Art & Beyond

Approaching art history with a flair for abstract expressivity and a designer's confidence in choreographing fundamentals of color and shape, Schwartz wields a palette knife along with brushes to animate prismatic color stories in thickly applied oil paint. Her Crystal Auras series are opalescent mixed media paintings created with countless layers of acrylic saturated with mica, interference pigment, and natural minerals that glisten like geodes, and bounce light across their auric topographies. Her largest project, Ricordi d'Italia, merges her explorations of the mellifluous properties of color, light, and surface with direct inspiration drawn from travels to Italy. While these paintings still possess the ethereal presence of Crystal Auras, they demonstrate a more formally definitive, architectural sensibility, being derived from photographic source sketches highlighting geometric details culled from vistas and ruins. At the same time, operations of memory, deconstruction, and fantasy combine to render them in an abstract language, producing moody palimpsests and evocative scenic impressions. With Burst, Schwartz's newest collection, we see small, intimate sections of works from Ricordi d'Italia enlarged into wholly new paintings -- gestural compositions whose exotic rhythms are deeply influenced by her studies of Asian Sumi-e ink painting, which reveal their inner lives as she teases their essences forward from within their faceted depths.

Anne Brawer Schwartz is a dedicated abstractionist whose painterly imagination remains grounded in the world of places and things. While pursuing a degree in Graphic Design from the University of Oregon and further studies at the Gemological Institute of America, Schwartz always maintained a painting practice, which she kept up during her 25-year career as a renowned couture jewelry designer. The legacy of her expertise as a designer is apparent in her abstract paintings and their considerations of detail, drawing, design principles, color, texture, and refracted light. Having some years ago rededicated herself to her painting studio, today her canvases have been shown in numerous group shows and are represented in collections around the world. She frequently works with art consultants and interior designers, placing her works in businesses, hotels, private homes, and design firms. Being based in LA, her paintings have naturally also been featured in numerous television shows and motion pictures.

Vicki Arthur’s work elicits strong personal emotion through the use of primary colors and abstract movement and planes. These bold colors and patterns touch people deeply by creating a powerful connection to the viewers’ own creative energy.

Vicki Arthur is a native Californian. Her career as an artist began with original designs in precious metals and rare stones. Her hand-wrought, gold and silver jewelry was exhibited throughout California at upscale boutiques in Beverly Hills, Ojai, Los Angeles, Carmel and Santa Barbara.

Vicki then shifted her focus to painting with expressionist watercolors and acrylics. Her series of widely popular sports canvases depicting baseball, football, basketball, cycling, tennis, and soccer are in the private collections of sports greats as Muhammad Ali & Magic Johnson, and celebrities Jerry Seinfeld, Hector Elizondo & Billy Crystal. Additionally, the Deputy Commissioner of Boxing for New York State selected her painting “At the Bell” for the Boxing Commission offices.

She then expanded her vision into the area of sculpture. Her paintings have appeared in the television series, CSI, Station 19, The Mentalist, Six Feet Under, and Sports Night and her sculptures have appeared in films such as Funny People and in numerous commercials.

She has exhibited both paintings and sculpture at the Ojai Community Gallery, the Thousand Oaks Art Gallery, the Rotating Gallery in San Francisco, the Viva Art Gallery, and the Lankershim Art Gallery to name a few. She is currentl a ‘Gallery Artist’ at the Infusion Gallery on Oahu in Hawaii.

My journey as an artist began over 30 years ago painting colorful semi-abstract Southwest landscapes in oils and watercolor.

Captured by collage and mixed media, the direction of my work has changed dramatically over the years. And, although I still paint, my "paint brush" is now often through the lens of a camera or iPhone. My photo collages allow me to meld together captured images of light and shadows, architectural elements and the mood inducing landscapes of L.A. and DTLA. Day or night, freeway blurs, building facades, distorted landscapes, graffiti, billboards, glitches, store windows, reflections are translated into seductive, colorful virtual reality-scapes.

Susanne Belcher, a native Californian, and award winning mixed media semi-abstract artist, began incorporating photography into her paintings and collages several years ago. Her experimentation with transparency film, scanning images, layering, overlaying and collaging these elements into her creations extended her visual language. Her images, always compelling, whether minimal or complex, retain a consistent emotional narrative component that is unique, sophisticated and often surreal and mysterious. Her innate ability to distill images through layers of reduction and compilation in mixed media provided a natural transition to digital photography.

She has exhibited in Germany and galleries throughout So. California in both solo and group exhibitions since 1991. The recipient of numerous awards, her work is held in private and corporate collections in the U.S. and Europe. She was a founding partner and represented artist of the former Abbot Kinney Art Gallery (Venice, CA), is currently represented by Gloria Delson Contemporary Arts Gallery (DTLA). She is an active member of Women Painters West, Thousand Oaks Art Association, California Art League and currently sits on the Board of Collage Artists of America and The Fine Arts Club of Pasadena. She is also co-author of an art/nature essay book “Looking for 527” about the journeys of a Yellowstone Wolf killed in 2009 during the first Montana wolf hunt (available on Amazon.com)

Highly influenced by artists like Hopper, Warhol, Lichtenstein, and Diebenkorn, I paints multicultural urban Los Angeles with all its contradictions and poetry.

I am trying to blend my classical European artistic background with contemporary conceptual approach. In the LA urban environment I am looking for and finding manifestations of eternal human values, such as love, faith, longing, and the strife for a better life. I try to see real people and their life through the facades of the buildings depicted with much love and connection.

Born in Moscow , Russia /f. USSR/

Moscow's Art School at Kropotkin St.

MA graphic design from Stroganovskaya School of Art and Design, Moscow.

Graphic Design Workshop Artist Union USSR

Group Show at Bienalle/ Chekhoslovakia, Praga

1989- Came to USA, Los Angeles

1990-2009 Decorative painted furniture and murals

2008-1st Solo show TALK TO ME LA1 Modern Art Gallery

2010-2nd Solo show TALK TO ME LA 2 at Modern Art gallery

2012 Group show at Santa Monica Art Studios

2013 Group show "Seen and Unseen"Downtown LA

Phantom Gallery

curator and artist

2013 Group show "Oneness"Phantom Gallery

2015 Group show at Civitella d'Agliano

2015 Group show at Nuremberg ,Germany

2016 Solo show at Lark Gallery Hawthorne

and curator for CALIFORNIA show

I am a professional scientist, but my genetic makeup always pushed me to the artistic world. I preferred company of artists to the company of peers, which even manifested in my choice of spouses. So, being immersed in the artistic world all my life, I finally realized I needed to let my personal artistic juices out. And allow visceral part of me to kick in and get out.

