Italy Art Projects 2026

My art is an expression of the life I see around me. I utilize color and stroke to bring forth an emotion from my paintings. Acrylic and watercolor are my main mediums as I love the challenge of the quick drying paint. Much of my art comes from pictures that I take with my cell phone while walking around Pasadena. The other pieces I create spring forth from my imagination.

Theresa Brekan has been an artist for most of her life. Growing up in Van Nuys, CA, her passion began during elementary school where her paintings and drawings received numerous awards. During high school she moved to Tempe, Arizona, where she painted large scale cotton and linen backdrops for Alleluia Ballet, as well as scenic work for her school theater productions. She displayed artwork at the Arizona State Fair, Tempe Sister Cities, the Alwun House "Swirling Daze" and other local shows. Her education as a Fine Art Major at the University of Dallas in Irving, Texas, with a focus on painting. Taking time to see the world, Theresa traveled to Prague, where she spent time sketching, painting, and sight- seeing. Theresa returned to Arizona, and while raising a family, developed her skills in graphic art and layout design. She volunteered at Camp Gan Israel East Valley summer camp teaching and developing the weekly art program for five years. She moved to Pasadena, CA where she continues to pursue her love of art. She works as a free lance graphic and layout design artist, paints as a scenic for the film industry, and published several children's books illustrations. Theresa loves making time outside of the studio to experience nature, drink coffee, and take walks along the beach with her husband, Ralph, and their five children.

Across centuries, women who lived too boldly, too fiercely, or too strangely were branded with names meant to contain them: witch, saint, hysteric. These portraits reclaim those words and turn them into fuel. Each painting is a love letter to an unflinching women who refused to be made small. They are reverent, irreverent, and a little uncanny in their celebration of strength and vulnerability. Together, they honor the truth that survival is at once fierce and tender.

The idea for this series had been percolating for years but snapped into focus as I watched my own government escalate its attacks on women’s autonomy and agency. At the same time, a cancer diagnosis put me face to face with my mortality, challenging me to meet my changing body with compassion. Out of this collision of the personal and the political came Witches, Saints, and Hysterics. These paintings were made slowly, with patience and defiance, asking viewers to consider the power we grant to names and the truths that always slip beyond them.

The women featured have all kinds of different stories. Some are women in my life, like my cousin Kelly and my daughter Eli. Marie sent me her photo after I put out a call for source material online, inviting submissions from women who resonated with the vision of this work. Others are drawn from history – a few are famous for rejecting the oppressive norms of their time, while others are anonymous women photographed in institutions where they were restrained and silenced. Their lives differ, but they are bound by a common courage: the audacity to be fully themselves in a world that demands compliance. To me, they each are all of us.

Amber DeSilva creates psychologically layered portraits and figurative paintings that seek to disrupt cycles of shame and repression that result from cultural narratives designed to contain women. She is inspired by memories of being misunderstood as a child who felt emotions very deeply and the resulting patterns of shame, anger, and addiction that she experienced later in life.

Her most recent body of work, Witches, Saints, and Hysterics, was created as DeSilva underwent cancer treatment. She notes, “I was struggling to be compassionate to myself, to not see my body changing and flinch or look away. So I painted unflinching women as a way to surround myself in their strength.” To date, the series consists of seven portraits of historic and contemporary women that embody a spirit of rebellion—against the gaze, against silencing, against the social forces that seek to keep them small. Each subject is paired with an animal, a symbol of the primal force, intuition, and resilience that endure even under constraint. The series channels DeSilva’s own confrontation with vulnerability, mortality, and identity into images that are as much acts of resistance as they are works of art.

Since 2020, DeSilva’s paintings have been exhibited at the Petaluma Arts Center, Artworks Downtown, San Francisco Women Artists Gallery, and the De Young Museum.

My work explores the relationship between Harmony and Nature best represented in my ceramic work.

Was born in the city of Sochi, Russia. She studied at Grekov Art School located in Rostov-on-Don, Russia and was named Student of the Year. From 1975-1995, she worked as an artist in one of the biggest art companies in the Soviet Union where she participated in many art exhibitions and had her work win constant recognition in multiple countries such as Russia, Armenia and Ukraine. In 1996, she immigrated to the U.S where she continued her art career, creating beautiful and unique paintings. For the last 3 years, she has dived into the art form of sculpting, creating many different ceramic sculptures that represents her vision of Harmony and Nature.

