Alchemy of Art

Nature inspires me, from walking in the Italian forests surrounding Florence, to primordial volcanic landscapes in Japan to hikes in the hills of the Santa Monica mountain range. I’m interested in the natural world that we view and the relationship to the metaphysical space of the inner world.

In my art the idea of journey and process merge – daily drawings that map a mindscape and idea process in automatic drawing that reflects walks in nature and things seen visually in the inner and outer world combining.

My art also encompasses ideas about structure(s), habitat and space shaped harmoniously in a continuous process inspired by musical composition.

Painting is the laboratory where I explore ideas in a formal structure that holds play and whimsy. I’m exploring biomorphic shapes and word compositions which reflect an environment I live in presently that reminds me of my childhood.

Lisa Bahouth studied art at Rhode Island School of Design and received her BFA from the Cooper Union School of Art and Architecture. The award-winning artist and concert pianist exhibited her work in New York City before moving to Los Angeles.

Her art encompasses ideas about architecture, structure(s), habitat and space shaped harmoniously in a continuous process inspired by musical composition.

As she puts it in her own words: "Painting is my primary laboratory where I explore concrete and vague ideas simultaneously, in a formal structure that hopefully holds some play and whimsy. Although my work has the appearance of abstraction, it is not non-objective; conveying references to rooms, interiors and conceptual spaces. Paintings, drawings and installations often refer to each other as I build upon groups of work. "

In her more recent works, she has been exploring the creation of biomorphic shapes and word compositions merging into an all-encompassing metaphysical style.

Bahouth’s work is currently on exhibit internationally in Japan, Russia, Armenia, and the US.

In 2004, I was finally able to realize my goal of creating a Composite Art. Due to advances in computer technology, I could create composite images from my mind’s eye by altering pictures found on the Internet, on TV, and in movies. My most recent series of work is based on my interpretation of "Structuralism." I am interested in exploring the underpinnings of reality. World views are based on Linguistic Structuralism. Architecture is also a "structure" that influences culture and society. In my new work I deconstruct architectural forms and reassemble the basic elements into structures. I'm creating imaginary cities using digital imagery and creating wall reliefs.

Born: Detroit, MI

Schools: Wayne State University; University of California

at Long Beach; Arizona State University.

B.A. in Art and Sociology.

Graduate Certificate in Counseling.

I have been working and exhibiting as a fine artist for twenty years. I am also a poet and performance artist.

For fifteen years, I worked as the Director for a mental health program. I emphasized the benefits of art and writing to help clients control symptoms. I developed and facilitated several art and writing workshops for mental health consumers.

Since 2003, I have devoted my full attention to art. I work in collage, assemblage, painting and digital imagery. My work has been featured in several Palm Springs galleries including Evocative Arts, M-Modern, The Vault, and Gallery Mystere. I was represented by the Karen Long Gallery in Long Beach, CA. My newest art combines both assemblage and digital prints. Recently I've also experimented with more traditional abstract painting.

My new series is much evolved from my previous works. In the past, although I had a feeling of the intangible and of freedom when I worked, my quest was to cull the vivid chaos of color and forms by repeatedly sanding and repainting many layers of paper and paint into a more peaceful, organized surface. It was an expression of the infinite complexities that I found surrounding me, and my desire to tame them.

Rather than being spurred (on) by a categorical statement, I was following an unformed artistic thought through to the end, feeling freedom and energy from spontaneity, the love of form, composition and color and the nostalgia that these energies stimulated. Color, form and composition, and the harmony their combination can elicit, vibrate as a grouping of musical notes might do and touch the nostalgic thinking that first brought such experience into my sights – my musical and artistic family. They were the major creative influence in my life and provided the personal trials of the complex and puzzling world I grew up in.

In my latest series I have taken this need to embrace and contain my memories

a step further. I have develop/nurtured/ my reactions to color and form to

another level. I try to capture what I feel is the essence of my creative experience.