As a scientist, I thought it will be a good idea to find a balance between cognitive and visceral sides. Hence, I decided to use opto-electronic approach to create images never existed before. But building blocks for creating these novel images are everyday very familiar objects. The closest definition for the final images will be ‘digital still-video’. The reason for that is that either the object involved in the creation of image is moving, or the imaging device, or both.

When creating an image, I seek, by transformation, to reveal in objects of everyday life what they can be, or manifest, given they are brought in motion, which is not particularly pertinent to their nature. So, it’s the opposite of what I try to do as a scientist, where molecular motion at nanoscopic level is translated into steady-state observations with opto-electronic devices.

I hope the approach to creating my images results in new and unexpected visual creations enriching viewers with new emotions and thoughts.

My life is a cascade of transitions, transformations, and quite unobvious and unpredictable revelations regarding what I was, am, and/or potentially can be. There are several examples of that throughout my lifespan. The pertinent one is that I started my adult life as a Ph.D. in Biophysics and may retire as an ‘artist’. The start happened in Russia, and retirement will, hopefully, happen in the US.

the language of life.

The type of Art that I do is beyond the spoken words.

When it emerges spontaneously because of the process, I accept it with gratitude.

Jenik

No question but the painting of Jenik Cook - and hardly less the work she realizes in other media (most notably ceramics) -is abstract-expressionist. But it is not necessarily Abstract Expressionist. That is, however much it may evince the DNA of mid-century American "action painting," or even European counterparts such as tachism, l'art informel, or CoBrA, Cook's art only incidentally revives the method, much less the look, of these bumptious, scrappy art movements. Rather, to power her vision, she goes back to the roots of gestural modernism, finding dancing line, elastic contour, and fervid color in surrealism, in fauvism, in expressionism itself. The painting of Pollock and Kline, and of Fautrier and Jorn, gives Cook permission to work unfettered like this, and gives us the context to comprehend fully - even to empathize kinesthetically with - what she does. But she is not emulating, much less imitating, Afro or James Brooks in her graceful, muscular paintings on paper or rehashing Sam Francis or André Lanskoy with the rhythmic clots and scatterings of pigment that collect on her canvases (well, on a wide variety of more-or-less canvas-like support material). Look instead to Miro, Masson, Marc, or Münter, Pechstein or Picasso, Marcks or Matisse, for Cook's sources.

Indeed, look into Cook's own cultural heritage. The line that whips and loops throughout Cook's oeuvre, whether hurling forms across canvas expanses or tracing them on the sides of pots, whether describing slashing trails of pure pigment or the sinuous contours of human bodies, is no more a painted line than it is a written one. It is made less with the whole body - although one can sense a change of stance, a hip motion, in so many of these dancing whiplashes - than with the whole arm. These gestures issue from the wrist and the shoulder. They are in fact as much inscribed as painted. Their energy is not just telegraphic; it is calligraphic. If the vivacity of the image bespeaks Cook's Armenian blood, the rhapsodic curvaceousness of her line betrays her Iranian childhood. As comfortable speaking and writing Farsi as she is Armenian, Cook marries her disparate cultural sources -which of course now include the western European and American influences of her adult life - into an aesthetically cohesive mix with a surprisingly broad formal reach.

Perhaps the breadth of that reach, given the variety of sources, isn't actually so surprising. But it is always a bit startling to witness - that is, to be allowed to witness - an artist master such a conceptual and expressive range. Most artists have this range in them, but so many suppress it. For her part, however, Cook refuses to suppress her stylistic multivalency. Not only does she not limit her vision, but she uses that vision very consciously to drive her artmaking in as many ways as it needs to go. She may edit, but she does not self-censure. Her style, ultimately as coherent and personal as a signature, emerges from and among her plethora of approaches, approaches which themselves spring from her persistence, her prolific output, her knowledge of art, and her irrepressible verve. Jenik Cook's art springs forth -in several directions at once.

Peter Frank Los Angeles January 2010

“EliZe” da Jose – Artist Statement

I understand art as a way of emotionally experiencing reality and a universal language of

communication.

Without conscious e?ort and thought, I try to fill my paintings with expressions strong

enough to let the spectator feel the energy put in the depth of the canvas, transforming the

perception of picture into his own art act.

Most recently, I find myself inspired to focus on developing and exploring the connection

between iconography and abstraction in light of Cosmism philosophy. The inspiration of

this uniquely blended style came about as briefly explained in the following.

I believe that abstract painting was and still is an artist’s attempt at capturing and

expressing Plato's world of ideas which is invisible to the earthly eyes. Then, at the

beginning of the 20th century came the avant-gardism of Filonov and Malevich which was a

rebellion against physicality, materialism and petty-bourgeois consumption.

Iconography takes its roots from the symbiosis of antique vivid imagery and spiritual

practices of Ancient Egypt. From ancient times to the present day, man has never stopped

asking himself questions about who he is and what his true role in this world is.

My newfound unique style of blending iconography and abstract painting is somehow an

endeavour to continue humanity’s perennial e?ort and desire to capture and express the

depth of the invisible world via visible materials, to have a glimpse of the heavenly realm via

earthly instruments, akin to Plato and Malevich’s line of thinking.

In my work, I try to find an image of the elusive other shore - where every soul aspires to go -

and trying to find artful means to communicate what is di?icult to express in words.

ELIZAVETA DAJOSE (Artist Name: Elize)

Elize daJose is a professional artist, sculptor, iconographer and illustrator.

Her artworks primarily consist of a unique blend of abstract art and icon painting, experimenting with various materials, although her favorite media remain acrylic painting and ceramics.

Born in Moscow, Russia, her life as an artist started at a very young age. One day on a snowy street in her hometown, she bought Kazimir Malevich’s book from a peddler which turned her consciousness upside down and defined her entire life path.

From 1996 to 2000, she religiously undertook painting, sculpture, and graphics in various workshops of Moscow artists.

Since 2001, she has been working in the creative workshops of the Babushkinsky Sculpture Combine and in 2002, she became a member of the Moscow Union of Artists, sculpture section.

From 2002 to 2010, she actively participated in group exhibitions at the Central House of Artists, Gallery on Kuznetsky Most, Darwin Museum, and Timiryazev Museum.

In 2010, she participated in the Annual Art Juried Competition in Los Angeles, CA, and became a laureate.

In 2011, she took part in the collective exhibition "Woman Day Art Exhibits" at the Pacific Design Center, Los Angeles, CA, and in 2012 she had a solo exhibition "Three Artists" at Liz Loft Gallery, LA, CA.

