The Artist Space Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of the first Nature Art Exhibition. Along with the selected artists, the jury selected award winners in the following art categories: painting, photography, and drawing. The show displayed a variety of artistic styles and mediums: oil on canvas, acrylic, watercolor, pastel, graphite, scratchboard, colored pencil, photography, digital. Out of all submissions received 93 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.F.A. and an M.F.A. in Painting and B.S in Business, from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. 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. Her current paintings focus on a moment in time, in nature, when plants are at the peak of their reproductive cycle. They are fully asserting their seductive beauty/perfection/ splendor/ripeness. We observe blooming fields in their entirety. These paintings are the opposite of that configuration. Just as all matter is made up of atoms which contain electronically moving parts, the focus is on select blooms, unusual perspectives, and often shows the importance of their smallest components.
Painting Prize
Renee DiNapoli
Short Biography and Statement
Renee C. DiNapoli, award-winning, professional artist/instructor and former faculty member of Ringling School of Art & Design is noted for her contemporary florals and interior beachfront realism. Renee’s striking oil paintings have received critical acclaim for their high contrast, unusually intense use of color and exquisite detail. Her ability to achieve both impact and delicacy in her paintings attests to her 36 years of training with Italian master and studying at The Louvre in Paris for many years. She has taught at the Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, FL as well as Tulane and Loyola Universities in New Orleans, LA. Her graduate study was conducted at The Red Mountain Institute of Art. Three of her paintings were purchased by the State of Florida and placed in their permanent collection. Renee just completed an oil painting commission for Stallion Boot Company, El Paso, TX. One of her paintings was accepted into the permanent collection Vieques Museum of Fine Art in Puerto Rico. Several of her paintings were juried in international exhibitions at The Brownsville Museum of Fine Art in Texas, a national exhibition at the Ellington-White Contemporary Gallery, the Amalie Arena in Tampa, Raymond James Financial Center, among many others.
Drawing Prize
Patsy Lindamood
Short Biography and Statement
Cattle fields north of Rockport and Aransas, TX, are often populated with hundreds of shore birds, especially after a rain when water has puddled to form shallow pools. But, when a heavy truck comes speeding down those country roads, diesel engine noisily rumbling, all those birds suddenly take flight. It is a sight to behold! Absent the romance of color, working in shades of grey is like telling a short story rather than writing a novel. The choice to execute Take Flight II in graphite was simple: stripping the composition down to shapes, lines, and values would intensify the sense of movement, drama, and the cacophony of the moment. The starkness of the graphite augments the motion and enhances the spectacle of that scene when a crowded field of birds suddenly take flight – all at once – all in approximate unison.
Photography Prize
john Diephouse
Short Biography and Statement
I am a primarily self-taught photographer who migrated from film to digital photography about fifteen years ago. After retiring from a professional management career, I have more actively explored the technical and creative sides of this media. I am attracted to a wide variety of subjects ranging from natural landscapes, botanicals and wildlife to images that provide either abstract expression or social commentary. I am interested in sharing images that evoke a story of some kind. Images may be simply documentary, reflect a sense of time and place, or resonate on a more abstract level of color, shape or form. Others provoke an indefinable question that does not readily yield answers without further study and reflection. Most often I am drawn back to images created while wandering through the back roads and small towns of the upper Midwest. These images of architecture, commerce and social life often reflect a mixture of nostalgia and a changing set of forces that shape life in the heartlands. I have exhibited widely and have earned recognition in local, regional, and national exhibitions. My photographs are also included in several corporate and private collections.
Winners