I render my love of form, color and composition down to it’s minimum and

present them in a purer, simpler context – the grid. No less emotionally complex

but perhaps calmer, subtler if a little more intricate and peppered with

a touch of subterfuge…

Helen Berger was born in London, England to Russian émigré parents. It was a family of musicians/painters/singers and she grew up surrounded by these artists, making her sensibilities pretty much pre determined. She has been an artist all her life. After years of family influence and guidance, independent study in Paris, London and Los Angeles, assisting established artists and attending numerous workshops, she considers herself self-taught.

After using many different mediums over the years - wood, paper, clay, found objects, fabric and the camera. – Helen then settled into working with wood, paper and acrylic.

Her previous process was to layer paint, painted and cut paper onto a wood panel, continuing in multiple sanded layers and finishing with a distinct application of paint to emphasize the negative spaces. This work started out as a chaos of color, she challenged herself to recreate a mood of coherence, clarity and harmony on the panel.

Her latest series, although still on wood panel and using vellum, gesso and acrylic, blends the simplicity of repetitive shape with simple color and textural contrasts to create a play between tension and harmony.

I spent over three decades drawing and painting people in places of communal exchange. My works brought opportunities to exhibit locally nationally and even internationally. Like Alice Neal I looked for the soul of each person.

In 2020 the pandemic brought change from the beauty and pain of each person to the serenity and spirituality inherent in nature. The world had become too overwhelming.

I had always added animals and birds and creatures into my works of people. Now birds in nature are the focus. I am blessed to have friends and others who offer their photography of bird moments from birding, hikes and moments catching a shot of a feathered friend. I am blessed with references that offer me inspiration. I embellish the backgrounds, interpreting foliage, trees, and skies with the patterns and forms from nature and my imagination. Insects both flying and otherwise are present or hidden.

Process is a huge part of my practice. I love mixing colors and relate to the colorist Pierre Bonnard. I never worry about the result, as this is a projection of a future, which none of us knows. I do the work and the shows follow.

My biggest joy and inspiration for all my artwork has and will always be my son. Being a mother forever teaches us the preciousness of all life.

Jodi Bonassi is from Los Angeles. Her narrative paintings and drawings explore diversity, and the human condition.

Exhibiting since 1991, her works have garnered reviews, awards and articles, locally and nationally. On “Chungking Alley” Mat Gleason quotes: “My impressions of the piece are that it asserts its own art historical narrative instead of submitting to academic structures and choices. An amazing dreamscape narrative with painterly precision”. (2015, Genie Davis, “LA Art Scene Mural-On Canvas”)

Bonassi’s work has been reviewed/published in the Boston Globe, LA Times, Flavorpill, Hair's How Magazine (Russia),The Chronicle Review, Art and Living, Harpers Magazine, Studio Visit Magazine (2012, 2008, Ocean Press) and Los Angeles Art Association Volume 1 Catalogue (2009, Samuel Hoi, President of Otis College of Art and Design). She has exhibited locally and nationally and has been published internationally. She is the recipient of the Hans Burkhardt Memorial Scholarship and other awards of merit. Curators who have chosen her works for exhibition include Franklin Sirmans, Head Curator at LACMA, Ali Subotnik, Curator for the Hammer Museum and others. She also was selected to paint on a 9 foot fiber glass guitar to honor Lou Adler and the other founders of the Sunset Strip. The guitar sold in the top ten at Julien's Auction House. This was part of a re-vitalization program. Her work has been recognized by esteemed Los Angeles art critic, Peter Frank, Mat Gleason (renown art critic and gallery owner), Betty Brown, Highly respected Art Historian, Art Writer and Curator and others. Other noted curators are Jonathan Greene, Director of exhibitions for the Hunterdon Art Museum (2012), Ann Philbin from the Hammer Museum (2006), Cliff Benjamin from Western Projects (2008), Marc Pachter from the Smithsonian Institute, and other noteworthy curators. Jodi Bonassi’s work has been selected for her unique take on the public narrative and how community links people in interesting ways. Her depictions of the world are slightly skewed based on her own vision. Jodi Bonassi has an extensive exhibition record in regional institutions and galleries and is fiercely committed to her painting career. Affiliated galleries: The Loft At Liz's, Coagula Curatorial and other LA galleries. jbonassi@aol.com. 818 274-7393

