Barbara Kassel

Cana

2015

oil on linen on panel

oil on linen on panel

oil on linen over panel

oil on linen on panel

Helene and Eric Bess are a team who have been collaborating for over 20 years. Both are professional artists with extensive experience in both the commercial and fine art fields. They presently work out of their studio in Florida, creating original art for gallery display, fine art crafts and taking commissions for murals & embellishments. Helene was born in Canada in 1949. She studied art in Europe as a young adult and attended Phoenix Pratt School of Design in New York and St. Petersburg Community College in Florida. She worked for advertising agencies and freelance art projects such as theater design and t-shirt designs for several companies. She owned and operated an art studio (“Artistic Endeavors”) in Melbourne, Fl. for five years. She started doing murals and embellishments (residential and commercial) from 1992 till present. She considers her early life in Europe the major source of her artistic influence as well as the works of Modigliani. Eric was born in Missouri in 1950. He started drawing literally as an infant and has never stopped. He was taking commissions for book covers & wall designs in his teens and studied art at Auburn University and The University of Alabama. He taught art in public schools in Alabama in the ‘70s. He worked as art director at Huntsville Educational Television for 6 years, as art director at Southern Sportswear in Daytona for 9 years, at Creative Signs & Designs in Flagler, Fl. for 6 years, and as a freelance artist and co-owner (with his wife Helene) of “BessStudio” (formerly “Artistic Innovations Inc.”) since 1998. His artistic influences include Michelangelo, Vermeer, Blake, Maxfield Parish...

'Jicky', elaborately and exquisitely painted by Adrienne Sherman in oil on panel with a lacquer-like luster. The original painting is rich and reflective, and depicts the artist's do...

Maysaloun Faraj is an Iraqi/American born (1955) London based painter and sculptor.  Growing up between the USA (1950s-60s), Baghdad (1970s) and London (from 1982) with intermittent bouts in Paris, collectively contributed to shaping Faraj’s creative output and artistic accomplishment. Graduated with a BSc in Architecture, University of Baghdad (1978) and went on to study sculptural ceramics at Putney School of Art and Design and was resident at the Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2015/17/18). Displaced by decades of war, deeply rooted in Iraq, Faraj’s work contemplates the intersection of place and identity and explores the dynamics between overarching societal concerns and the highly personal.  Her visual vocabulary is colour and basic geometric forms; an ideal realm for harmony and order.  Amid an aesthetic informed by architectural discipline is a complex web of references bridging East and West, ancient and contemporary, often pondering on ‘spirituality’ and the transience of human existence. Her career spans four decades with work in various mediums, creating subtle interplay between two and three-dimensional forms. Furthermore, Faraj has been an integral figure in the rise of the modern Middle East Art scene; curatorial work includes the first international showcase of Iraqi art (tour UK/USA 2000-3) exploring  the work of pioneering Iraqi artists and subsequent generation. She is editor of the seminal publication  Strokes of Genius: Contemporary Iraqi art...

Svetlana Kalachnik’s unmistakable work expresses a mastery of the craft of painting, her art depicts situations of complicity between her characters; she takes the viewer into a worl...