The Overall Winning Artists Category consists of the 10 Best Entries received from the 3 different media categories of the Painting & Other Category, Photography & Digital Category and 3 Dimensional Art Category.
The winning artists will now be featured on the Light Space & Time website for the month of March 2017 and thereafter, the artworks and links to the artist’s websites will remain online in the Light Space & Time Archives.
Congratulations to our artists who made our 8th Annual “Abstracts” Art Exhibition so successful this month. At any time, we invite our winners and other interested visitors to link their websites to the Gallery’s Archive section for further ongoing promotion.
The Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery will have digital “Abstracts” Award Certificates, Event Postcard, and Press Releases sent to the winning artists within the next week or so.
Thank you to all of the artists who participated and for being a part of the gallery. To return to the Abstracts Home Page here.
1st Place – Pinky Tripathi – “Harmony”
Pinky is a self-taught artist & a freelancer, who has been painting since three years. She decided to play with colours and her imagination initially, only to kill time while her kids were at school, but very soon realized that she had a deep-rooted connect with colours, paints and the canvas. She discovered the artist in herself by sheer stroke of serendipity and has not looked back ever since.
Her study of art has very much been autodidactic. As a result of her personal extensive research work in Art she has been experimenting with various textures and techniques and has produced rather unique Artworks. Art is the perfect source of stimulation for her mind. She believes that the beauty of each and every colour provided to us by nature and our surroundings is therapeutic in its own special way, which is why her Artworks are mostly bright and colourful.
Pinky’s favourite art form is Abstracts as it has no boundaries or definitions and therefore allows her to bring out her thoughts in her own unique way. She loves to experiment with textures as they help her to enhance the distinctiveness in each of her composition by adding tactile & visual variety. Acrylics are her favourite medium. Her Email: ipsitaa_tripathi@hotmail.com
2nd Place – Peter Alessandria – “Abstract_3452_1”
Peter was born and raised in New York City and Long Island. After attending law school, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an entertainment attorney. Today he is an award-winning, fine art, portrait and commercial photographer based in the New York City area.
Peter spent the first part of his work life as an entertainment and intellectual property attorney in Los Angeles. Working in the film and television industries sparked his own interest in creativity and in the early 2000’s he began experimenting with digital video and became an amateur filmmaker. But it wasn’t until he picked up a digital SLR still camera for the first time in 2004 that his full creative passion for image-making came into being.
Like many people, things changed dramatically for Peter in 2008. That year, as a result of the Global Financial Crisis, he lost his law practice. In the days and weeks that followed he struggled with the question of what to do with the rest of his life. It was only after much deliberation that he decided to follow his passion for photography, and in late 2009, he began pursuing photography full-time.
As a fine art photographer, Peter has created numerous collections of landscape, seascape, cityscape and still life images. His work has been featured in dozens of solo and group photography and art exhibitions. He has won forty six (46) awards in the past few years and his photos have been published nationally and internationally, as well as being shown on television and in feature films. He has been the subject of several newspaper, radio, Internet and television interviews.
Peter finds inspiration mostly in the work of other photographers – and not necessarily the famous ones. Rather, it is his peers, many of whom he connects with on social media, that inspire Peter to go out and try new things or shoot in new locations. This connecting with others has helped fuel his creativity greatly over the last several years.
As a both a photographer and filmmaker Peter’s intent is simple: create compelling images that appeal to his own sense of beauty and aesthetics. His goal is to use his art – and his life – to inspire others. He shares his photos in the hopes of touching people’s hearts and minds in positive and uplifting ways.
See all Peter’s work and read more about his story on his website: www.peteralessandriaphotography.com
3rd Place – Francesca Busca – “Black Carnival”
Francesca’s mission is to make Mosaic ROCK. She wants to show it to the world as an art which can be incredibly rich… every material has at least one fascinating feature about it: the very nature of its texture and just the subtle tilt of a tile allow for different colours, reflections and shades depending on the angle of sight. Chances are that no two viewers will see it the same way at the same time.
Torn between optimism and surrender, Francesca is haunted by the idea of mankind’s imminent self-destruction. Yet, she still believes in a future for humanity of resourceful innovation through recycling and upcycling. She is fascinated by the colours and textures of both artificial and natural elements, which she enthusiastically hunts for in everyday life and restlessly plays with in new combinations, pairing and contrasting noble material with rubbish. Her aim is to prove their reciprocal need, how rubbish is a relative definition and how it can be turned into something useful, fun and even beautiful.
To Francesca, art has the same importance as philosophy: its ultimate purpose is to provoke something in the viewer of its time. As an artist, she feels a compelling urge to convey a message to the viewer, whether a thought or a pure emotion, as strongly as her technical and creative capabilities will allow. Her website: www.francescabusca.com
4th Place – Carol Staub – “Breakout”
Carol Staub was born and raised in Milford, Delaware. Upon retiring from a 26 year career in the airline industry she pursued her interest in silversmithing and fabricated award winning one of a kind pieces of jewelry.
