ARTIST OF THE WEEK: Jane O'Hara

In recent years, Jane O'Hara's studio work has reflected her passion for animals. Her paintings capture the spirit of animals in contemporary life. Bold compositions and sensitive rendering are combined to exhibit the emotional depth of the animals she paints. With her commissions of animal companions and her involvement with several animal groups, she is able to use her artwork as an enthusiastic advocate for the dignity of all animals. O'Hara communicates her vision of the animal condition. Both the insensitivity, or conversely the pampering and casting of human traits onto the animal, both disturb and intrigue her, and she comments on those tendencies with humor and irony in her artwork.

Born in Connecticut, O'Hara now divides her time between Little Compton, RI and Boston, MA. She received her BFA from Boston University, School of Fine Arts in 1978. For over 30 years O'Hara has used her realistic training from BU to paint murals, and it has provided a solid foundation for her studio work and portrait commissions.



"Fashionista"
6"x6"
acrylic on high gloss surfaced wood block.
Click pic to see more of Jane’s work.

ARTIST OF THE WEEK: Linda Summers Posey

Linda Summers Posey is an award-winning artist, jewelry designer and writer. Her “cosmic” art grows from her awe for our magical, limitless universe and her love of astronomy and science fiction. In addition to her strictly abstract pieces, she created a new art form she calls “Ike Art.” The day after Hurricane Ike passed through her Houston neighborhood, she looked out at the branches, leaves, even whole trees filling the streets. Instead of giving in to this depressing vision, Linda decided to find something positive – and she discovered art materials. The resulting “Ike Art” paintings are created using pine needles, oak leaves, lichens, moss, etc. as brushes and patterns. “It’s very satisfying,” she says, “to create something so colorful and beautiful from bits of the storm’s destruction.”

In 2007 Linda founded Artists Alive and Well, Inc. (AAW), a Houston-based artists’ support network. “Artists Alive and Well focuses on helping our members build their careers with passion and confidence,” she says. “We’ve held half a dozen 25-50-artist shows and several smaller ones in locations ranging from large galleries to major office buildings to City Hall. We’re gaining recognition for our artists throughout Greater Houston, and teaching them how to market and manage their art careers.” Linda lives in Houston with her husband of nearly 40 years and their three cats.



“Galaxies-Merger_and_Acquis”
24x36
Acrylic
Click pic to see more of Linda’s work.

ARTIST OF THE WEEK: Kathy Casey

Kathy Casey is a painter living and working in South Carolina. She works in mixed media including acrylics, charcoal, crayon and collage on hand textured canvas or board. Kathy’s non-objective paintings evoke the spirit of a natural evolution that results from the passage of time. Each is about flux – the ever changing nature of life. Each piece serves as a metaphor for life: birth and death, creation and decay, growth and transformation. Each arrangement is as much about destruction as construction. Surface quality and texture are often inspired by the corrosion and dissipation that the artist sees in the landscape and old buildings ...cracked stucco, weathered wood, the patina of rusting iron. Random words are often found within each piece from the collaged found papers that often serve to add personal meaning to the works. Casey searches for beauty in the seemingly imperfect, unearthing and embracing subtle details that beacon the viewer to linger and look more closely.
Kathy is represented by City Art Gallery in Columbia, SC and Ellis-Nicholson Gallery in Charleston, SC.




"Every Now and Then"
36” x 36”
Mixed media on canvas (sold)
Click pic to see more of Kathy Casey’s work.

ARTIST OF THE WEEK: Chris Billington

Expression through creation - communication through colour

Unexpectedly and suddenly coming to painting, as if driven by an inexplicable force, my emergence as an artist has been swift, and totally out of the blue. I am now working full time from my studio in Falmouth and am committed to painting as a process of creation and discovery. Through constant investigation into the properties of colour my painting has grown into a distinct language and style, often with a strong linear or geometric structure, always infused with successive layers of strong, saturated colour and drawing heavily on Cornwall.

Thus the most important thing to me as an artist is colour.

Artistic highlights to date include successfully exhibiting throughout Cornwall and painting myself on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square, London.. My work is already in the private collections of many artists and collectors both nationally and internationally, including London, Japan, Moscow, New York and Florida. The art historian John A. Walker recently described my paintings as “accomplished work, colourful and decorative”




“Making Space” which has just been chosen to feature on a 2010 Calendar.
Click pic to see more of Chris Billington’s work.

ARTIST OF THE WEEK: Joyce Lieberman

Joyce Lieberman is a visual artist from Venice, California. Her "UNStill Life" series features painted works on paper and canvas displaying flower-filled vases in luscious colors with colliding and overlapping pattern. The most recent works are more restful and about 'Trees'.

Lieberman has worked in collage. The largest series is called the Personal Archaeologies. They are created from older paintings reworking and mixed with recycled bits of interest that I find in stamps, paper, and fabric." The "Venn Diagram" series has evolved from the collages and an attempt to "Figure things out'. The inside partitions of wine cases have collapsible cardboard that look cool when painted. I have been looking at this for years and for the Twitter 140 show have been able to make use of them the best way possible.
Click pic to view more work by Joyce Lieberman



Joyce Lieberman
"Garden Grove"
4x4'
Acrylic on canvas