If you have any queries about my work

please call (323) 979-8968.

✨ 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

I make art

to communicate

what I cannot communicate with words;

what I need to say

about what's going on in the world around us;

what I cannot fix;

what I wish I could make different

with my paint and clay

or metal and wood;

I work very hard at it -

always with my hands,

smearing, scraping, sanding -

until the experience becomes intimately personal;

communication is at the heart of every creation,

wedded to a humanistic concern;

I yearn with passion to make sense of it all;

fulfillment comes

only after I am personally satisfied

with having known, experienced and conveyed -

or at least tried to convey,

an ongoing, meaningful conversation;

a conversation that has found its way in the work itself;

a conversation that may potentially transpire

a continuance of the same with each viewer -

long after the paint has dried.

Julienne Johnson is a multi-disciplinary artist whose practice includes drawing, painting, sculpture, and assemblage. She has been engaged professionally in a variety of other creative disciplines, most notably songwriting, with both Grammy and Dove Award nominations to her credit. Her latest music was released in Oslo, Norway, April 2019 for award winning producer, Knut Asphol. Her poetry has been published in the United States, and the UK. Despite her success in these areas, Johnson's most profound connection is with the visual arts – her strongest, most direct form of communication.

She trained classically as a fine arts major at Taylor University, Indiana and continued painting representationally for the next ten years doing commissions, while exhibiting minimally. Much later, after re-settling in Los Angeles, Johnson returned to studying art briefly at Otis College of Art & Design in 2005, transferring to Art Center College of Design in 2006 where she custom coordinated a Master’s-level type program and was mentored by the late Franklyn Liegel.

Since 2010, Johnson has been honored with 5 solo exhibitions across the United States, including a solo museum show at the Southern Nevada Museum of Fine Art; her sculpture and paintings have been included in numerous museum shows around the world, including: Armenia, Japan, China, Qatar, Italy and Thailand. Her work can be found in 7 Museum Permanent Collections internationally and can be viewed on permanent exhibition at the Arab American National Museum in Michigan, and several museums in Italy and Thailand. Residencies include: China, Italy, Japan, Thailand and Mexico.

Her work can be found in private and corporate collections across the globe. She resides in Southern California.

Where are we going?

Aside from the obvious depiction of roads leading nowhere, broken road signs, explosions and fallen trees these paintings are questioning how we, as society, are dealing with our contemporary challenges. We are witnessing wars, civil unrest, polarization of society, growing cynicism, deterioration of moral values and ecological problems.

Roads lay in ruins, great cities civilizations proudly erected are deteriorating, people prefer escapism to engagement in active life, and nature rebels against human abuses. Do we acknowledge the problems? What are we doing about them? Or are we just ignoring the problems and waiting for chaos to swallow us?

The planet lost its way and spins by pure inertia. There is no clear goal or purpose. Where are we going?

My work is shaped by the tension between catastrophe and continuity—between the moments when the world seems to fracture and the deeper forces that endure beyond every crisis. I am drawn to the emotional space where fear, uncertainty, and resilience intersect.

We live in a time when upheaval feels constant. Wars, social division, ecological decline, and the erosion of shared values can make it seem as though we are losing our way. Yet even in the midst of this turbulence, there are elements of the world that remain steady. Nature, in its vastness and indifference, offers a kind of reassurance that human events cannot erase.

This duality forms the foundation of my practice.

One body of work focuses on moments of rupture—real or imagined—set within ordinary landscapes: a road, a stand of trees, the edge of the ocean. These scenes are familiar, yet something has gone terribly wrong. Trees fall, structures break, distant explosions stain the horizon. Through dynamic brushwork, collaged textures, and deliberately unbalanced compositions, I explore the immediacy of fear and the fragility of the everyday.

The companion series turns toward what survives. In four large-scale triptychs, I depict water, trees, mountains, and sky as elemental presences that have outlasted countless human crises. These works are slower, more deliberate, and more monumental. They reflect my belief that nature holds a kind of quiet eternity—one that persists long after our catastrophes fade.

