Tag: galleries

Born and Raised in New Orleans La, USA, Craig Tracy has always been an artist. Craig credits New Orleans with its authentic and vibrant culture as a significant factor in what is at the heart of his passion, creativity and bliss. As a child, Craig’s loving parents nurtured his creative development. They also gave him the gift of freedom to mature as an absolute individual. His parents were living in a special time, in a place filled with radical changes.

Categorized best as working class hippies, their nonconformist principles were instilled firmly in the young artist. It’s safe to say that “Flower Power” and “Power To The People” are vastly responsible for his unique perspective on art and life. Coincidentally, it was that same hippie movement that reignited the soon-to-be interest in and practice of Bodypainting in the western world.

“It really clicked, from the very first time that I painted a face, it was strangely powerful. I later realized that I had quiet literally fallen in love with Bodypainting. It did however take me years to properly process and respect such an uncharted and ancient art form. It was similar to how people don’t take things seriously because they have no example to follow.

Craig was at this point feverishly enthralled with the idea of becoming a fine art Bodypainter. He researched by searching, or rather surfing the web with a renewed passion that surprised even him! He also started collecting Bodypainted images from other artists that he respected and admired. “I wanted this work to surround me in my daily life. I found tremendous inspiration from having these images hanging in my home, beautifully framed and displayed in the majority of my living space. If I were to expect that others would purchase my images then I should have the respect to collect this beautiful work as well.”

His collecting of images was soon followed by his first serious creation of images. These painting, his first series of bodypaintings, “The Nature Series” a collection of fifteen unique images were very well received. Certain images from his nature series have become iconic, as they are visually, emotionally and creatively relevant.

After having spent two decades in the non-figurative style, Pauline Gagnon has adopted the portrait as the major genre of her work. Her larger than life portraits include oriental and calligraphic signs.

Pauline Gagnon’s process is very specific. She first takes hundreds of pictures of her models, then goes on to work on her approach, her angle and structure. The artist explains: “I do not paint from the model in a classical way, but I take a series of picture of him/her, one hundred, two hundred, which I reframe on the computer, I print a few copies that I enlarge to a square. A centimeter square of the photographs becomes ten centimeters square of the canvas. With this grid traced on the canvas as a guide, I paint with large strokes the face or the silhouette and then freed from the constraint of representation, I paint in between the lines”.

To paint the body, the face of another, brings beyond the apparent simplicity of the action, a number of questions. What kind of relationship is established between the painter and her model? What links them to one another? What is the place of Desire? Seduction? Why has the body been an unavoidable theme in the arts since the beginning of its time? Why is it still such a fascinating theme whichever medium is chosen today? If the relationship between the model and the artist faces us with many questions, the relation with the observer is by the same token also to be defined.

Jeune artiste passionnée et ambitieuse, Valérie Lachance obtient un DEC en graphisme du Collège Ahuntsic en 1999, diplôme qu’elle enrichit d’une formation en infographie et en cinéma d’animation au Collège Cyclone Arts et Technologies de Montréal en 2000. Aujourd’hui, en tant que peintre, elle utilise ses talents de graphiste et d’illustratrice sur la toile pour donner vie à un personnage unique et captivant: « le chat Boris », à travers lequel elle a conquit le cœur et l’imagination des collectionneurs. Elle peint sur fond noir, ce qui intensifie sa palette de couleurs vives et contrastées. La perspective, rarement linéaire, est variée et rend les compositions plus dynamiques et intéressantes. Le chat Boris est un personnage attachant, à la nature enjouée, actif et surtout très sociable, toujours souriant et prêt à participer à une multitude d’activités. C’est le mouvement mêlé aux couleurs et aux textures qui inspirent Valérie Lachance. Jeune, débordante d’imagination, elle veut mettre une touche d’humour et de couleurs dans sa vie et celle des autres, toujours par l’intermédiaire du chat Boris.

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Martin Beaupré est né au Canada, à Québec en 1961. Il trouve son équilibre en associant art et énergie. Sa peinture est le reflet de son monde intérieur. Un parcours zen où se révèle la recherche de la beauté et de l’harmonie dans des tonalités feutrées, des compositions épurées et sereines. Martin Beaupré prend plaisir à transmettre sa passion et vit maintenant de son art à plein temps. En 1995, il a fondé les ateliers Médit’Art, où il enseigna la peinture moderne et intuitive. Il a offert aussi des ateliers d’art thérapie pour peintres amateurs et professionnels, dans les déserts des États-Unis et à Hawaii.

