Art Without Borders

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.

"Dance with me" series is the latest artistic endeavor of Shahla Bebe to capture dancing motion in the form of Digital Art.

Diversity of dancer’s body movements, colorful flowing costumes, light and shadows have been combined to created unique mystery art.

The images have been taken in the most expressive moments of dancer’s performance in front of a live audience. A collaboration of Shahla Bebe and various Southern California dance companies and their ensemble casts.

Shahla Bebe is an award-winning photographer, was trained in graphic art, photography and post-production.

By 1996, photography had become Shahla’s profession and passion. Her life experiences led her to fine art photography as the best medium for artistic expression. Shahla has maintained a keen involvement all throughout in different groups and organizations dealing with political and social concerns. She believes that the Digital Art creates unique and powerful means to speak about issues that torment or exhilarate her.

Shahla Bebe’s Digital art as well as photography has been on display in various group exhibitions in the States, Canada, and Europe.

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 dream, therefore, I am"

"I create art because I must.

It is a necessary extension of my life.

It identifies and substantiates my existence.

It is my profile and my legacy.

I want to intrigue and entertain.

I want to initiate wonder and questions.

I want to communicate my thoughts, dreams and desires.

Most of all, I want to be!"

Ione's art has shown nationally since 1998 when, after years of world travel, a successful television, radio, theatre and film career in the performing arts, she decided to focus her richly diverse talents on the visual arts.

Ione's artistic expression, creativity, and passion for communication have resulted in numerous awards for her painting, sculpture, mixed media, and assemblage. Her work has also been featured in several important publications. Ione maintains an extensive exhibition schedule in juried, non-juried, and invitational arts venues.

Ione is an avant garde artist whose artistic expression takes fantastic shape through her diverse oil and watercolor paintings, bronze sculptures, found object collages and mixed media assemblages. Her contemporary paintings and sculptures range from abstract to realistic to impressionistic - all visionary interpretations from her imaginative soul.

Ione uses only one name but a variety of styles to soothe her wild imagination. A native of Chicago, she is a former television star and commercial voice-over artist. Now she wins awards and sells her creativity through her hands instead of through her larynx. Her art is as original as she is - bold, colorful and highly decorative.

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

My photographic collages are layers of my reflections and observations, being personal, political or historical.

Like our life experiences, these thoughts accumulate on top of each other, to create my feelings and emotions that get expressed in the artwork.

The layering process coincides with the synthesis of creating visual pieces that invites one to investigate and explore the given information.

Like in previous works of mine, made on glass, the technique and the transparencies in my photographic digital collages are an important part of the art, they emphasis the build-up process and the blending which creates the images.

Vered Galor has been involved with the fine art world as an artist, curator and educator for over thirty years. She received her BA and MA in Fine Art from California State University in Northridge in 1975 and 1978.

Mrs. Galor started her career as glass sculptor. In 1981 she established a business doing curatorial projects and consulting in Contemporary Fine Art.

She lectured, participated in discussions and wrote art programs to encourage the collaboration of Art and Architecture.

Since 1989 Mrs. Galor has been concentrating on photography. She has been creating here own work, teaching photography and showing with galleries in Los Angeles California, Fort Collins and Loveland, Colorado and Las Vegas Nevada.

My works generally are the result of a continuous refinement of established techniques and experimentation painted on canvas or paper with mixed media materials. Mostly subjects are based on abstracted impressions and memories of different architectural sites I have visited throughout the world. Ancient, and far away places and their unique moods created by light and changing color evoke intense responses and compel me to create my work. In order to capture every mood to my personal satisfaction,

the surfaces have to be superimposed and juxtaposed, creating major and minor accents with some kind of harmony.

I feel that the completion of my paintings is a journey unto itself, of color and feelings. At times I insert snapshots and add

J. Natasha Kostan lives and works in Los Angeles and has been painting in multimedia for the past 30 years. She has studied Fashion and Interior Design in England and Fine Arts and Art History in the United States, and received her BFA from Immaculate Heart College. Her work includes oils, acrylics, mixed media and collage on canvas and on paper.

She studied printmaking extensively under Maurizio Barattucci, a well-known and highly respected artist and instructor. The printmaking process has been an inspiration for developing intriguing primary surfaces and the metamorphosis of Natasha's works on paper. Natasha states: "Ancient, and far away places and their unique moods created by light and changing color evoke intense responses and compel me to create my work. In order to capture every mood to my personal satisfaction, the surfaces have to be superimposed and juxtaposed, creating major and minor accents with some kind of harmony."

