operations. In 2013, she joined the staff at LowellArts where she manages the gallery program and marketing.

Janet is also a practicing visual artist and her paintings are included in many private and public collections including the Spectrum Heart Center and Mercantile Bank.

Kay Tiedt grew up in rural, St. John’s, Michigan and spent many summers up north at a lake house on Higgins Lake. Her mother was an artist and focused on florals and elements of natural beauty in her work. Kay’s long-lasting experiences at the lake and her mother’s creative passion have influenced her artwork. Kay has a background in nursing and discovered the soothing qualities of art in healthcare. This inspired her to create serene Michigan landscapes. Working from treasured photographs as well as plein air settings, Kay’s paintings reflect moments that express warmth and a sense of peace.

Judith Tummino was born in Washington, D.C. and spent summers at the Chesapeake Bay. Raised in Maryland, she made frequent trips to the Shenandoah Valley on holidays to visit the Civil War home of her mother’s relatives. She later attended Colorado State University. The wetlands of Parkers Creek watershed, the Chesapeake, the mountains of the Shenandoah as well as the beauty of Colorado all contributed to her love of the landscape.

Her early years growing up in Maryland gave her easy access to the vast art collections of the city of Washington, D.C.

Love of the art collections as well as the changing landscape cemented her desire to paint plein air throughout her life.

Ann's work is influenced by the natural environment surrounding her and Ann's love of nature. As a young child she moved from her birthplace in sunny Los Angeles to a little farming community nestled against the western slopes of the Cascade mountains near the Canadian border. Ann's earliest memories are of noticing the smallest details from those in a little wildflower, to the beauty of a worn out old shack or weathered tombstone amidst grey skies and brilliant green grass. She lived in an ever hazy, overcast environment that would envelop her world for weeks.

When Ann moved to "Chicagoland" during her youth, she was surrounded by a thriving art scene, it was during this time that Ann realized she was an artist. If she wasn’t drawing or photographing her latest subject, she was thinking of it. To this day, Ann drifts off to sleep visualizing different works that she wants to create.

Although much of her work is self taught, she studied illustration, graphic design and photography at William James College, a liberal arts college that emphasized philosophical thinking based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. This is where Ann still lives, surrounded by nature.

Until 2003, she kept her work private as a form of personal expression. Ann's technique continues to evolve, as she experiments with her unique creative process which is based on blending traditional painting using minerals, with cameraless, filmless digital captures that are printed on varies substrates including canvas, art paper and acrylic.

Born in America's heartland, Mark Wilkens' passion for nature and the environment blossomed in the sun-drenched countryside of the Iowan farmlands. His precocious gift for drawing and painting has won him the praise and encouragement of the Midwest art community. Largely self taught, Mark's days were devoted to painting and sketching the vistas of his youth. Upon high school graduation, Mark began his creative quest to discover new forms of expression. Studies at universities in Iowa, Arizona and South Dakota culminated in a year-long apprenticeship with the renowned Native American artist, Oscar Howe. Influenced by the multicultural experiences of Oscar Howe, Wilkens traveled through Africa studying tribal arts and culture. The intensity of the tropical light, color and pattern nurtured Mark's evolving impressionistic style. This light was hard to duplicate in the Midwest, so upon returning to the states, Mark established a studio in Florida. He continued to paint, completing commissions for clients throughout the United States for the next ten years. Longing once again for the Midwest's change of seasons, in 1990 Mark chose Michigan's beautiful shoreline and natural resources upon which to make his new creative home.

STATEMENT

"I began painting at the age of five. Encouraged and supported along the way, I continue to grow as an artist. My work is based on what I call 'combinism'. This is the combining of all the tools of the artist. The formal structural tools of color, line and form are used in a way that values the works throughout art history. Presenting the work in a somewhat raw state, reveals to the viewer the evidence or footprints of the creative process. The physical act of applying paint to a surface is as much a part of the piece as any other, including subject matter, color or the overall shape." -Mark Wilkens (1955-2017)

Painting is my response to and appreciation for what I see around me. I am attracted to subjects that exemplify the beauty of nature or that have interesting shapes, colors, or contrasts of light and shadow. I strive to capture the essence of a subject in a painterly way. As a graphic designer and illustrator I have spent my career designing for others. Painting gives me the chance to create for myself. From 2006 I began taking time away from commercial art and renewed my interest in fine arts. I currently reside in Glenview Illinois and regularly paint both in the studio and on location, traveling to favorite spots in Michigan, California and Hawaii.