In 2016, Elize moved to California and actively participated in collective exhibitions, including the "Summer Exhibit" at Bergamot Station Art Center in Santa Monica (2016), "Brain Art Event" at Lark Gallery/The Chiari Project in West Hollywood (2017), and "The Art of Transformation" at Brick & Mortar Loiter Galleries in Long Beach (2023), among many others.

In 2025, Elize was awarded the Silver Medal at the New York International Art Juried Competition, "The Light from the Other Shore."

In 2026, an essay featuring Elize's creativity and spiritual development was published in the book "Revelations of the Artist - Deep Calls to Deep", curated by ArtServe International.

Elize is an active member of the Los Angeles Art Association and Riverside Community Arts Association. She is currently represented by Lark Gallery in West Hollywood and Literary Engineers, LLC in Benicia, CA.

In 1997 I began the body of work called “Visual Coding of the Archetypes on the Basis of the Bible and the Biblical Mythology”.

I use symbolic primitivism to present biblical images in a unique and unprecedented manner, similar to the ancient Chinese tradition of telling stories in the form of pictures rather than words.

My exposure to Carl Jung's theory of archetypes, brought forth a series of drawings that reconsidered the raw imagery of icon painting in the context of unconscious reflexive narrative, the kind Jung proposed, that lies at the very back of our brains and motivates us invisibly. I am drawn to cultural archetypes, symbols and motifs that recur in all forms of mythic and fabulistic discourse and in some way bind all of the arts - literature, theater, fine art, dance and music. I have sought to make overt the presence of these archetypes in my own art, not propagandizing for or illustrating Jung’s theories but simply manifesting them in the process of telling tales and setting scenes.

Eugene Vishnevsky (GenVish) was born in 1960 in the city of Kiev, Ukraine. In 1990 he immigrated to Israel, and then to Canada. Eugene has lived in Los Angeles, California since 1993. According to the artist, his style, black and white symbolic primitivism, appeared in 1985. While growing as an artist, GenVish was greatly impressed and influenced by art of Heieronymous Bosch, Pavel Phylonov, Marc Chagall.

Nature’s infinite pallet of color and diversity awaken our hearts and mind.

*** The Law of the Universe:

No matter how dark the night gets, the sun will rise. It always does.

*** Innocent and beautiful colors of sun are ready to dance with you at winter solstice, awaken your heart and mind.

*** Sun’s rays are inviting you to the new year journey! Be ready to fly!

** Galina Kovshilovsky’s paintings derive from her Russian origins. One feels the breath and wildness of a massive country and yet the simple handy work of it dedicated population. Galina’s paintings capture the sprawling epic about the erosion of tradition with visually striking exploration of color in its infinite variety and vitality. Her painting, be they large or small, capture the imagination with visually stunning Swirls and movement of the eye, emotion and the imagination. We are left breathless with the fascinating lovingly layered colors where the rules of organized thought clash and intersect with rituals and beliefs. We are moved. We are coaxed. We are seeing and drawn into a study of inclusiveness always before us.

Her color is gorgeous and she paints energy.

Dr. Marion Somers.

Barry Gordon's art is characterized by the use of vibrant colors and whimsical forms that grow out of recognizable human, floral or animal shapes. The tone is often humorous and the message frequently one of social satire or political commentary. Speaking of his own work, Gordon says, "I try to achieve a kind of musical counterpoint between color, design, composition, optical abstraction and fantasy." His works contain representations and permutations of musicians and music making; biologic and organic forms; social institutions and social relationships.

His drawings and paintings center around three broad categories: perceptions of self or others; social relations between self and society, between couples and within small groups; epics and concepts. Gordon's imagery provides a broad repertoire for the viewer's mind to draw on from his/her own experiential base to impressionistically develop his/her own conceptual/visceral "holistic perception" of a scene, a feeling an experience. What follows is an instantaneous recognition not necessarily analytically or consciously understood--ending in a reflexive interactive smile derived from the pleasure of the journey.

My first exhibit was at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in an exhibit of children's art (1952). My debut professional exhibit was in 1965 at the Bogner Gallery on Gallery Row (La Cienega Blvd, Beverly Hills) and then various other shows nationally (New York; Washington, DC; Seattle; and throughout California) with a 30-year retrospective of 92 pieces in 2004 in a university gallery. I have had shows internationally, in what was formerly Yugoslavia (Belgrade), Russia (Moscow, and St Petersburg), Brazil (Rio De Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte) and had illustrations published in various newspapers and magazines, including the Washington Post and the New York Times, as well a an album cover for CBS Records and the 1984 Olympics' Georgio Moroder Theme song for Track.

My work is derivative of many influences including Picasso, Miro, Saul Steinberg, Dali, Matta, Tanguey, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Matisse and Klee, among others. If you put these influences in a pot and let them bubble and boil, then throw in California freedom and light and American multiculturalism, that is the direction from which my art is derived.

I have studied with Eula Long (1950 -57), Dorothy Royer, Adelaide Fogg (Los Angeles), David Smith, Tadeusz Lapinsky, Jay Orbeck, Zdzslaw Sikora (Univ of CA & Maryland), Barron Storey, Joe Bowler, Murray Tinkelman and David Passalqua (Syracuse Univ). Of course, I am solely responsible for my own imagery and its uniqueness.

I owned the Gordon Gallery 1985-96.

"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.

My Art is a Concert on canvas where paintings became music, and music became paintings.

Olha Hernandez ia a nationally recognized abstract artist from South Bay know for her Modern Art.

She was born, raised and educated in Ukraine, residing in Los Angeles since 2007.

“I am an artist in my heart with life long interest in Art”.

She has developed her skills through independent study, art courses, and associations with other professional artists.

Her work has been exhibited in local and regional shows where she won various awards.

Her work can be found in public institutions, books, medical offices, and private collections. “Eyes on: Abstract”, “Eyes on: Landscapes “- books are edited by Joe Guimera, Manhattan Beach.

“My goal when creating art, is to do it with my heart and to breathe life into each of my peace of

art.”

Music is my favorite source of inspiration!

I process song as a color, music that translates into brilliantly colorful paintings what is sharing the same story. I am painting what i hear, feel, sense...

My brushes are dancing on the canvas, glass, wood, board, rocks, plates and my paintings became alive with story behind...

I find my inspiration in the world around me and in my loved one. I do not usually follow the same style in all of my artworks and while some of my paintings just depict the beauty of the real world around me, the others are more about telling different imaginary stories and revealing unusual characters and situations. My diptychs and triptychs are more like visual stories where the presentations from different perspectives depict common and not so common situations and circumstances. Such an artistic trick allows me not just to tell a certain story, but it also turns a 2D image into something similar to 3D object thus greatly expanding viewers visual experience and further stimulating their imagination.