Her entry into the “painting” world came when a friend coerced her to take a watercolor class. She has been painting ever since and hasn’t looked back. She finds her inspiration from nature and all life’s experiences along the way. Having been born in a rural area her senses are keen and appreciative of the simple things in life. This has enabled her to express herself freely and with great warmth. She is a signature member of the San Diego Watercolor Society, Florida Watercolor Society, International Society of Experimental Artists, National Association of Women Artists and many others.
Her works have been featured in many books and magazines some of which include, Masters of Today, International Contemporary Artist, Creative Genius, The Artist’s Magazine, Acrylic Artist Magazine, Watercolor Magazine, Art and Beyond Publications and many others. She has received numerous National and International awards. For more information please visit her web site at: www.CarolStaub.com
5th Place – Gretchen Faulk – “Shadow and Steel”
Gretchen Faulk grew up in urban Seattle; a city of great natural beauty, influenced by American, European and Asian cultures. She has lived in Salt Lake City since 1981. For the last ten years she has worked as a Clinical Researcher at Huntsman Cancer Institute. This employment teaches gratitude and an awareness of the grace and struggles of life and death.
Over her career, professions in health and science were balanced by avocations in art. After twenty years of creative expression through spiritual writing and performance, her focus shifted to photography. Learning to see the details, colors and moments of life as a photographer can be deeply contemplative. In the process of slowing down and lingering over moments of beauty, one cultivates the ability to see the world beneath the surface of things. Not choosing one over the other, her photography expresses both the soul’s darkness and its light.
Gretchen pursues conceptual art; mood, spirit and macabre humor. In an area of the USA filled with landscape photographers, her inspirations are more likely to be an idea, song lyrics or the turn of a phrase. She is a frequent exhibitor in Salt Lake City as well as at art centers along the Wasatch Front and the Springville Museum of Art. Her email: gfaulkfoto@gmail.com
6th Place – Marti White – “Fragmento Frio II”
Marti White is a mixed media artist working in Tucson, Arizona. She works in both abstract and representational subject matter. Marti is mostly self-taught with the help of many artist mentors and workshops. She has always been interested in creative outlets, whether in the home or the studio or the classroom.
Her work is eclectic and covers a broad spectrum of media and subject matter. Marti enjoys working without a lot of preplanning, beginning with color and medium and letting her tools take her where they want to go. The result is a spontaneous expression of her inner self. Marti works in watercolor, acrylic, mixed media, and collage. Her work has evolved over the years and she tends to find working abstractly or at least less literally as time goes by. Recently Marti has worked in series. Her series of Apertures has reached her goal of twenty pieces. These are intended to draw the viewer into the painting or collage so that they can find their own story beneath the surface of the work.
Her other works include a series of Scarab Beetles and another of Dragonflies. Marti is easily bored with one approach to her work and loves to experiment with a variety of “what ifs.” She is open to using new techniques to play with. These may include papers she has never used before, media that is new and interesting, new methods of preparing papers for collage work, experimenting with various types of transfer methods, acrylic inks, metallic and acrylic polymers.
Marti teaches classes in collage in the community. She also volunteers her time in various arts oriented organizations. Marti is a signature member of the Southern Arizona Watercolor Guild. She is a signature member of the Contemporary Artists of Southern Arizona which she served as president for two three-year terms. She is a signature member of The International Society of Acrylic Painters and a member of The Contemporary Art Society, an arm of The Tucson Museum of Art. She is a member of the Arizona Watercolor Association, an associate of The Drawing Studio in Tucson and a member of PaperWorks: The Sonoran Collective for Paper and Book Artists. Marti’s work is shown locally and nationally in juried exhibitions. To Marti art is an expression of the soul. Her website: www.combymartiwhite.com
7th Place – Rick Heck – “Peeling Out”
“Painting in an abstracted manner allows me to express how I see the world in a totally personal way. Like a jazz interlude, I use color to improvise and create visual harmony in my paintings. Each stroke of the brush is a reaction to the previous stroke and takes me on a journey to find a way to convey my feelings about what I am creating.”
When Rick looks at the blank canvasses stacked in his studio, he wonders what passages will emerge, where the ideas will come from and what colors will explode onto the canvas. This sense of wonderment, expectation and excitement is the core of his passion for painting. His intention is to create paintings that will evoke an emotional response from the viewer.
In Rick’s painting process, he uses brushes and sponges for many smooth areas and washes. He uses different spatulas, squeegees, trowels and various other instruments or utensils to attack the canvas and incorporate bold markings. Rick continues to add or subtract paint – sometimes soften edges, sometimes decorating with bits of this and that to add texture. He continues to work – pursing a passage that at first was invisible but then appeared right in front of him with some hard work and imagination.
Another medium for creating is digital art. Rick uses his abstract paintings and photographs and combines them in a complex layering process to create unique digital paintings.