By placing these two modes of painting in conversation, I seek to examine how we respond to instability and what we choose to hold onto. My work asks viewers to consider not only the disasters that shape our lives, but also the enduring forces that ground us, reassure us, and remind us of our place within a much larger continuum.

Elena Kalman is a painter, a creator of public art, and an architect, whose work has been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries throughout the United States, including:

The Museum of Russian Art, Minneapolis, MN

New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT

National Aquarium, Baltimore MD

Van Cortland Manor, Croton-on-Hudson, NY

Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA

Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, Boston, MA

Bijou Box, Bridgeport, CT

Kalman’s work is included in the following permanent collections:

William Benton Museum of Art UConn, Storrs, CT

Iona College, New Rochelle, NY

Jewish Center of Ridgefield, CT

Carnegie Management, New York, NY

Chabad Center of Somerset County, NJ

Kalman received her Master of Architecture degree from the Moscow Architecture Institute and Fine Art degree from Kiev Art Institute. She immigrated to the United States in 1979. She is a principal of a Connecticut-based, design-oriented architectural firm, which she founded in 1988. Her commissioned sculptures and paintings became integral parts of several buildings she designed located in New your City and Connecticut.

Her series of 30 paintings “Timeline” illustrating Jewish history through the ages, ceramic relief “Jerusalem” and outdoor sculptures: “Flame” and “Holocaust and Rebirth” are commissioned by The Chabad Center of Somerset County, NJ. These are integrated into a religious building designed by Elena Kalman, AIA

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.

As an E-painter, I am incorporating my previous painting skills as an oil painter with my technical knowledge acquired from Digital Photography. I create my E-Paintings organically from my mind, using my stylus as my brush and my touch screen laptop as if it were my Canvas. Having a hands on approach every step of the creative process is essential to myself as an artist.

Nature has always captivated me with its natural beauty and the solace it offers. As an artist and photographer, it is my duty to both capture and create beauty. My artworks prompt us to value nature, our environment, and to conserve, cherish and utilize our natural resources as nature naturally intended.''-Artist, Photographer Nicole Martinelli

“If my art can inspire, raise awareness, provoke thought, and evoke emotions offering solace, peace ,and happiness to others as I have found through my own artistic practices, then I have fulfilled my artistic goal.’’– Artist Nicole Martinelli

“During these ever changing times among mankind one thing that never changes is the solitude and beauty of nature that surrounds us I have always been captivated by the beauty nature naturally offers us all Nature never falters and is always there for you! During the storms we are presented with through out our lives,"There is always an ocean or a stream to catch your tears and a sunset to brighten our lives."- Artist, Nicole Martinelli

Nicole Martinelli is an internationally acclaimed, award-winning artist and photographer whose innovative e-paintings and photography have been exhibited across the United States and Europe. Her work has appeared in notable galleries and institutions including Rossocinabro Gallery (Rome and Barcelona), Primo Piano Gallery (Lecce), the San Diego Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Waterfront Coalition Gallery, Core Art Space in Denver, and the Marblehead Arts Association in Massachusetts.

Her international exhibitions include a five-month juried show in Gstaad, Switzerland (June–October 2024), followed by major Italian exhibitions such as Primo Piano Gallery, Weaving Dreams, Living Time (Lecce, March 2025) and the Lecce Arredo Art Expo (May 2025). The Artists current and upcoming highlights include the Primo Piano Gallery Le Temple des Rêves, Barcelona Contemporary at Rossocinabro Gallery, Madrid Art Week (Spring 2026), and a solo exhibition at Artifact Gallery, Manhattan (August 2026).

Martinelli’s work has been recognized by distinguished jurors including Sandy Gellis, Crista Dix (Griffin Museum of Photography), Nancy Lim (SFMOMA), Armando Garcia, and musician Billy Corgan.