Olga was born in the Russian city of Zlatoust to the parents of German descent. She developed a passion for drawing and painting over her early childhood years. In Russia she graduated from the College of Industrial Design where she received her BA degree as a commercial designer . Later, the family moved to Germany where she became an art teacher for the art-therapy program designed for the kids with mental disabilities and other special needs.

Since moving to California in 2011 she began her career as a fine artist working in a variety of different styles and genres and have also participated in a number of local exhibitions. Her artworks have been sold to art collectors in US and around the world.

✨ My Mission ✨

Through my art, I seek to help others experience a spiritual awakening — to rediscover inner harmony, hear the heart at deeper levels, and remember the Song of the Soul. My intention is to assist individuals in reconnecting with the soul of our planet, Gaia, and with the consciousness of plants, animals, and the greater cosmos — the galaxies and stellar systems that mirror the vastness within us.

With my paintings, I strive to create spaces that invite reflection, transformation, and healing. Each artwork becomes an environment for exploring certain states of mind and energy — helping to release negative patterns, restore balance and confidence, and awaken intuition and higher awareness.

My aim is to awaken, inspire, harmonize, and fill hearts with beauty, wonder, and a sense of the sublime.

With my art, I seek to create environments and settings that invite contemplation and transformation. Each painting becomes a space for working with certain states of mind and energy — helping to release negative patterns, restore balance and confidence, and awaken intuition and higher awareness. My aim is to inspire, harmonize, and fill hearts with beauty, wonder, and a sense of the sublime.

Each of my artworks is born with a particular intention, setting, or mood — I embed frequencies of emotion and meaning within the paint itself. Thus, my paintings can serve as portals for meditation, reflection, and inner alignment. Through them, I also express my admiration for the beauty and diversity of life on Earth and the infinite expanse of the Universe — its stars, galaxies, nebulae, constellations, and unseen worlds beyond.

✨ Oil Paintings of Night and Light ✨

Space • Cosmos • Other Dimensions

Angels • Archangels • Ascended Masters

Spirits of Gaia • Animal Totems

Sacred Places of Power on Earth

Paintings for Meditation • Inspiration • Healing • Harmonization

✨ Energy Portraits • Color Therapy ✨

Izabel Raa is an award-winning Russian-born American artist, music composer, and author. Her paintings serve as gateways to meditation — vivid portals into states of balance, serenity, and awakening. Drawing on years of spiritual practice across diverse traditions, Izabel creates works that transport the viewer into a higher emotional and energetic resonance. Her intention is to restore love, wonder, and healing to one’s life through art infused with presence and soul.

A true citizen of the world, Izabel follows the call of movement and inspiration, creating wherever she feels resonance. Her creative path has led her through many Places of Power across the globe — from the Himalayas and Mount Uluru to Mount Fuji, the ancient temples of Nepal, Thailand, and Bali, as well as the mystical landscapes of Sedona, Mount Shasta, Monument Valley, and Hawaii. She has also journeyed to the Amazon jungles of Peru, the Egyptian pyramids, and the sacred dolmens of Russia. Each of these places nourishes her art, infusing it with the spirit of the Earth and the infinite Cosmos.

Her artistic journey began in 2013 in California, where she started painting in oil while simultaneously composing music — crafting electronic, cinematic, and meditative soundscapes that evoke both intimacy and vastness. From ambient and experimental sound worlds to piano and string compositions filled with emotion, Izabel’s music transcends genres, exploring the mysterious bridge between sound and color. Her works can be found on all major platforms, including Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and YouTube.

Izabel’s first exhibition took place in 2017 in Sedona, Arizona — the mystical heart of North America. Since then, her artworks have been exhibited in the United States, Italy, India, and Russia, featured in numerous shows, art events, and spiritual festivals dedicated to mindfulness, Buddhism, yoga, Hinduism, Orthodoxy, and Shamanism. Her paintings now reside in private collections and meditation centers worldwide.

She also creates energy portraits — personalized paintings attuned through meditation to the unique vibration of each individual. Working from a person’s photograph, Izabel channels their energy onto canvas, crafting custom artworks delivered globally.

Exhibitions and Events

2017

• Jerome (Sedona), Arizona, USA - Art Walk Event, Yester Day’s Gallery (Jan 2017).

• Jerome (Sedona), Arizona, USA - “The Love of Art,” Art Walk Event, Yester Day’s Gallery (Feb 2017).

• St. Petersburg, Russia - Participation in Budart Art Retreat for Artists (June 2017).

• San Francisco, California, USA - Solo Exhibition, San Francisco Zen Center (Aug 1 - Sept 9, 2017).

• Los Angeles, California, USA - Meditative Art Exhibition and Performance, Budart Meditative Art Festival (Sept 16 - 21, 2017).

2018

• Los Angeles, California, USA - Yogananda Fest “Change Yourself to Change the World” (Apr 28, 2018).

• Lake Forest, Los Angeles Area, USA - Exhibition-sale, Thanksgiving Event, Gallery “Olympic” (Nov 2018).

2019-2020

• Moscow, Russia - Mini Exhibition, Gallery & Tea Club “Arteafact” (Nov 2019 - Jan 2020).

2020-present

• Divnomorskoye, Gelendzhik, Russia - Permanent exhibition, Private Gallery of Eco-Villa “Sea Chalice” (Oct 2020 - present).

2021

• Los Angeles, California, USA - Lark Gallery Online Group Art Show and 2 Artists Zoom Meetings “SoulRise”; publication in Art & Beyond Magazine (Jan - Apr 2021).

• Moscow, Russia - “FreedOM’art,” Group Art Exhibition of Artists of the Spiritual Art Style (July 4, 2021).

2022

• Gelendzhik, Russia - Solo Exhibition “Soul’s Flights” (Jan 7, 2022).

• Gelendzhik, Russia - “Universe of Soul,” Solo Exhibition with music album presentation and guided meditations, SMART Anti-Gallery (Jan - Feb 2022).

• Los Angeles, California, USA - Lark Gallery Group Art Show “Art Transforming Spaces” (Feb 1 - 15, 2022).

• Florence, Italy - International Prize Leonardo da Vinci - The Universal Artist (Feb 6, 2022).

2023

• West Hollywood, California, USA - Lark Gallery Group Art Show “The Art of Wellness” (Mar 2023).