Rick’s emergence into the art world was a result of his love of color, shape and texture – fusing with the improvisational aspects of his years of training in music, jazz in particular. His formal art education consists of different workshops, seminars and the tutelage of a community of professionals in his area. He continues to strive to be a lifelong learner. His website: www.flowingpaint.com
8th Place – Ralph White – “Big Optic”
Ralph White, born and raised in Southern California, is one of the premier creators of contemporary Fusionart in the Los Angeles area. Ralph has developed a distinctive style using strong and vibrant colors, and his art reflects a positive flow of energy. Ralph’s works exhibit outward expressions of feeling and celebrations of the inward journey of thoughtful introspection.
Ralph’s process is one of being at play; freedom and meditation without judgement. What becomes of the paint placed upon the canvas is up to his soul’s expression or emotion at the time. Ralph’s own style and technique interpreting the creative force within is what transpires into a painting.
A believer in the artist’s ability to create a dialog through each image, he is continually intrigued by the convergence of art and the observer. An executive business coach, Ralph White brings a lifetime of transformational thinking into his paintings. He has worked with thousands of clients over the years to re-direct their thinking to see possibilities and create change. Ralph brings this philosophy into his art, continually seeking to express the soul’s ability to evolve. His goal is to evoke a spark of creativity and imagination with his audience. When they see images or have an emotional response to his work, his intention is accomplished.
Ralph’s work has been recognized most recently by the American Art Awards (placed in several categories including a First Place in Abstract Expressionism), the Visual Arts Center of Punta Gorda, FL (NAE Judges Award), the International Society of Acrylic Painters (First Place award), Upstream People Gallery, Contemporary Art Gallery Online, and Art Addiction Online Gallery.
Ralph has exhibited professionally in Brooklyn, New York City, Las Vegas, Chicago, Michigan, Missouri, Florida, Honolulu, Laguna Beach, and Los Angeles, Washington, DC as well as in Beijing and Hong Kong. His website: www.ralphwhite.com
9th Place – William Nourse – “Icelandic Rock and Roll”
Spending time in wild places is increasingly precious in our modern society. Seeing fog form in Yosemite Valley, witnessing the power of a storm at the beach, meditating on sunset in the Rocky Mountains or feeling insignificant beneath the brilliance of the Milky Way on a clear night are activities that fewer and fewer people in the world are able to experience.
While there is an increasing number of landscape photographers, landscape artists who are photographers is a more limited population. As Galen Rowell wrote ‘Well-executed photos of familiar scenes predictably fill up months of Sierra Club and Audubon calendar and put bread on the table of the chosen photographer, but the question a dedicated nature photographer should be asking is, “Do I want to be a content provider or a visual artist?”
As a visual artist, I capture the feeling that a scene evokes in me by using color and light to emphasize the most important elements and to communicate that feeling to the viewer. Sometimes this may be done through HDR processing or other exposure-blending techniques, in order to make up some of the difference between what the eye and brain can do in interpreting an image as compared to the capabilities of the camera. Other times, it may be by taking long exposures of stars or water to evoke the feeling of passing time.
Ultimately, the measure of success is whether the viewer feels that they can place themselves within the scene at that particular moment and feel some of the emotion that was present when it was captured. His website: www.willnourse.photography
10th Place – Thelma Lazo-Flores – “Structures of Thought”
Thelma Lazo-Flores is a mid-career design educator trained in fine arts, art history, interior architecture, and regional planning. After a lengthy pause from her love of the visual arts, she recently returned to her passion in illustration and painting, and rediscovers creative inspiration in the use of multiple media.
Her visual dialogues express material culture, architectural metaphors, and the natural environment. Thelma’s most recent body of works relentlessly examines the imaginative intersections of art, fauna and architectural elements using the less explored medium of colored pencils.
Her artworks are emotionally evocative and recognizable with design elements and features, oftentimes revealing the muted discourse of drawing and realism. Further, images disclose artistic elements manifesting an interesting characteristic of gestural and controlled strokes, and the mediated fusion of hidden meanings and pragmatic objectification. Works evidently show the compositional depth of bliss and quietude, with constant allusions to human sensitivity and interpretation.
In the past, she has explored multiple media like watercolor, acrylic, oil, pastel, and ink in both conventional and unconventional ways. Her evolving passion with colored pencils (watercolor-based, oil-based, graphite-based and ink-based) redefines her various approaches to creative expression, which also underlines the multitude of possibilities in developing other techniques and styles. Previously, her use of colored pencils remained a medium for schematic studies to her many designs of products, furniture, interiors, and visual merchandising.
For the choice of subject matter, she takes a visual curiosity and inspiration from narratives of nature, built environment, and the vibrant renditions of material culture depicted in everyday life. Her evolving collection of works also includes the transition of colors within impressions of weathered wood and metal surfaces, and lively alterations of nature. Evidently, one can easily relate to her visual imaginations as they attempt to construe various stories of time and interpretations of memory that mark a demystifying sense of place. Her website: www.designstudies.space