Nicole Martinelli’s pioneered artistic medium, hand-painted E-Paintings, exemplify the innovative potential of digital media in contemporary art. Drawing on her background as an oil painter, she merges traditional painting techniques with digital tools to Utilizing a stylus as a brush and a touchscreen laptop as her canvas, she engages with each composition organically, layering color, texture, and form in a process that mirrors the intuitive gestures of traditional painting. Exploring themes of resilience, renewal, and transformation, Martinelli creates emotionally resonant works that connect humanity, memory, and nature. ​

At its core, Nicole Martinelli’s art reflects the beauty of renewal and the balance between fragility and strength, memory and rebirth. Through recurring floral and natural motifs, she explores transformation and healing, revealing the quiet resilience that connects nature and the human spirit. Each piece invites viewers to pause, reflect, and find gratitude in life’s continual evolutionl a visual reminder that even in darkness, beauty endures. Her work consistently challenges audiences to consider the nuanced relationships between human perception, human experiences, memory, nature, and the environment. Inviting a dialogue that is simultaneously both personal, and universal. The Artist is also truly honored to be graciously sharing her artstic accomplishments and her personal life story on the new empowering inspirational television series Women in Power,in 2026. “Nicole Martinelli hopes to inspire others to realize that it’s never too late to pursue their dreams. She believes we each hold the pen and the brush to our own life’s story and always have the power to create a brighter, happier chapterand future!

My love is Zen painting an expression of no thought. A burst of energy.

As a child I was good at drawing and painting landscape scenes using vivid colors. I returned to painting in the 90's while I was traveling in India. I studied with Meera, a well known abstract Japanese artist, who used a no-mind, zen approach to painting.

Creative expression is a willingness to be open to what evolves on the canvas.

With no goal or result in mind, the time spent on the painting, the journey, is the result.

Whether or not it is pleasing to the eye, or to someone elses eye is another story.

My joy in painting is the appearance of shapes and colors rapidly forming before me. It takes me into quiet space inside.

The joy of painting and the pursuit of creative vision are at the core of my artistic practice.

Since early childhood, making art has been inseparable from a sense of wonder—an experience of connecting to something greater than myself. I have long been drawn to the mysterious ways in which art comes into being, as if it possesses a life of its own, capable of guiding both the creator and the viewer. In this process, art has the power to engage, mesmerize, and even transform.

Like Wassily Kandinsky, I believe that art can generate a spiritual and healing atmosphere. Whether consciously or intuitively, the artist may access a higher source, allowing the work to emerge as an expression of inner necessity. Kandinsky described art as a manifestation of the soul, suggesting that “everything which adequately expresses the inner need is beautiful.” This idea continues to resonate deeply within my own practice.

My background as an art historian has further shaped this perspective. Across cultures and historical periods, art has often been linked to ritual, transformation, and shifts in perception—experiences that move beyond the material and temporal toward the infinite and eternal. Ancient philosophical traditions recognized art as a means of transcending ordinary reality, a concept that continues to inform my work.

As an artist, I see the act of creation as sharing affinities with mysticism and the idea of “traveling between worlds.” In this sense, art becomes not only a form of expression but also a process of discovery and connection. It serves as a vital and generative force—one that supports both spiritual exploration and personal well-being.

Tatiana Sizonenko, PhD, is an art historian and a beginner painter. Originally born in Ukraine, educated in St. Petersburg, Russia, and in San Diego, CA, Tatiana currently resides in San Diego. Tatiana teaches history of art at CSUSM, Design Institute of San Diego, and UCSD.

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

My current work, informed by sacred geometry, explores synchronicities, interconnections, aggregation, and relationships. This body of work is primarily painted with gouache, graphite and colored pencil. Previous works have been painted in oil paint and mixed media, including collage and re-purposed objects such as switch plates and screws. Installations have also included lights, projection and sound.

Laurie Yehia is a visual artist based in Los Angeles. Her award-winning artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in private and public collections. She studied painting, drawing, photography an printmaking at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Stanford University, Wesleyan University (Connecticut), the School of Visual Arts (New York) and the Tom Wudl Studio (Los Angeles Arts District.) Her artwork is also informed by her legal practice and philosophies underlying her work with Quantum Leadership Solutions. A founding co-chair of StudioEleven Artists in 2014, she continues to exhibit with the group and co-curated its exhibits in its formative years. Since 2018, she has served as an adjudicator for the annual Santa Monica-Malibu USD’s Districtwide Visual Arts Competition. Yehia served as a Santa Monica Arts Commissioner 2016-2025, as Vice Chair 2023-25, Chair of its Public Art Committee 2019-23, member of its Media Arts Committee 2020-2025 and member of its Bergamot Ad Hoc Committee 2016-2024.