• Gelendzhik, Russia - Solo Exhibition “A Journey Through Inner Places of Power and Resourceful States of Consciousness” (Aug - Nov 2023).

2023-2024

• Divnomorskoye, Russia - Group Art Exhibition “Lumen” (Nov 2023 - Jan 2024).

• Gelendzhik, Russia - Solo art show during various music and art events (Nov 2023 - Mar 2024).

• Gelendzhik, Russia - Solo Show in Café “Na Chile” (Dec 2023 - Apr 2024).

2024

• Los Angeles, California, USA - Lark Gallery Group Art Show “Harmony Within” (Feb - May 2024).

• Gelendzhik, Russia - Solo Show in “Dom Dushi” (House of Soul) (Apr 2024).

• Divnomorskoye, Russia - Audio and visual art performance in Café “Lumen” (May 2024).

2024-2025

• Los Angeles, California, USA - Lark Gallery Group Art Show “Voices of Resilience” (Nov 2024 - May 2025).

2025

• Goa, India - Solo Exhibition “Whispers of the New Earth,” Saral - Café of New Earth (June 2025).

Publications

2017

• “Cathedral’s Magic” — featured in Jerome First Saturday Art Walk celebrates “The Love of Art”, Verde News / Kudos Magazine (Feb 2017).

• Articles and online features connected with the Jerome exhibitions:

– Jerome First Saturday Art Walk celebrates "The Love of Art"

– Jerome Art Walk, February 4, 2017

– Jerome Art Walk to have Valentine’s Day focus

• San Francisco Zen Center Blog — “August Art Show: Izabel Raa” (July 14, 2017).

• Artists on Art Magazine — “Beholders of the Night: A Summer Solstice Oil Painting” (2017).

2018

• Art & Beyond Magazine, July/August Issue — Feature article with paintings “Infinity” and “The Dance of Love”, presented by LarkGallery.

2021

• Art & Beyond Magazine, Summer SoulRise Special Issue — Feature article with paintings “Violet-Blue Heart of the Universe”, “The Way to the Abode of Masters”, "The Path Through Dimensions" and "Mysterious Night of Azur".

• Interview with Artist: Izabel Raa — LarkGallery blog (2021).

2022

• Art International Contemporary Magazine, Issue #1 (Jan–Feb 2022) — Feature the artwork “The Cat, Stardust and Cosmic Fireplace”, or “Where the Love Is”.

• Leonardo da Vinci – The Universal Artist, Florence, Italy — Award and catalog publication (Feb 2022).

2024

• Art & Beyond Magazine, Spring Issue — Feature article and paintings “Enchanted World” and “Alma de Primavera”.

• "Женщина Мира. Пробуждение истины" ("Woman of the World. Awakening of Truth") (Russia) — Printed almanac publication featuring artworks and an article about the artist (2024).

2025

• Art & Beyond Magazine, Winter 2025 — Feature article and paintings “Road to Monument Valley”.

Awards

• International Prize Leonardo da Vinci – The Universal Artist, Florence, Italy (2022).

Links

https://bio.site/izabelraa

https://izabelraa.com/

https://www.instagram.com/izabelraaart/

https://www.facebook.com/izabelraa/

https://open.spotify.com/artist/15QFm0wjlxvNIAO6UVWCkS

https://music.apple.com/us/artist/izabel-raa/1544850360

https://www.pandora.com/artist/all-albums/izabel-raa/AR5xV5gfJrmgwxX

https://music.amazon.com/artists/B08QMLLQGM/izabel-raa

https://www.youtube.com/@IzabelRaa

Leader of the International Bunker Art group, Kiki is constantly mastering his abstract expressionist techniques.

His art works are on display in the state museums in Germany, Armenia, Estonia, Kazakhstan and constitute an important part of the Nancy and Norton Dodge collection of the Zimmerly Art Museum in New Jersey.

The land has always been a reference and source of inspiration for my art. My first paintings were watercolor landscapes. But wanting to work more conceptually, I began to ask questions regarding issues that combined formalism, globalization and those concerning the environment. These queries led to using both abstraction and representation in an attempt to bring an awareness of the earth’s profound beauty and fragility. However, deciding to do something more proactive about the environment led to a four-year gardening project; one that fed artist/gardeners and built community within a community.

The projects that followed began my investigation of perception using photography, but always viewing it from the eye of a painter. Photographing the garden, I created close up images of the heirloom tomatoes and their insides.

Then began my experimentation with process and perception. The first series realized a life-long dream of combining painting and photography in the same image, using photographs of walls and natural objects from my travels. The second series experimented with emulsion, releasing the translucent image of a photo from its paper background. Current bodies of work use the emulsion technique, in addition to archival pigment prints on Slickrock creating a synthetic three-dimensionality.

Kunik was originally a plein-air watercolorist, but wanting to work more conceptually, she returned to school, earning a BFA from Otis College of Art and Design. Informed by environmental and global issues, Kunik’s abstract paintings began referencing these same issues, prompting a four-year community gardening project, which also explored photography and perception. Thus began her investigation of process: combining photography and painting and a unique emulsion process for photographs.

Kunik has been in more than 100 exhibitions in galleries and museums in California, New York and internationally, including Italy, Germany, Japan, Thailand and Peru. She recently received three Gold Awards and five Awards for Excellence for her work at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum. She has shown at Art Basel, Art Basel Miami, and Photo LA. Kunik was born in Chicago, Illinois, earning a BA degree from the University of Illinois and an MS from DePaul University. She moved to California in 1978, where she currently resides.

My art name is Lark - the bird that lingers between the earth and the sky. We artists do it at the moment of inspiration and meditation. That's how I create my art. I meditate and start with the spontaneous movements of my instruments; usually it is not a brush. A brush makes me think. My instruments are usually just pieces of cardboard. I also paint on any surface – canvas, board, plexiglass, glass, wood, etc – and I love to experiment and see what happens. My best creations take place in a state of no mind.

Although I begin the way abstract expressionists do and use some sumi-e techniques, eventually most of my creation starts shaping as abstract or impressionistic landscapes as ocean, sky, trees, flowers and mountain views start appearing from the formless. Nature is my source of inspiration, but instead of landscape details I channel nature's moods, the feeling of being one with nature, and swimming in its atmospheric light.

Light is what drives me to continue working. My mission is always to bring more light to people around me with my art, poetry and meditations. I know that viewers feel joy, peace and harmony when they look at my work, enter and settle inside it because it heals their emotional wounds and it makes me happy. Being an artist is an opportunity to express the fountain of my creative energy and at the same time serve people's needs in beauty that will heal the world.

