The Artist Space Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the first Animals online Art Exhibition. Along with the selected artists, the jury selected award winners in the following art categories: painting, photography, and sculpture. The show displayed a variety of artistic styles and mediums: oil on canvas, acrylic, watercolor, pastel, gouache graphite, scratchboard, colored pencil, digital, photography, bronze. Out of all submissions received 93 artworks were selected to be included in the exhibition.
Best of Show
Laara Cassells
Short Biography and Statement
LAARA CASSELLS is a contemporary Canadian painter best known for her representational paintings and portraits. Laara has exhibited paintings, drawings and sculptures in Belgium, Germany, Hungary, Italy, South Korea, Poland, Switzerland and across the USA and Canada. Over the past 12 years her award-winning work has been shown in over 120 juried and invitational exhibitions worldwide. My current series depicts images of Alberta wildlife. I have been taking photos of wolves and foxes and their habitats around Alberta and I am fortunate to have the opportunity to observe an abundance of wildlife here. I wish to portray each animal as an individual with its own unique personality whether it is a wolf, fox, horse or domestic pet. I try to bring each creature alive for the viewers so that they get the feeling that they have shared with me a momentary magical encounter with the animal themselves. I am so very grateful to be surrounded by so much natural beauty in my life, it is a constant source of inspiration.
Painting Prize
Annik Janssens
Short Biography and Statement
All my life, I have been hugely fascinated by nature, animals and drawing. It is this fascination that led me, about six years ago, to start making photo-realistic drawings of animals. With my photorealistic portraits in pastel, I try to depict the animal's character as much as possible. After all, images say so much more than words. I try to convey to the viewer that they are all individuals, each with their own character and personality. They must feel a connection with the animal, almost as if they want to touch it, to feel it. I often draw endangered species to make as many people as possible aware of the beauty of the animals around us. To make people aware that, if we do not intervene now, we will soon be able to see all these fantastic creatures only in zoos. Besides wildlife, I often do commissioned portraits of pets, which gives me enormous satisfaction, especially the enthusiastic reactions of the owners are heart-warming. In fact, I have only really started, I still have lots of plans, especially about wildlife conservation.
Sculpture Prize
Douglas Aja
Short Biography and Statement
www.artistsforconservation.org/artists/1238/gallery/all
Douglas Aja has been sculpting African wildlife since the late 1990s. Though he sculpts a variety of species, he specializes in the African elephant. Many elephants are known individuals from Amboseli National Park in Kenya. Aja's bronze sculptures are in the private collections of elephant researchers Cynthia Moss and Joyce Poole, wildlife cinematographer Martyn Colbeck, the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, the Bennington Center for the Arts, North Carolina Central University and NBA great and Basketball Hall of Famer Sam Jones.
Photography Prize
Richard Higgins
Short Biography and Statement
Richard Higgins resides in northwest Florida and is a nationally and internationally known as a passionate nature and wildlife photographer. He holds a B.Sc. And M.Sc. In Wildlife Biology from Colorado State University. His work has been exhibited and published in various venues, including books, magazines, and his work has been shown in numerous fine art galleries throughout Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and the Pacific Northwest of the United States. Richard has been an active nature photographer/artist for over 60 years. He taught landscape photo workshops in RMNP (Rocky Mountain National Park, Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone National Park using a Nikon 35mm film SLR cameras while attending college. He still teaches nature photography to anyone interested in capturing that “one moment in time of Mother Nature’s Splinted Beauty”. Richard has won numerous national and international photography competitions and awards with his fine art photographic work. In 2016, he was awarded Wildlife Photographer of The Year by SINWP for his photograph of a Black Skimmer showing specific behavior of this species. He is an active member of SINWP (Society of International Nature & Wildlife Photographers) located in England. He has also started his own photography club called “Northwest Florida Nature Photography Group” which has over 360 members. The members are active in landscape, wildlife and macro photography taught by Richard and several of his advanced amateur photographers. Although he has studied and taught many areas of photography over the years, he has always held close to his heart wildlife and landscape photography, this has always driven his passion from the beginning and kept me looking forward to his next adventure in the near future.
Winners