The artist, America Martin, is a traveler between mediums. Her painting and drawings are emphatic expressions of playful references to a number of the major schools of the twentieth century, as well as to enduring indigenous art forms.
America’s favorite landscape is the landscape of the human form. Her work is distinguished by a command of line and color and is firmly grounded in the classics.
America studied painting with Vernon Wilson of Art Center School of Design in Pasadena, California. She was also a scholarship student at the school of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts.
America Martin from Argot & Ochre on Vimeo.
A Midwest native, Sherri Belassen has been a painter for as long as she can remember. Her artistic journey began when she flew alongside her father in his small plane. It was there that she became keenly aware of shapes and color, patching and painting the landscape beneath them as they flew high above.
Because the flights were often bumpy, her father advised her that focusing on the horizon would bring her a sense of balance.
She went on to earn her Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting from Indiana University and began showing her work in 1989. Since then, Sherri’s work has appeared in galleries and publications nationwide.
Born in Marina del Rey, California, in 1972. Attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA from 1990-91. Attended Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia in 1994. He currently lives and paints in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Because Jesse has traveled to many places including Europe, South Africa, Asia and South America for the most part of the last decade, he encourages the viewer of his art to decipher his canvases as they might a menu in a foreign language; to let their imagination fill the gaps of understanding while the stomach rumbles in anticipation.
Candice began studying and working as a Fine Artist in 1992 when she moved to Paris. In 1997 Candice began to focus on one tributary, searching for the source: The Tete. In French, Tete signifies both the head and the visage. Through color, texture and the gestural paint strokes she captures the emotions that linger under the surface. She relocated to California in 2003 to be an American in America, though she is still in touch with the Paris of her imagination. Candice just moved to Walla Walla Wine Country where she is working with her brother on branding his new wine called Walla Faces Wine which will feature her art. Candice is a listed artist. Her art has been sold at the prestigious Parisian auction house of Hotel Drouot at the semi-annual auction of Emerging Contemporary French Artists since 2001. She has had over 40 exhibitions in France and is in the collections of many notable European and American art collectors including Blake Byrne.
Affectionately known as “Unc”, Alberto Valdes left a collection of such remarkable art that had he not chosen the life of a recluse, he most likely would be considered one of the top Mexican American artists of our time.
Alberto was born in 1918 in Texas and moved with his family to East Los Angeles when was he was two years old. His father, a classical musician, died in Mexico when Alberto was just a teenager. He graduated from Lincoln High School and later attended art school.
After serving in the army during WWII, he returned to his parent’s home in Silver Lake. Alberto then began a very successful professional career as a commercial artist. Once he retired, Alberto’s dream was to devote the rest of his life creating fine art. It was at this time that he closed himself off from the world and painted daily from morning to evening. Painting was his love, his obsession, his reason for being.
Alberto was the quintessential reclusive artist. He continuously ignored the urgings of his family to exhibit his work. He did not even leave home to purchase his art supplies. He would write a list, and his sister-in-law would make the purchases for him.
Alberto suffered from prostate problems, but after seeing a physician in approximately 1980 he wanted no longer to continue medical care. In time, the physical pain became unbearable, and in 1998 Albert took his own life. The last piece completed was left on his easel and titled “Adios.”
As his legacy, Alberto Valdes has left us a body of fine art genuinely inspired by his heritage, and a lifetime of achievements and personal tribulations.
“He had in his eyes
The look of goodness
It was always in his eyes
He no longer knew about
Sadness, disenchantment
Nor pain
Enclosed behind the old doors
Of his old convent
He was free like the wind
He owned the rainbow
And painted its colors as his own…”
Excerpt from ‘Free Like the Wind’
Written in tribute by
Francisco “Poncho” Rodriguez.
2012
My paintings are personal observations of color, movement, relationships and forms in nature. I prefer the watercolor medium, as I love paper, and the tactile manner in which the pigment integrates with the paper. Painting on cold pressed 100% cotton paper I patiently build translucent, veiled layers of color, allowing the forms and values to evolve in a detailed and orchestrated manner. I normally work in a series, which permits the wet color to dry thoroughly between layers. The images are not restricted by the paper’s edges. Every random mark is there because it needs to be there. The reputed “happy mistakes” (that watercolor legend reports often occur in this medium) are planned and controlled.
The circular orbs in my current work are simple, bold, direct, sensual, playful and often mysterious. The sphere recalls harmony, rhythm, movement, patterns, and boundless symbolic metaphors. In my work the circle exists independently and in groups, referencing water patterns on a shore, a rising moon, rounded fruits, or the shape of a flower. The circle recalls family and friends, who are important to my creative process. The times spent in a circle, talking, eating, dancing, playing, telling stories and solving the problems of everyday life. The memories of this connection to the circle are vital to me.
My intention is not to impose a specific message to the viewer. I often hesitate to title my paintings, for fear that they will be translated only according to my vision and close a door to the viewer’s interpretations. I hope my paintings will allow the viewer to observe a familiar object in a new way.