When people perceive the light, the high and playful energy that my paintings emanate, they start feeling they are back in the fairy-tale world of their childhood, when their soul was open to transformations and miracles, and they feel like Alice in her enchanting wonderland.

From the beginning of her art career, Lark’s art caught the attention of art lovers and gained recognition from art jurors including LA Weekly critic Peter Frank, Santa Monica Museum Art Director Lisa Melandri and MOCA curator Alma Ruiz.

Fusing classical and contemporary art traditions, Lark's award-winning artworks carry her signature gestural brushstrokes and vibrant color palettes. They have been featured in the many prestigious exhibitions, art catalogs and sold globally in France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Russia, Armenia, Canada, Sweden and many other countries. In 2021 - 2025 Lark's art was exhibited in the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art and the Shiba City Museum of Art In Japan where Lark got two Gold Awards in the group shows.

Kondomozo and Ubume are two characters that I invented. They serves as my surrogate self, a synthesis of Korean and Japanese cultures, a metaphor for the meeting of opposites, and the border that separates them. While one may interpret this characters as a reflection of a variety of ideas and aesthetics particular to Asian experiences and identities, Kondomozo and Ubume are primarily a response to the racism I faced as a bi-racial person. I wanted to create a creature who is culturally flexible and who personifies self-acceptance.

The universe that Kondomozo and Ubume inhabit is constructed from conscious and subconscious drawings, doodles, text and maps. The palette is inspired by cave paintings.

Kondomozo and Ubume's simple shape is repeated and juxtaposed against a chaotic, drawn environment. Kondomozo and Ubume act as a smooth-skinned, nearly-featurless guide, in a wildly unpredictable and marred universe.

I find inspiration in the work of several artists and the aesthetics of many cultural movements. These influences include: Jean-Michel Basquiat; On Kawara; Yoshitomo Nara; Cy Twombly;Jackson Pollock; Gustav Klimt; Noh Theater; Japanese YOUKAI story.

I believe that everyone perceives themselves—in some way—as a minority of sorts. It is my hope that Kondomozo and Ubume may act as an ambassador of “Other-ness” and that people of all backgrounds will feel at home with them, or curious about them.

Education

Sep.2003-Dec. 2005 The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago IL, USA

Bachelor of Fine Arts, emphasis in Painting

Exhibitions & Commissions

Jul. 2018 Apocrypha, Gallery 825, 825 N. La Cienega blvd Los Angeles CA 90069

Jun. 2018 Magnify, Raw Artist Los Angeles, Exchange LA, 618 S. Spring st. Los Angeles CA 90014

May. 2018 Resist and Recover, KYO gallery, 111 S. Patrick st. Alexandria VA 22314

Jan. 2018 Bunk, Gallery 825, 825 N. La Cienega blvd Los Angeles CA 90069

Oct. 2017 Brewery Art Walk, 2100 N Main St, Los Angeles, CA 90031

Aug. 2017 Tandem show, Opodz, 362 E 2nd St, Los Angeles, CA 90012

Dec. 2016 LAAA’s open show, Gallery 825, 825 N. La Cienega blvd Los Angeles CA 90069

Oct. 2016 Countenance Divine, Gallery 825, 825 N. La Cienega blvd Los Angeles CA 90069

Jul. 2016 Juried exhibition #6 2016 winner, artslant, http://www.artslant.com/la/main

Feb. 2016 The Foolish Game, Gallery 825, 825 N. La Cienega blvd Los Angeles CA 90069

Dec. 2015 Undertones, CO-LAB Gallery, 5319 York Blvd Los Angeles CA 90042

Oct. 2015 Chestnut, Gallery 825, 825 N. La Cienega Blvd Los Angeles CA 90069

Jul. 2015 Osmosis, wallspace, 607 N. La Brea Los Angeles CA 90046 USA

Jan. 2015 6th Annual Drawing Discourse Exhibition, S. Tucker Gallery, 107 Own Hall CPO#1840 UNC Asheville One University Heights Asheville NC 28804

Jul. 2014 Synthesis, wallspace, 607 N. La Brea Los Angeles CA 90046 USA

I paint what touches me most. Something in my life or in the world around me that moves me deeply. It may be joy or it may be sadness and worry.

Just painting what I feel brings me closer in touch with who I am and what I feel, it helps me process what I might not otherwise understand or be able to digest or let go of.

My artwork always had to do with feelings, my feeling about the world, people, and my relationship with them. I always have put it on paper since I can remember.

Like the feelings between mother and child, that are our most complete bond, or portraits of an emotional mood, that seem to come just out of me when I feel a certain way and sit down with a brush and canvas, to capture the emotion.

Regine Legler Bio

Regine Legler was born in Berlin, Germany during the last days of World War II.

Her first exposure to art was a dark, brown door her mother allowed the family to draw on with chalk, which Regine did frequently. Everything was a canvas, including her schoolbooks, which lead Regine to her first commission; being asked by her fellow classmates to help them with their homework assignment to draw Napoleon.

Regine’s formal education in fine art started at age 17 when she enrolled at the Staedelschule in Frankfurt/Main Germany. There she began a two-year study of figure drawing, portraiture, landscape and still life under Walter Hergenhahn, a student of the renowned Max Beckmann. Later, she underwent three years of intensive study in oil painting, acrylic and watercolor at the Freie Academie in Mannheim, Germany.

In her early years, Regine drew and painted scenes of dreams and emotional situations in a style called Fantastic Realism. Then, in 1994, her interest shifted to wildlife and American Indian scenes. Today, Regine’s style has evolved from Fantastic Realism to a more realistic and personalized technique to create a very bold look and tone to convey strong emotions.

Regine holds juried membership at Women Painters West, Southern California Women Caucus of the Arts, Venice Art Forum, and has taught college-level classes at Santa Monica College and the Fashion institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles.

?Of all the world?s warriors, artists are still the most noble and free.? ~ anonymous South African poet.

When I lived in Spain, the horrors of the Franco years were just beginning to be talked about. For years after the dictator?s death, these events had been a taboo subject. One of the aspects of his reign that emerged was the role that artists played in the failed revolution. Every artist that I met of the previous generation had spent time in prison; some had been tortured. Artists were particularly feared by the fascists; they had the power, and the voice, to speak compellingly against the brutal regime.