www.jodibonassiart.com, resume is available upon request

Visual artist and poet Ruth Dutoit was born in 1925, the eighth of ten children in the coal mining region of southwestern Virginia. She received her B.A. at the University of Miami, Florida (1948) and her Master of Arts Degree from New York University’s School of Education (1955). While pursing her passion for academics, she also took a profound interest in the diversity of people and love of the earth, leading her to worldwide travels and studies. She completed her arts education by attending master classes at the Art Students League of New York City. From 1955 to 1956 she studied privately with Amedée Ozenfant in Cannes, and attended classes at the École des Beaux Arts of Aix-en-Provence, France.

Ruth then spent several decades in Switzerland, after getting married there 1959. Ruth exhibited in numerous European countries and developed a long standing relationship with the prestigious Jeanne Wiebenga Gallery near Lausanne, Switzerland. She also wrote and published poetry in English and French, illustrated with her ink portraits in black and white. In the early 1990s, Ruth moved back to the United States where she continued to experiment with various art forms in Washington DC. She continued to travel internationally, tapping into various cultures that influenced her vision and paintings. Ruth lived in Round Hill, Virginia in early 2000, where she pushed the envelope of her creations, before moving to Southern California in 2005 where she currently resides and works.

Now 84, Ruth continues to bring her vision to the forefront of the art world, bridging the gap between traditional art and multimedia. From the beginning, Ruth’s interest have had one underlying theme: Changing Perceptions for Changing Times. Ruth says “the more you learn, the more you keep your mind and spirit open, the more your life will be free flowing and in sync. Each moment is just another milestone in the unfolding of one‘s destiny. Perception, whether it be visual or otherwise, can only take place when there is no division between the observer and the observed. In retrospect -- everyday, every moment is a new beginning. Just my cup of tea!\"

I am a primarily a sculptor working in varied media. A painter, a curator, an educator, and builder of large architectural/environmental landscape works formed out of rock, metal, often megalithic in size. My work continues to evolve through the exploration of new media. The use of clay to captivate me, serving as an extension of my imago mundi.

2019 “All U Can Eat”, Bunny Gunner Gallery, Claremont, CA

2019 Vertical Wine Bistro, Pasadena, CA

2019 “Evolve Women Wisdom”, LarkGalleryOnline, Long and Great Hall, West Hollywood, C

2018 Bunker Open Doors" LarkGalleryOnLine,West Hollywwod,CA

2018 “Fahrenheit 2018 Biennial” AMOCA, Pomona, CA

2017 “Forces of Nature II”, LA County Arboretum & Botanic Garden, Arcadia, CA

2017 “:Hollyweird Tube Formed in Fire”, Ventura College, Ventura, CA

2017 “Evolving”, Bunny Gunner Gallery, Claremont, CA

2017 “All U Can Eat”, Bunny Gunner Gallery, Claremont, CA

2015 “The Nature of Sculpture” LA Arboretum, Arcadia, CA

2015 “Off the Wall”, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA

2014 “Sculpture in the Garden”, Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts, Alta Loma, CA

2013 “2013 Ceramic Biennial”,AMOCA, Pomona, CA.

2013 “International Womens Day”, LarkGalleryOnline, West Hollywood City Building, W. Hollywood,CA

2013 “Abstract Contemplations”, LarkGalleryOnline, Sulkin/Secant Gallery, Santa Monica, CA

2012 “Forces of Nature”, The Los Angeles County Arboretum, Arcadia, CA

2012 “Sculpture in the Garden”, Sam and Alffreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts, Alta Loma, CA

2012 “New Beginings” , The Loft Galleries and Studios, LarkGalleryOnLine, San Pedro, CA

