Artist Listing

Artists include many Museumed and Highly-Collectible Names, Accomplished Professional Emerging Artists working in oil, acrylic, mixed-media, bronze, ceramic, fabric, photography

, MEYER,

Born in Switzerland in 1961, this unique mixed media artist has lived and worked in Paris and Luzern as an independent professional artist since 1989. She trained as a graphic designer in Luzern from 1977 to 1982. She continued her studies in Stuttgart, Germany and New York where she lived and worked from 1986 to 1989.
This artist's oeuvre is situated in the highly exciting field of tension between the objective and the abstract conceptions of painting. Her work reveals her efforts to use everyday experiences as a basis for art and find a visual language that can reflect these rapidly changing times esthetically through both form and content. Although it is not intentional, her works are often thought to have a Japanese influence because of her graphic background which has evolved into her own calligraphic communication which presents itself in many of her artworks. It has been said that "one of the most prominent characteristics of her art is that it conveys a simplicity of execution, a child-like playfulness, while actually being extremely complex." Unlike conventional paintings that hang on a gallery wall, the artist forms dimensional constructions where the work either stands freely or is mounted on a wall to be seen from several angles. She does not fashion her art on other art movements per se, or on what she has created in the past. She prefers to begin each process fresh, including ideas and experiences that are current in her life; therefore, her work is autobiographical, new and in-the-moment. There is a European sensibility and sophistication that conveys a joy of creation and enthusiasm for expressing new possibilities. This artist is regularly exhibited in both Europe and the United States.

, ZHAO,

This Master Artist exhibited in the Shanghai Art Expo Inter-Continental - World Expo 2010 following the completion and dedication of a Monumental Sculpture created as a collaboration. Presented by Mayor Gavin Newsom and the City of San Francisco through it's Arts Commission and Asian Art Museum in recognition of the San Francisco Shanghai Sister City Relationship and World Expo 2010. This enormous accomplishment comes as part of a long artistic journey. Born in Shanghai, China the artist now lives in the United States in California. "The artist's work was exhibited among the world-renowned contemporary artists, such as Jean Michel Basquait, Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, Keith Haring and David Hockney".
....Nancy Halpern Broughner, Curator of Art, Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation. The Foundation acquired two major artworks by the artist for the permanent collection (Tokyo office). Early work by the artist while still in China revealed a promising and zealous young painter indoctrinated with "Socialist Realism" and "Revolutionary Romanticism" when the whole of China was resisting Western ideology. Freedom for creativity was confined to portraying the images of "Workers, Peasants and Soldiers", the officially proclaimed proletarian heros in the sole style of realism. Scores of exhibitions and various awards earned a soaring reputation for the artist. A turning point came for the artist in the late 1970's when he was greatly influenced by the magnitude of the feelings he felt when he stood before grandiose gigantic Buddha sculptures and also when he visited the caves along the contours of eroded shrines and archways. He started by painting to express his feelings in a series of oils, mostly close-ups of the walls inside grottos. After his arrival in the United States in 1986, he began to take a great interest in the shape of the square and developed his work with a high sense of pattern and rhythm. His philosophy is a mixture of faint fatalism, remote reverence for Buddhism and free interpretation of Taoist doctrines, in a certain sense a portrait of the oriental mentality in front of the Western culture. His paintings became more intense and dynamic in his attempt to disclose a bewildered Oriental Soul wandering in the mystic Western Culture.
Achieving great success exhibiting throughout major cities in the United States including New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco and La Jolla as well as in Germany, Canada, England and Tokyo, Japan and the cities of Shanghai, Hong Kong and Beijing; the artist became recognized and exhibited in numerous musuems internationally, as well. The artist's collectors span the globe. In 2009, he was honored with a commission to paint an enormous abstract painting for a public building in Shanghai, his city of birth, where he is considered a Master Artist invited often for one-man exhibitions.

, PAAJANEN,

A Minnesota native, this creative glass artist, now living and working in New Mexico is pursuing her life-long interest in art and design in her chosen medium of fused glass. She states, "my joy in the medium comes primarily from playing with the iridescence and transparency of glass and often I incorporate copper - as foil, mesh or wire - and occasionally brass into my pieces. The metals interact with the glass in unpredictable ways, which just adds to the fun." She began her hands-on experience with fused glass in 2002 while living in the heavily glass-focused Portland, Oregon, area where her intended hobby quickly became a passion.