In a more haphazard, intuitive way, I have been trying to be that kind of artist ? to lend my talent and my voice to the causes of reason and civility. The quality in art that I most admire is the kind of harmony and clarity that touches deep in the soul. This is what I am compelled to deliver through my images. My experiences in Spain were not responsible for setting me on this course, but they did provide a tangible, historic context around what I had always felt was my duty as an artist ? to speak of the things we are not allowed to utter and provide lightening rods for collective feelings of anger, despair, and disgust. The

subjects of, and audience for, my work are universal; I privilege no particular age, no gender, and no social strata. Perhaps because of its universal message, my work hangs in the boardrooms of international business conglomerates and the studios of iconic musicians. But what I am most proud of is the affection that the under

Charles Malinsky is an internationally acclaimed Canadian painter. His artwork is represented in many distinguished museums throughout the world and has been featured in countless publications. His extraordinary achievements throughout his career have made him of one of the most dynamic figurative painters working in the 21st century. He has been officially designated as a ?Canadian Cultural Entity?.

I’m an abstract symbolist who works with color, texture, shape and storytelling imagery to convey my wonder and appreciation for this earthly experience we call life. I want to excite the sensibilities, to engulf, saturate. I have many messages but, mostly, my work invites others to address and confront the power of simple beauty, the incunabula, the unknown, rites of passages, epiphanies, rebirth. Transformation is a constant in life and essential to our evolution. Each step we take is sacred and decides the journey. Every breath requires a new commitment to courage. My paintings examine the personas, the bodies, the heavens, dark and mysterious corners, the stopping places and launching pads of the soul. I’m deeply affected by the style of the original artists, the cave painters. Scientists opine they were women. These days my studio features drawings by DaVinci, photos from the Webb telescope and undersea animals. I live in the crossfire of science, art and personal healing.

I am often thoughtful of unity and through-line, I seek to convey a freedom and visceral truth that is unencumbered by any one message or agenda. This allows me to construct each work with a joyful, exploratory energy.

Montealegre’s art education emerged under the tutelage of abstract painter, Robert Kingston.

She is a recipient of the Puffin Foundation Grant for her performance art piece: Portrait of the First Woman.

Montealegre has continued to win prizes for her paintings and her works are featured in several publications.

Montealegre’s recent BELLINGHAM'S WHATCOM MUSEUM presentation of her painting, Heal Thyself! was featured in the Lightcatcher building where Eva performed a joyful song to introduce the curator's presentation.

2015 Eva is included in the prestigious Latina Art Initiative founded by Linda Vallega. She is vetted as one of the best Latin Artists in the country.

2015 Eva Montealegre is named a BEST ARTIST when ARTAVITA chooses the BEST ARTISTS in an international contest.

HIGGS BOSON, PORTRAIT OF THE FIRST WOMAN, the original painting by Eva Montealegre, a 64" x 96" oil on canvas, is featured in FIRST POST to announce the Nobel Prize Award to Peter Higgs for his creation theory explaining the origin of the Universe.

Eva’s painting, MOON ONE, is featured in the art book, ART TAKES TIMES SQUARE. Her figurative painting of a woman titled, CREATIVE CALL, is featured in the art book, WOMEN'S RIGHTS: An Artist’s Perspective sponsored by UniteWomen.Org. Her work has been honored by the City of Los Angeles in calendars and catalogs. She has participated in a number of Los Angeles community events.

2012 Eva's painting of the sun, IT'S ALRIGHT, receives first prize from WOMEN'S CAUCUS FOR ART. That same year Eva's painting DEEP VEIN #3 is presented at MOLAA'S WOMAN FESTIVAL.

I use art as a means to express my reactions to my environment. In this way what you see is akin to the emanations from a sound box where the acoustics of sounds, life circumstance and landscape have combined at one moment in time. The subject matter is not the subject. The process is often as important as the result. I have recently included with my abstract, tactile paintings, more objective work, but the impetus is the same. Just as each person responds differently to music, I expect each viewer will respond differently to what they see.

Born Elizabethtown, Kentucky

BA, MA California State University, Northridge

Jane Serebrenikov’s narrative graphical art works reflect her deeply lyrical and uniquely poetical vision. All her life she is interested in visual art and, grown up on fairy tales, combines magic, vivid imagination and sense of humor in her art works. She also inspired by the arts of Mark Chagall and Reno Magritte.

Jane is started etching 5 years ego and has been taken part of several exhibitions. She sold her arts nationally and internationally. She makes aquatint etchings. This is where the plate is immersed in acid and the lines and tones achieved when the acid “bites” the areas which have not been masked. Than color applied manually and print on printmaking press. Each print is unique.

Jane was born in Moscow, Russia and immigrated to Los Angeles in 1995 with her family. She graduated college as a graphic designer, holds AA degree and contentious working in printmaking studio.

Most recent projects is a series called "FASCINATING RESILIENT WOMEN" - I'm inspired by the strong women of 2018 who came forward and told their story. In this series I'm using multimedia materials - Clay, Cement, Brunches, stones, metals....

​Recent Project: “AERIALISTS IN MOTION” – Deeply inspired by the motions and fabric used by a professional aerialist. I captured a sequence of 4 poses and began sculpting . Starting with wire armature and oil clay forming the sculpture and casted in acrylic bronze powder.

I believe that I was born an artist. My sculptures represent my passions of movement, music and nature. My art is especially a reflection of my early career as a dancer. Growing up on the beach in Israel, I was motivated by the fresh air of the sea, feeling the crumbly sand on my toes and listening to music. My soul awakened to the beats of music and I began to dance as a form of expression. When I was four years old I started taking Ballet classes. At the age of 14, I became a professional dancer throughout Israel and was featured in the theater, movies, television shows, and the Israeli opera. My parents always believed in me and helped me to pursue my dreams. In college I studied ceramics, painting, and pottery which led to sculpting. Using my hands to form, discover and create the clay connects me to earth and brings me back to nature. My two passions collide as nature and movement become one in a sculpture. I use metal, water clay, oil clay, wood, and recycled materials to sculpt. The finished product is in an acrylic, bronze, fired clay, wood or natural recycled objects. Spirituality plays a big role in my work. I begin each project with lighting a candle and saying a prayer to my spirit guides asking for guidance with my work. Listening to music allows my body to move and mold the sculptures.

To make art and see it being born from my own hands fulfills one of my

greatest dreams.

I like the moment when a new creation is not yet mine, not yet in my

imagination - but already is tickling my subconscious.

Working with paints, knowing their elasticity, and exploring new

textures and color shades allows me to move them on the canvas

spontaneously.

But it only seems so. In reality it happens under the guidance of my

soul.

It is my soul that expresses itself on canvas, showing its flights and

falls, joys and sadness, and then gives birth to an image. My hands only

choose and move colors around, before the appearance of a new image

gives rise to new fantasies.