2011 “Exposed”, AMOCA Permanent Collection, Pomona, CA

2011 “The Art of Clay”, AMOCA, Pomona, CA

2011 “Rossinian Night”, House of Balsamic, Irvine, CA

2011 “Off the Wall”, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA 0

2010 “The Gallery Repertoire”, Gallery Armstrong’s Pomona, CA

2010 ”Moon Light Discovery”, Long Beach Art Walk, LarkGalleryOnLine, Long Beach CA

2010 “Phantom Galleries, Long Beach, CA

2010 FreshArt”, Arena Gallery Santa Monica Studios, Santa Monica, CA

2010 “Reaching Within”, LarkGallery OnLine, Los Angeles, CA

2010 “Los Angeles Art Show”, Armory Center for the Arts, Los Angeles, CA

2009 “Muddy’s Wood Fire Special”, The Myers Gallery-Muddy’s Studio, Santa Ana, CA

2009 “Hidden Treasures”, LarkGalleryOnLine, Los Angeles, CA

2009 “Rhythms- Small Pleasures and Vessel Forms”, Bunny Gunner Gallery, Pomona CA

2009 “Clay and Ink” California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, CA

2009 “Off the Wall”, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA

2009 Phantom Galleries, Pasadena, CA

2008 “Art Without Boarders”, LarkGalleryOnLine, Los Angeles, CA

2008 “Diversity In Clay”, 2008 AMOCA/ACS-DC Show. Pomona, CA

2008 Presidents Show”, 2008 American Ceramics Society, Burbank, CA

2008 “Bunny Gunner’s 1st

2008 “Fred’s Friends”, Armstrong Gallery, Pomona, CA

2008 “Alchemy of Art”, LarkgalleryOnLine, Los Angeles, CA. (Honorable Mention)

2007 Los Angeles County Fair, Pomona, CA

2007 “Open Call LA 2007”, Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

2007 “Small Treasures”, Palos Verdes Art Center, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA

2007 “Extreme Clay”, American Museum of Ceramic Art, Pomona, CA

2007 Pyoung Taek International Art Festival, Korea

2007 “Off the Wall”, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA

2007 “L.A. International Art Festival 2007, ASTO Museum of Art, Long Beach, CA

2006-Present Armstrong’s Ceramic Art Gallery, Pomona, CA

2005 “Recording Memories of Three Generations Through the Arts”, Armory Center for the Arts,

2004 Dynamics of Scale”, Xiems Ceramics Center, Pasadena, CA

2003-2004 California Fine Art Market, Pasadena, CA

2003 “2003° Fahrenheit”, Glendale City College, Glendale, CA

2003 The DA Center for the Arts, Pomona CA

2002 Armory Center for the Arts, Faculty Exhibition, Pasadena, CA

Birthday”, Bunny Gunner Gallery, Pomona, CA

Pasadena, CA

2002 Bedlam Gallery, Los Feliz, CA

2000 Prufrock Gallery, Pasadena, CA

1999 “Patricia Ferber Recent Works”, Prufrock Gallery, Pasadena, CA

1997 L.A. River Festival, Los Angeles, CA

1997 “Patricia Ferber Recent Works”, The Art Bank, Los Angeles, CA

1996-1997 Art You Can Live With, L.A. Artcore, Los Angeles, CA

1996 “Vessels”, The Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA

1996 Bella Lewitzky Dance Foundation Silent Auction, Sotheby’s, Beverly Hills, CA

1995 Exploring A Movement: Feminist Visions in Clay”, Wingnall Museum/Gallery, Chaffey College,

1995 “One Vision”, Space Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1995 Silent Auction, Space Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1994 “DADA Downtown Lives”, Los Angeles, CA

1994 “Cups”, Space Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1994 “The World of Cups”, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA

1994 “Grants for the Arts, 1993-1994 “Fellowship Recipients, Pasadena, CA

1993 “Clay Currents”, Southwestern College, Chula Vista, CA

1992 The Cultural Factory, Pasadena, CA

1992 Space Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1992 “Transformed From Clay 14 Southern California Artists”, The Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA

1992 “An Odyssey In Clay and Drawing”, 801 N. Brand, Glendale, CA

1992 “Clay Works”, Space Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1991 Nemiroff-Deutsch Fine Arts, Santa Monica, CA

1991 Space Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

1991 “Scripps 47th

1990 Downey Museum of Art, “Metals Now”, Downey, CA

1989 Downey Museum of Art, “Ceramics Now”, Downey, CA

1989 Vorpal Gallery, San Francisco, CA

1986-1988 FISID, Design Center of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA

Rancho Cucamonga, CA

Ceramic Annual”, Scripps College, Claremont, CA

I love to do watercolor, oil and ceramics. I paint from my head, and mostly everything that is good comes out by accident. I enjoy the color's more than the drawing.