Her eclectic style is a manifestation of her multi-hued vision of the world. Her work expresses her experience of living in and traveling through several cultures. "Her palette reflects warmth, balance and strength," said the late Barbara Hagar, California artist, teacher and mentor with whom Natasha studied for many years. Numerous corporations as well as private collectors throughout the United States and England own her paintings. She has exhibited solo and in groups in the United States and Armenia.

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.

Freelance Photographer

David Phillips is an American artist whose work has shown at over 50 galleries throughout the United States. Including The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Carnegie Hall (NYC), and The Downtown Art Center Gallery of Los Angeles. Working from his studio in Venice Beach, California, he’s been featured by the CBS News, The LA Times (twice), and over 75 websites on the internet where he has a significant presence.

Inspired by his influences, he moved his studio from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Venice, California. “Moving to Los Angeles allowed my career to progress in ways I could not imagine. However, the work will never lose its country roots.”

His bold, conceptual, and avant garde works continue to amaze patrons, bring buyers, and captivate collectors all over the world. David’s unique vision and style goes beyond traditional standards of art on canvas and pushes the boundary of what art is and can be. "I named my online home wino-strut. I needed something that was larger than the art world. I make films, collage, abstract paintings, figurative paintings. I make contemporary art out of anything I can get my hands on.”

Phillips is also a songwriter and performer under "wino-strut".

I have always been attracted by landscape. As a subject it weaves in

and out of my work.

Wolves and Kimonos are emblematic of my work over a long period,representing a search for spirit, with the wolf as guide and the kimono a metaphoric actor on the stage of life. Landscape provides the background.

Born Chicago, Illinois, studied University of Michigan, resident American Academy in Rome, resided 12 years in Italy. Presently residing Ojai, Ca.Work internationally exhibited and in many important public and private collections.

Using found objects to create sculptures brings resources to my disposition that are as varied as the material realm of the world we live in; they provide an interesting mirror of our time and society.

My work is frequently narrative or symbolic and deals with social and spiritual issues.

A recent series – 18” x 18” squared – aims to explore the energy of matter and its relationship to the action/manipulation of the artist.

Annemarie Rawlinson, an award-winning artist, works primarily in mixed media and collage and has shown her work nationally and internationally. In 1994, she founded the L.A. Assemblage Group. This group currently has 17 members and networks and exhibits at least once a year together.

Using discarded objects as art materials, Annemarie aims at raising public consciousness of the need to conserve resources and preserve the natural environment. These objects, once useful, bring their own beauty and vibrations with them, expressing symbolic or narrative content.

I find my material everywhere, because, by working in this medium, I believe you learn to “see” the beauty of the discarded

and turn it into “art”.

I present my reality in two different manifestations. They are either internal, elusive, suggestive or external, dynamic and

engaging. They reflect my duality, which encompasses both.

“How I use the material at hand is often more important than the material itself”. – Kurt Schwitters

I use a variety of found and scavenged objects in multiple hydraulic pressings to create embossed pentimenti in copper. Working intuitively, with curiosity and intention, but no plan, I watch for imagery to emerge in the metal surfaces as shapes merge and overlap. These pieces are then combined with some kind of support - usually wooden - natural or man-made, and other enriching materials.In the dialogue between the pressed metal images and their supports or containers, I discover what these things mean to be. My hope is that they are appealing as objects, and that they evoke a sense of the surprise of their creation and the mystery of their presence.

Born in N.J. Lived and worked many years in N.Y. Moved to Santa Monica in 2001. Studied at Douglass College, N.J.(B.A.) and New York University (M.A.). Adjunct Faculty NYU; Master Teacher in Lincoln Center Institute; Staff Development Training and Program Developer at The Studio In A School, NYC. Solo Shows at Atlantic Gallery, Brooklyn, NY; New England Center for Contemporary Art, Conn. Group Shows: Brooklyn Museum; Bronx Museum; Dayton Art Institute. has shown in many National Juried Competitions, and galleries in N.Y. and Connecticut. Her art has been chosen for St Johns Health Center Art Wall, and meditation rooms in Hospices and hospitals, and is represented in many private collections.

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