, GOJANOVIC,

This accomplished imaginative artist received her Undergraduate Degree from the School of Fine Arts in Split, Croatia and then her Postgraduate degree from the University of Art & Design in Zagreb, Croatia. Following her formal studies she worked as the Assistant to Milovan Stanic for seven years in Dubrovnik, then to Zlatko Movrin for four years in Zagreb followed by two years as a costume and set designer for Theater Jazavac, Zagreb. With a great deal of training and experience, she has since achieved independent success as a fine artist with international exhibitions and both private and corporate collectors worldwide. The artist has exhibited at the Museum of Split, Split, Croatia (1987).

, GASTALDI,

An American artist of Italian ancestry born in Oakland, CA, in 1945, this artist's work often seeks to document cultural migration to America as it relates to a common dream for social and economic accomplishment. The art of this artist captures a mood as well as a moment in time. He works in a variety of mediums and his art is broad in content and subject matter including: painting, drawing, sculpture, graphic works on paper, ceramics, glass video and performance art.
The artist specializes in site-specific fine art, serving the design industry, restaurants, hotels and resorts, corporate enterprises and many public and private venues. Select corporate collectors include:
Desert Willow Resort and Country Club, Mission Hills Country Club, Palm Springs, CA; Yard House Restaurants, Old Ranch Country Club, Seal Beach; The Paiute Resort, near Las Vegas, NV; Caesar's Palace - Augustus Cafe, Las Vegas, NV; Justin Baldwin Winery, Paso Robles, CA; PIMCO, Newport Beach, CA; Olson Company, Seal Beach, CA;
Burton Landscape Architects, Solana Beach, CA; Art in Public Places in Scottsdale, AZ and Brea, CA.

, NOTTEBOHM,

This technically unique and very accomplished artist was born in October 1944 near the end of World War II. His place of birth, the small, medieval city of Eisenach, was included in the German Democratic Republic. His school was located across the street from a house where the great baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach had lived. Not coincidentally, perhaps, music has had a significant presence in the artist's works, - medieval, classical, romantic, minimal, jazz and rock. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich from 1965-1969. After an initial mastery of figuration, the artist's imagery became focused on the abstract outer spaces of the universe and the parallel inner spaces of the atom. This lent his vocabulary the endless forms and myriad colors that would soon be given over to his unique "white light", subtly suggesting a palette of infinite coloration. It is as appropriate, then, that for two decades the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) should have commissioned ten major works from the artist, among them a series of stunning paintings commemorating the 1981 launch of the first space shuttle Columbia. Later the artist would give up the use of pigment yet maintain a deeper, richer and more subtly implicit sense of color in his newest pure metal paintings. Muldoon Elder, acclaimed art critic, wrote, "My instant impression was that this was something absolutely unique, something wholly original, something extremely graceful, lyrical and subtle, and at the same time, overwhelmingly powerful."
The artist's extensive list of exhibitions is quite impressive. A few select cities include San Francisco, Beverly Hills, CA; Lahaina, Maui, HI; Aspen, Vail, CO; Washington, D.C.; Santa Fe, NM; Dallas, Houston, TX; McLean, VA; Berlin, Munich, Salzburg,Germany; Vienna, Austria;....

, IRELAND,

Born in a rural town in Oregon where her artistic talent was discovered and nurtured from an early age by the time the artist was 16 she was painting more than 3 hours a day and consistently selling her work. Her first national debut was in Carmel, CA at the age of 21. From that time on she has continued to exhibit across the U.S. and has received numerous awards for her paintings. In addition, her murals can be found in the historic Multnomah Hotel, the Williamette Building, the Sunriver Lodge and numerous multi-million dollar estates in Oregon, Washington and California, as well as in significant corporate collections. An autodidact and world traveler, the artist honed her artistic skills with training under master artists and through sheer discipline. Recent travels to art museums in Russia, Italy, France, Prague, Vienna and London have influenced her work immensely. Studying closely the original brushstrokes of masters has had a profound impact on her and influence on her more recent work. A California resident since 2002, she maintains an active painting and show schedule with galleries, museums and private commissions. Among her many accolades, the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Award was given to Ireland for her Monumental Painting at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) International Terminal.