Ariyana is an interdisciplinary visionary artist who paints, writes, and creates sculptures & assemblages. During the late 1980’s and early 1990’s Ariyana was an artist in residence in San Diego City Schools for seven years. She pioneered what she calls Eco-Peace Walls. Painting murals for about five years, these art and word murals had images and messages about global harmony, ecological sustainability, and universal friendship. This art series and her work with students was very well received and written about in the LA Times, San Diego Union, Whole Life Times, KPBS On Air Magazine, Better World Magazine and other publications. Her art has also been featured on the front cover of three publications. One of her murals in Santa Monica was commissioned by the California trendsetter Fred Segal. Nissan Motors commissioned a series of 12 drawings for a 1995 calendar which was distributed to Nissan customers in Asia. She has also worked with the United Nations Environmental Art Program (UNEP).

In October 1994, 20 years of art was lost in a fire that burned her home and studio to the ground. After this tragedy she became an artist in recluse. She returned to painting, writing, designing, yoga, and meditation. These activities helped heal the trauma of tragic impermanence and broken dreams.

Her current art work is a series of acrylic and mixed media paintings, stone sculptures, and mixed media assemblages. Mystical landscapes and Stone Spirits are the themes that she creates through a unique combination of paint, crystals, feathers, black coral, and other found objects gathered over a period of many years. Ariyana is also working on a series of mixed media works where the components came from her own fire side debris and from the Station Fire.

Ariyana sees beauty in everything. This ability fuels her love for mixed media, the art form that she has focused on. She has worked directly on the Earth creating Earth Art, and now she works on a variety of different textures, painted styrofoam, canvas, wood, and handmade papers.

For her, mixed media is like gathering the beauty and wisdom from different cultures, nations and traditions, bringing them together in one place where they meet and intersect in a harmonious way, creating something new, like the fusion of East and West or the combination of the ancient with the modern.

I have always enjoyed the creative process. In addition to being a means of expression and a source of great enjoyment, art is a means of healing ourselves and facilitating the healing in others. I have worked in a variety of media, including printmaking, pen and ink, colored pencils and markers, watercolors, acrylics and oils. My favorite themes include Judaica, landscapes, leaves and doves. I also enjoy exploring the abstract.

Debora Gillman has studied art at UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, Otis and Los Angeles City College.

Exhibits include a group show in the Adult Education Division of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; individual and group shows at Park La Brea, including their annual “Art in the Park” events,where she has contributed a variety of award winning banner art and Tower Art designs. Other venues include The American Museum of Science & Energy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee; the Don O'Melveny Gallery, Los Angeles and The JAN Gallery, Los Angeles. Her work is also part of the permanent collection at Cedars Sinai, Los Angeles.

Debora has taught workshops for children and adults at Park La Brea and the Craft and Folk Art Museum. She has also coordinated and help put on numerous local community events. “Debi Doodles” is her popular coloring book creation for kids for the holidays as well as other themes. Debora has written and illustrated three books for young readers: THE PAINTER'S DREAM; DRAWING FROM THE MASTERS; and AN UN-BEAR-ABE SITUATION: BEARS AND THE ENVIRONMENT. She co-wrote and co-illustrated the third book with her mother, Miriam Gillman, who is also an artist/writer. Debora thanks her mother for "sharing her creative gene with her." All books can be seen at www.Xlibris.com and at www.barnesandnoble.com. More information is available on her website at www.DebiDoodlesART.com.