When a fantasy desires to continue over a series of my art, the process

gives birth to imaginary realities which emerge from the depth of my soul

and cry out to find release on the canvas. Only then can my hands

themselves put down the paints and hang alongside my body. Fatigue and

relief cover me with a light veil. Nothing more needs to be corrected

and completed.

My soul enjoys the liberation of previously collected feelings and

impressions of life whose meaning was unclear to me but which I can now

express. Also what my paintings let me express on canvas is a joyful light shining

from the soul. It is the wonderful space of creation.

Tatiana Yartseva is a Siberian and moved to California in 2024. She is an artist and interior design and lives and works between the city of Omsk and Los Angeles, where she received her formal art education and immersed herself in the local art scene, working at the Lark Gallery. In addition to solo shows, the artist is an active participant in international projects such as "Peaceful Freedom" (2018), "Evolve. Women. Wisdom." (2019), and "Homage to Russian Avant-Garde" (2019) in the USA, "Seeking inner Joy(2002) in Russia", "The Temple of the Dreams"(2025) in Italy, "LAOpen" (2026) in the USA. Visionary Art Show Artsper Award. Since 2025 showing her art work at Artsy platform.

Participated in Digital Art Exhibition organized by Art Screen TV in the Biennale, Florence, Italy in 2025.

Her works have been featured in the American art publication Art & Beyond, Artistinish, and are held in private collections.

My paintings come out as attempts to "translate" from ideograms and fantastic hieroglyphs that I see in the patterns of nature, most often in the tree bark.

It is like listening to a song in an unknown language. Everyone will have their own guess of what the words might say, but the main theme of the song will be recognized.I am so thrilled by the moments of gazing into the patterns of nature when intuition gives a glimpse from the world of archetypes. I think that trees are books and libraries that can be read, perhaps as well as any thing around if we attune to it…

My paintings are sort of "snapshots" from the process of reading the Book of Nature by the mind;these "snapshots" are somewhere in between the imagery and the language.The mind projects meanings onto the shapes and lines, but they are being reflected back, startling and puzzling… there is always a sensation of a mirror dialog, of having been "read" yourself by the Book of Nature...

born in Baku, Azerbajan, lived in Moscow since 16 years old, moved to L.A. in 1992;

M.F.A. in Film &Tv( Animation major) from UCLA;

involved in painting, writing and illustrating, cartooning, mixed media, paper theatre, small size dioramas

THE ZEN OF THE LAND

unites a visual trilogy of country people, their landscapes and lifestyles in humanist, spiritual, pictorial harmony. Willat brings a centered, thoughtful and organic approach to photography and to the living of a purposeful artists' life. The serenity in her images is both pensive and evocative; mirroring her contemplative intellect and ebullient personality. The artist’s best works percolate with a Mandala-full of life forces that emanate from her subjects, which she shoots in situ. Her most interesting pictures linger in the mind's eye. They move the viewer into spaces where we breathe deeper and slower- harmonizing with those who inhabit the visual world that Willat creates.

“I can get lost in the moment. The shutter seems to click on its own when I'm fortunate enough to capture someone at one with their environment. My favorite shots are not portraits and they’re not landscapes. I like to shoot people going about the living of their lives within their lands. They become defined by how and where they live. That’s what I’m known for.”

Jemmaa El Fna, a cityscape of Marrakesh’s town square, is a pageant of humanity where horse drawn carriages, push carts and shoe shine stands are readying the famous marketplace for day’s end. It perfectly expresses the interchangeability of Willat’s desire to characterize those she shoots by the places they inhabit and to portray these places by the persons who populate them.

Felice Willat is an award-winning travel photographer and publisher, whose images from Burma, Morocco, China, Vietnam and Argentina, capture the beauty of the human landscape across cultures. Willat's photographs have been juried into the Los Angeles Center for Photography, Photo LA, Photo Independent, TAG Gallery, Bergamot Station, the Brand Library, Glendale, CA, and numerous other venues across the United States and in London, UK and Italy.In 2010, Felice won First Prize, for her Travel images in the Southern California Council of Camera Clubs’ annual juried exhibition. In 2009 Felice published The Quiet Between, Song of Burma, a book of photography and poems.

Felice sees her camera as providing a sense of time expansion and stillness. She says, “I could capture a moment, something sacred or commonplace, an unconscious gesture, a tattered clothesline, a red plastic pitcher, or a worn prayer book. I like to leave the familiar, travel to far-away places, and find the gift of really being present.”

Selected Exhibitions

2015

LAPhoto – Fabrik Magazine Gallery

Topanga Canyon Gallery – Juried Group Show – Featured Artist

Juror – Michael Zakian, Director, Weisman Museum

2014

Captured 2 – Second Annual Photo Competition – Santa Barbara Tennis Club

“Climbing Cardinals” – Best of Show

Los Angeles Center of Photography – First Annual Member’s Show

Photo Independent – Raleigh Studios – Inaugural Debut - Zen of the Land

LA Photo – Fabrik Magazine Gallery

"Goddesses of Nature" is an ongoing photo project celebrating the beauty, wisdom, and mystery of the divine feminine whose true essence lies in a deep connection with Mother Nature. In my interpretation, the Goddess is a metaphor of Nature and every woman's soul - be she Native American, African-American or Caucasian, model-thin or Rubenesque, be she a little girl, a teen girl or a woman - as well as being a metaphor for their mysterious, loving, light-bearing divine essence. In my photographs, the subjects not only join with Nature, they are part of Nature. They not only speak to the trees and flowers, they are in union with them.

I see every woman as beautiful! I believe that women in our everyday life have natural, unique, individual beauty in themselves ? not matter their size, shape or age; therefore, I photograph real, everyday women, not professional models.

I do not use Photoshop to create or merge images as is popular in the artistic world today. My images are actual photographs of young girls and women in actual natural settings representing my ideas about our one-ness with Nature. I help my subjects feel like goddesses during the session, and that is the secret to the Goddess art: finding the goddess inside of every woman and girl." ~ Yelena Yahontova

Yelena Yahontova, M.A., is an award winning photography artist, costume stylist, speaker, and healer with a camera residing in La Jolla, California. She was born in the Eastern European country of Belarus. She has had her photography studio "Yelena: Photographer of Joy" for over 15 years.

Yelena is a woman on a mission. Her mission is to heal and transform how women see themselves by portraying them as beautiful goddesses. She sees every woman as beautiful - no matter her size, shape or age!

Yelena's studio is Nature, and her backdrops are forests, lakes, oceans, and mountains. Yelena uses costume styling, floral accessories and her imagination to transform little girls and women into angels, fairies, and goddess of nature into photographs that bring fairytale magic back into reality.