, HILL,

Artist's Statement:
A metal sculptor struggles for extraordinary precision and economy to reveal the fragile beauty of human life in an unyielding material world...James Hill
2004

Hill is an accomplished career sculptor with many artworks in public places as well as with private collectors. Universal emotions with which we all identify are portrayed in his sculptures with a clarity that comes from his mastery of his materials utilizing honed skills to display a softness through simple gestures of form.

, CARMICHAEL,

This stone sculptor states:
"From the first moment that I touched chisel to stone I experienced an instantaneous and profound connection that deepens with every work. It has been the discovery of a true love and calling. It is a spiritual awakening that illuminates my life."

He moves reason and ego aside and a journey begins as he works the stone to give shape to his experience through form, line, volume and space which evokes emotion and the ineffable mysteries of life that lie beneath the surface of perception.
The sculpture, upon completion, has a depth and spirit of its own. As the sculptor works the stone to give shape to his thoughts, the stone, in turn, inspires his thoughts and guides his hand and eye. Exhibited in numerous galleries, this sculptor is gaining an international following of collectors.

, CARMICHAEL,

, NEUMANN,

This highly regarded and collected sculptor states that the schools/movements which have most influenced his work are Abstract Expressionism, Constructivism and Cubism. Some of his favorite artists are Julio Gonzales, Alexander Archipenko, Alexander Calder, Anthony Caro, David Smith and Henry Moore. The lessons he learned from these influences are simplification of form, economy of line, the importance of negative space and from Calder, a sense of wonder and playfulness. He chooses to work directly in metal because it allows him to achieve results that would be impossible in wood or stone. Every sculpture has it's own meaning, but underlying that the artist strives to achieve a sense of movement and energy. By putting the various elements in conflict with one another, the sculptor hopes to create the tension needed to achieve this goal. This artist/sculptor additionally hopes that viewers experience a sense of optimism and the feeling that there is a certain nobility in man.
He achieved his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Albuquerque from 1970 - 1974 and continued his studies at the Scuolo Politecnica di Disegno di Milano, Italy from 1974 - 1975. He served an apprenticeship with Albert Wein, Sculptor from 1975 - 1976 and was Assistant to Roy Gussow, Sculptor from 1976 - 1977.
From 1978 - 1990, this very experienced and dedicated sculptor worked as an artist's fabricator to numerous commercially successful sculptors. The sculptor began Solo Exhibitions of his work in 1978 in Yonkers, New York. This began a long list of both Solo and Group Exhibitions in New York, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Masachusetts and California with collectors worldwide.

, RALFONSO

Considered a creative genius by many, this artist is a Swiss designer of large to monumental Kinetic, Light and Water Sculptures. He lives and designs in his studios in Palm Beach County, Florida, USA, and Geneva, Switzerland. The artist states that his Passion is the design and creation of 3-dimensional kinetic and LIGHT sculptures that move in the wind and water. He also designs sound-sculptures and suspended mobiles as well as fountains. Usually these iconic and unique designs are for site-specific creations for commerical, institutional and public buildings, plazas and parks - mostly in urban environments. His kinetic sculptures have been exhibited or installed in the USA, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands, Russia, China and Dubai. He has a very long list of achievements. Most recently, he was selected by the Committee of "Art & Dream for the Beijing Olympics" as one of 19 international commissioned artists to create the 10m (30ft - with base) - kinetic sculpture, "Dance with the Wind", for the 2008 Olympics Games - May 2008 - permanently installed at the ICE CUBE swimming pavilion. Also in May 2008, he had an exhibition, "Sculpture in Motion", in Atlanta, GA, USA. In June 2008, the artist was the Prize Winner selected from over 2,400 submissions from 82 Countries by the Chinese Olympic Art Committee for the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing for OLYMPIAD - a one year traveling exhibition through 12 Cities in China, California, the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland, Italy...
Winner of the Bronze Medal in June 2008.
Another accomplishment, in March 2009, that meant a great deal to the artist , was when a sculpture was installed at the Pittsburg, PA, Children's Hospital.