Grâce à sa grande maîtrise des couleurs et à son approche libre de toutes résistances, ses toiles contemporaines suscitent de profondes émotions. Ce peintre conjugue l’énergie et le dynamisme avec le calme et la sérénité. Inspiré par ses voyages, il crée des toiles empreintes de la culture asiatique. Cerisiers en fleurs, montagnes, visages de Bouddha, geishas, ainsi que symboles et écritures inspirés du Zenga composent ses oeuvres. Rien n’est laissé au hasard, chaque détail a sa raison d’être. Martin Beaupré a fait la rencontre de moines bouddhistes en Thaïlande et au Japon qui sont devenus une grande source d’inspiration pour lui. Les principes de l’art Japonais sont sacrés à ses yeux. Le secret qui donne puissance à son art : embellir le vide et ne jamais remplir le vide. Créer le maximum d’effet avec le minimum de moyen.

L’intensité lumineuse qu’il préfère est le blanc parce qu’il lui offre les possibilités d’une rencontre avec l’infini. Ses tableaux respirent la quiétude. Il travail avec plusieurs médiums : l’huile, pâte de modelage, sable, cristal de Swarovsky, encre. Dans ses toiles, la forme et l’espace ne sont jamais en confrontation. Tout coexiste, tout est lié. Impression de calme, instant de grâce, maîtrise de sa vie, tout se dulcifie en soi.

Julie Ann’s oil paintings are semi-abstract representations of the landscape in which wind swept trees battered by the intense weather stand out on the horizon. She also creates intensely coloured underwater scenes in which shoals of fish swirl in a blue vortex of light. This light is the unifying factor in all of Julie Ann’s work, originating in the sight of the sun breaking through the misty darkness. This first blissful moment of light inspires the artist from both an aesthetic and a spiritual viewpoint.

Julie Ann grew up in the North of England. After A Levels she set off to see the world and spent an eventful and adventurous few years abroad. After working as a catwalk model in Israel, touring as an actress in California, and travelling around much of Eastern Europe she returned to England and settled in the Lake District. Living in one of the UK’s most beautiful national parks proved a significant experience for Julie Ann. 2000 was a landmark year for her: having excelled in art at school, she began to paint once more, and set up her own studio in Kendal where she started to create her dazzling oils. Since then she has not looked back and her work has been exhibited to great acclaim across the UK.

Gabe Leonard’s paintings take you into a world rich with inimitable atmosphere and narrative intrigue. What tales lie behind these interesting characters? And where will their stories take them? Leonard spent his early years in the mountain state of Wyoming, sketching wildlife and selling them to his school friends for a dollar.

After graduating from Columbus College, Ohio with a BA in Fine Art, he moved to Los Angeles where he first honed his skills on the ultra-competitive boardwalk of Venice Beach. His work has been described as “Johnny Cash meets Quentin Tarantino” and he captures rich moods by combining the free brushwork of an expressive artist combined with the lighting and framing of a seasoned Hollywood cinematographer. Drawn to rugged and romantic film noir characters, Leonard merges technically brilliant figurative painting with a finely crafted cinematic atmosphere, creating snapshot moments full of narrative possibilities.

Following a string of sell-out shows and acquisitions of his work by high profile collectors, Leonard has become one of the most sought-after artists in the world, collected in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

Peter Adderley grew up in rural Staffordshire. He studied art at North Staffordshire Polytechnic and gained his degree from Wolverhampton Polytechnic. Peter Adderley freelanced as an artist and card designer, but in 1990 he decided to devote himself full time to painting. In 2004 Peter’s outstanding talent won him a place in the final of the DeMontfort New Artist Competition. His prize was a publishing contract, taking his status as a professional artist onto a whole new level.

Peter Adderley now based in North Devon works from his home. He finds living close to the sea a great source of inspiration, and his quirky character pieces often include some coastal references. Peter also cites a range of influences including jazz, most particularly such larger-than-life stars as Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong and Courtney Pine. Like them his work is virtuosic, deceptively simple, and delightfully accessible.

Peter Adderley art, as one collector describes it, “sophisticated whimsy!”

Painting in heavy bodied acrylics on high weight water colour paper, his palette is characterised by soft browns, mochas, creams and golds, while occasional splashes of red bring the whole piece into focus.

Caroline Shotton is a British commercial artist who frequently incorporates cows into her artwork. Caroline gained recognition for her 2007 Great Moosters series, re-imagining famous paintings using the cow motif. She is considered among the established contemporary artists of Great Britain

London-based photographer Valerio Loi created human feelings in medicine, and displays it in a set of new images titled Human Feelings as Drugs. Very colorful bottles with descriptive labels of each emotion.

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