The Artist Space Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the first Botanicals 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, photography, digital, colored pencil, ceramics, terracota, ink, fiber art. Out of all submissions received 114 artworks were selected to be included in the exhibition.
Best of Show
Marjorie Moskowitz
Short Biography and Statement
Marjorie Moskowitz, a native of St. Louis, Missouri, holds a B.S in Business, a B.F.A. and an M.F.A. in Painting from Washington University in St. Louis. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She has been represented by galleries, in the Midwest, the East and West Coasts. Her work has been widely collected and is part of many private and public collections. She currently lives in and maintains her studio in Southern California. My paintings examinine mark making, the nuances of color and light in nature, involving the close observation of aspects of landscape and the amplification of these images. They magnify a moment in time, and in nature, when plants are at the peak of their reproductive cycle and are fully asserting their seductive beauty/perfection/ splendor/ripeness. The focus has been on select blooms to show the importance of their smallest components. New work will explore their place in a larger landscape.
Painting Prize
Kwok Wai Chau
Short Biography and Statement
Kwok was born in Hong Kong in 1954 and is an art lover. He has always enjoyed drawing and painting. During his working life, his busy schedule and frequent travel abroad put a stop to his painting for many years. He didn't pick up the paintbrush again until he retired. He finds watercolor's unpredictable nature to be very fascinating. Water can occasionally flow in an erratic manner, and too much water can produce unwanted cauliflower patterns. Watercolor is quite challenging to handle since it dries much lighter and the colors are mostly transparent. Despite the challenges of working with watercolor, he enjoys manipulating the water, colors, and drying time to capture the atmosphere, demeanor, and emotion of the motif he has chosen. He has also learned to appreciate happy accidents. Though watercolor presents a vast range of possibilities, there is very little space for error. A completed painting, however, gives his soul a tremendous amount of satisfaction. His artworks emphasize the harmony and balance of warm and cool colors, hard and soft edges, strict and loose brush strokes, and light and dark contrasts. Through his approach, he attempts to establish unity, wholeness, and harmonious balance while also creating essential tension to captivate his viewers. Whenever he paint, Kwok feels relaxed and calm, and enters a meditative state, He forgets the troubles in life and completely immerse himself in his own art world. That feeling has been driving him to continue painting. he won many awards and was selected for exhibitions in the UK, USA, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Santiago, Russia and China. This gave him the confidence to continue experimenting with watercolor techniques.
kw@chau.ws
Sculpture Prize
Patrycja Godula
Short Biography and Statement
Patrycja Godula. Born in 1989 in Bielsko-Biała, Poland. She graduated Pedagogical University in Cracov, in 2013, where she recieved master degree in Artistic Education in the Arts. Her graduation work was a cycle of linocuts, made in professor's Jerzy Jędrysiak workshop. She also graduated Academy of Fine Arts in Wrocław, Poland, in 2016, where she received a title of Master of Arts in Glass Design. She creates glass works and linocuts, which may have been seen in many exhibitions in Poland and abroad. In 2015 she was qualified for the Elle-Decoration contest, during Gdynia Design Days. She also participated in International Ceramic Mural: Let's Meet - Wrocław 2016. In 2015 she participated in XI Quadriennial of Polish Woodcut and Linocut in Olsztyn, Poland. Her linocuts are also part of the collection of Historical Museum in Bielsko-Biała, Poland. From 2017 she is a member of Polish Artists Association. She also received the artistic scholarship in her hometown in 2017 and 2022. Full list of exhibitions are on her website www.patrycjagodula.pl . She focuses on details in her works and refines each meticulously. Her works are delicate and full of subtlety. She mostly creates black and white works, but more and more often he experiments with a color accent.
Photography Prize
Ryn Clarke
Short Biography and Statement
Ryn is a visual artist, photographer and educator from Cleveland, Ohio. She embraces both her iPhone and digital SLR cameras. Ryn experiments with different photographic techniques in her image making, including elaborate nature compositing, photopolymer gravure, encaustic & hand-colored photographic prints and also holds workshops in both beginner and intermediate iPhone workshops around the country. She is on the board of The Artists Archives of the Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio & past president of the Cleveland Museum of Arts’ affiliate group, Friends of Photography. She is past Zone X Photography Representative for The Garden Club of America. She holds a fine art degree from Marymount University. Her artwork has been exhibited nationally & internationally and is held by private, corporate & medical collections throughout the United States. She is represented by The Bonfoey Gallery and Kenneth Paul Lesco in Cleveland, Ohio; ADC Fine Art in Cincinnati, Ohio; and Wilder Nightingale Fine Art in Taos, NM. Ryn Clarke started creating these photographic composites during the long months of the Covid-19 quarantine. Taking to the woods everyday with her dogs, she began shooting images of the beautiful flora and fauna all around her as one season progressed into another, and then another, etc. Soon these elaborate composites began taking shape within her mind and she began translating them onto the computer screen and then into print. Isolation can quickly become dark and depressing, so she uses these images to tell a story, creating make-believe landscapes if you will and exaggerates the truth a bit to take the viewer into the scene to begin to fabricate their own story. If you take the time to observe the nuances, you might be able to discover hidden gems within the composites.
Winners