"My art allows me to see the beauty – the color and design – in ordinary everyday objects, in buildings, in clothing, in nature.

We are all surrounded by beauty. All we need to do is stop, look and take it all in."

Georganne Aldrich Heller, daughter of the famous fashion designer and art collector Larry Aldrich and a successful designer is an artist in her own right. She makes collages building on the vision that drove her long career as a theatrical producer in New York. Each collage and boxed construction represents a setting of evolving mysteries, opening the way to surreal dramas inviting viewers to enter the world of her dreams, yet unruled by any sort of literary content. Instead, Heller favors a lucid, iconic approach where the “thingness” of shapes and substances is allowed its own expression, her visual reasoning riding on the dynamic that powered western art through a half century of experiment, from cubism to De Stijl.

The Inspiration -

In 1998, while pursuing a doctorate in (which I received in 1999), I created a completely original CD-ROM entitled From Stoneage to Rock. It became my all-consuming passion for the summer. After a performing and recording career as a classical concert pianist for twenty-five years, I was excited to discover I could express complicated and interdisciplinary ideas on a multitude of levels simultaneously. The computer became my keyboard, camera, and paintbrush. Most significantly, I experienced a profound joy in creating “something from nothing” while combining my instincts as a musical and visual artist with the sophistication of “cutting edge” technology.

Since then I have become intensely interested in discovering the point at which an idea becomes an inspiration, an “entity unto itself.”

As a pianist, I worked with someone else’s creation. I viewed the printed page as the composer’s shorthand to his or her thoughts and feelings, comparable to a “figured bass” in Baroque music, which provides numerals below a bass line to indicate the harmonies and melodic movement above. The composer’s intentions (and feelings) can never completely be notated musically. There does not exist a symbology comprehensive enough to do so, nor a page large enough (without being impractical or absurd) to accommodate all the additional markings required to express every nuance of his or her concept and emotion. As a visual artist, I therefore look upon my work as a “re-composition” or a sophisticated and complex improvisation of the nature’s “figured bass.”

One of my favorite composers is Johann Sebastian Bach. He worked with traditional Baroque forms such as the fugue and variation, synthesizing these compositional styles already in use, rather than developing new ones. His genius not only perfected these forms but also transcended them, making each work an innovation of both form and style. The key to his creations was in the simultaneous overlapping of musical ideas, often disparate in rhythm and melody, creating exciting cohesive and beautiful musical gems.

Three modern-ear artists have influenced me and demonstrate an artist expression similar to Bach’s. Each of the artists, Escher, Durer and Van Gogh, worked within the conventions of art – respectively using pen and ink, watercolors and oils – yet each transcend the implied boundaries of their media by creating innovative forms and styles. Escher used perspective to explore and “prove” how two-dimensional relationships can appear as three. Durer, the Renaissance painter and engraver, also had the ability to draw the viewer into the picture and believe in its reality, sensitively using the techniques of perspective, detail, color, and texture to create an overall sense of photographic realism. Van Gogh used color and gesture to enunciate his experiments with spatial relationships and rendered them on a two-dimensional plane.

BM - University of Cincinnati;

MM - Yale University;

DMA - University of Southern CA

My art is imagination of created things which do not exist in everyday life. The purpose of my life - is creation of the fantasies. I was always attracted to science fiction books and movies. I put my images of my fantasy’s creatures in paintings and sculptures.

Faina Kumpan was moved from Odessa, Ukraine as a political refugee. She graduated from the Theatrical Art College in Odessa. In her not very exciting childhood, she was dreaming of other worlds. She was obsessed with science fiction.

Her emigration to New York opens the new opportunities. She worked as a designer and changed a lot of different professions. After moving to LA she returned to her love for art and Science Fiction. She attended numerous classes at UCLA Extension and many private workshops. She exhibited in many important galleries in LA and NY. She creates a fantasy world that is a once surreal and abstract, whimsical and vibrant. Whether creating painting or sculptures, her subjects are mystical creatures from another world, like fantastic figures stepping out of the pages of the futuristic fairy tale. She was participating in many group exhibitions.

She was awarded as a creative artist by City of LA for working together to celebrate Los Angeles as Creative Capital of the world. Her works are in many private collections.

My eyes see the world formed by shape, color, line and contrasts. The details of reality are nearly beside the point, only that they contribute to the entire. I see forms dominating my environment as one might experience the blur from unfocused eyes. An anecdote may explain it best. Recently, I was driving along a very curvy road beside a hill, and came upon a design in the road: tire tracks going off at a diagonal, toward the hillside. It wasn’t until several minutes later when, still driving along, I felt my brain catch up with my eyes and was shocked to realize the implications of the dark parallel lines angled against the center line. Reality had escaped me.

Still, my unmanipulated digital photographs capture the real. Suggesting mystery within the reality is what inspires me. Representing facts on one hand, and enigmas on the other, the forms take me where they will.

Catherine Roberts Leach was born in New York City and currently lives in California. She is a self-taught, fine art photographer focusing on above and below, mood and mystery. Her images have been exhibited at the Los Angeles International Airport, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s Art Rental and Sales Gallery, the Los Angeles Art Association/Gallery825, and through juried exhibitions online, and at galleries in New York, California, Texas, Oregon, Washington DC, Georgia, Connecticut, Virginia, and Missouri.

Although primarily an abstract artist, her war protest photograph, “Imagine,” appeared on the front page of ImaginePeace.com, a website of Yoko Ono’s, at Ms. Ono’s invitation in 2008. Catherine’s images have won numerous international art awards, and have been published in the juried 2009 Artist Catalog, Los Angeles Art Association, The World’s Best Black & White Photography, 2008 (Black & White Spider Awards), and Best of Photography Annual 2004, Photographer’s Forum Magazine.

Among the jurors and curators selecting her work for exhibition include artist Chris Burden, gallerist Craig Krull, and curators Scott Canty and Mark Steven Greenfield of the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, Sarah Bancroft of the Orange County Museum of Art, and Samuel Hoi, President of the Otis College of Art and Design.

Texture is reality's lens. I like to make the invisible visible because life -such as what is taken for granted, what surrounds us and creates the fabric of our existence- can feel very, very small. Life is an eternal combat between light and darkness. A corridor of peace and violence, movement and stillness , a quiet desperation that reaches into one's soul and grabs hold of our heart in one swift swoop. Look deep into the core of these images and find yourself in it. Find your own road and go beyond its frontiers...

Dr. Caroline Mercier has taught, designed and exhibited her work for more than 15 years. She spent 5 years in the British Isles, studying and creating new work. Her PhD Fine Arts, specialized in Creative Design is the first one of its kind in the Western World. She now divides her time between teaching full time, designing professionally as well as creating and exhibiting her fine art work.

As an educator, she was granted early tenure at CSU Stanislaus for her high commitment to students and the community. She is presently the Vice-Chair of Design and Technology for the KC ACTF, an organization sponsored by the Kennedy Center, and has been asked to sit on judging panels in Art institutions such as Delta College and Cal Arts. She has been invited as a guest artist in residence in Art Centers in England, Ireland, France and Thailand where she had a silk and painting exhibit in Bangkok. Last year, she was asked to publish work on her last solo textile exhibit in Paris at the Talmart Gallery. This year she studied masks, puppets and weaving in Bali with Alit Bagus, and she’s just back from a master class in Florence Italy, sketching and painting the Renaissance.

I have been painting now for 8 years after retirement from research and teaching in the fields of Structural Optimization and Design Theory at California State University, Northridge. All the while enjoying abstract art as one of the purest forms of creativity.

My approach to painting is just to follow an inner spark which moves me forward - a joyous and satisfying experience, difficult to put into words.

I really enjoy experimenting with the blending of multimedia on canvas to create novel and thought provoking effects. Visual impact is what I strive to achieve.

I have also experimented with the computer manipulation of my painting images.

All my work can be seen at www.spuntart.com

MSME USC 1966; Professor CSUN 1965 - 2007