The top five artists in each category were given awards in the 5th Annual Waterscapes international online art exhibition. Below are the biographies and/or artist’s statements along with the artist’s websites or emails.
To contact these artists directly for purchase inquiries or to see more of their work, please visit the 5th Annual Waterscapes Exhibition page for contact information.
Congratulations again to all the winners and thank you for sharing your talent with us.
Best in Show (Traditional) – Jan Kornegay Dappen – “Reflections at Lake Louise” – oil
Originally from Columbus, GA, and presently living in Ellijay, GA with her husband, Jan Dappen is a realistic Award-winning artist with a touch of personality and life experiences blended in her oils, acrylics, watercolors and Graphite/Colored pencils. Jan creates from the heart…whatever inspires her. Self-taught with a love for history, cultures, landscapes and people, her compositions reflect the emotions and beauty of her natural surroundings and often featuring imperfections! Blessed with a God given talent, she is grateful and loves to share her passion. Jan has shown in Europe and here in Georgia. You can see her work at The Capitol Building in Atlanta, Buckhead, Cartersville, Columbus, several Ellijay Vineyards, Gilmer Arts, and other establishments in Downtown Ellijay. She is an active member of Gilmer Arts and a founding member of Gilmer Fine Artists. She also shows at the NGAF Art Gallery for persons with autism and disabilities in Blue Ridge. Her extended talents are represented in the signage and on wine labels in the local vineyards. Teaching Acrylic painting classes and painting en Plein Air are two of her favorite pastimes besides painting in her loft in the North GA Mountains, when not enjoying her kids and 6 grandchildren.
To see more of Jan’s work, please visit her website.
Best in Show (Photography & Digital) – John Diephouse – “Lake Superior Stillness” – photography
I am a primarily self-taught photographer who migrated to digital photography about fifteen years ago. This transition marked a qualitative shift in both my interest level and satisfaction with the results, due to the advantages of digital over traditional film photography. The ability to take a large volume of images without the expense of film and the ease of edits in the “digital darkroom” has encouraged me to experiment and expand my skills significantly.
After retiring from a professional management career, I have taken advantage of my time in retirement to more fully explore the technical and creative sides of this media. At this point in my development, I seek to share images with which I has a strong and instinctive personal connection. Images may be simply documentary, invoke a sense of time and place, or resonate as an abstract blend of color, shape or form. Others provoke an indefinable question that does not readily yield answers without further study and reflection.
My creative process follows an intuitive yet patterned path, from capturing a digital image through the process of interacting with and refining the image, searching for the combination of elements that produces an instinctive but undeniable connection. Most often, the images that provoke the strongest connection are those that do not produce an immediate reaction but provoke a response through repeated contact and consideration over time.
I have exhibited widely in local, regional, and national exhibitions and have been published in national fine art photography magazines. My photographs have won commendations for merit ranging from Honorable Mention to Best in Show. My photographs were also selected to hang in the Michigan Governor’s Mansion as part of a yearlong exhibition highlighting State of Michigan artists.
To see more of John’s work, please email him directly.
Best in Show (3 Dimensional) – Michele Bourdeau – “Wave” – bonded bronze
Michele Bourdeau does not have a formal education in Art or Sculpture. Her scientific background may help explain her fascination with the three-dimensional form and sculpture. She likes the texture of clay and enjoys feeling a form take shape under her fingers. She gets inspired from a variety of sources and tends to favor stylized, abstracted figures and forms. Apart from representing the figure, the artist is much inspired by the wildness of nature and un-tameness of the ocean in creating abstract forms. Her sculpture pieces do not result from careful planning. She tries to experiment with something new each time. The artist lets the idea evolve as she works along and likes to leave the sculpture speak for itself.
To see more of Michele’s work, please email her directly.
2nd Place (Traditional) – Raymond Smith – “Islands Life” – oil
Raymond Smith is a self-taught artist. After many years as an illustrator, he devoted himself to fine art, and especially plein air painting. He was born in Indiana and came to New York City to seek his fortune. For the past 30 years, he has lived in Hoboken, New Jersey where he has a studio and teaches art. He creates simple iconic images that can be a shared experience.
To see more of Raymond’s work, please visit his website.
2nd Place (Photography & Digital) – Felix Rivero – “Antarctica Sunlight” – photography & digital
I’m a new artist/photographer enjoying nature and landscapes. With my Photography, I like to show the beauty of nature so everyone can appreciate it.
To see more of Felix’s work, please visit his website.
2nd Place (3 Dimensional) – Hugo Martínez Rapari – “Tsunami” – thermofused glass and steel
Biography: Award-winning artist Hugo Martínez Rapari lives and works in his hometown Montevideo, Uruguay. Born in 1964, he’s been in a quest for art throughout all of his life. He started doing amateur drawing at an early age and then he started pursuing a formal and thorough training in arts.
In the 90s, after obtaining a C.P.A. Degree from Uruguayan State University, Martínez Rapari traveled around South and North America, learning about the essence and simplicity of the continent. During this trip, he started sensing how the countless bright and vibrant colors pervade onlookers with a certain feeling of unusual joy, vitality and coolness. In the following years, Martínez Rapari set out to create with glass, studied glass fusing with Argentinean renowned artists Miguel Diez and Rita Neumann.
He attended art courses at important international studios, museums, universities and institutions of different countries, including MOMA of New York City, Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires, Ateneo de Montevideo, NODE Berlín, among others. Martínez Rapari’s glasswork examines the opposing aesthetic notions of dimensionality and flatness. His creativity is bound by a strong philosophical nature, the lasting quest to breathe in life and explore every treasure to be found. Using discarded glass with a modified kiln fused technique, his work feels grounded, having a strong connection to the earth, yet manifests a light airiness through each rounded form.
Much like one of his favorite subjects, the seaside, Martínez Rapari´s art is subject to powerful elemental movements. This means much to his design, for nature is his muse and its influence rests at the core of his being with no pretense and no ego. Nature has “imperfect and complete beauty than needs no beautifiers, labels or identities in order to be”, he explains.
To Martínez Rapari, however, the environment and human world are two sides of the same coin. His practice is informed by an intuitive and experimental approach to different art languages (glass sculpture, painting, jewelry, photography, digital art, installation and video art). His work has been exhibited worldwide and published in books and magazines. His artworks are represented in numerous international art collections.
Artist Statement: My mother, Violeta, was the first woman in Uruguay that learned blown glass when working at a factory in the 50s. As an emotional connection, I was enthralled by the possibilities glass offers. Its characteristics make it intriguing and yet poetic. Glass lets me express -in an almost magical way- my spirituality and beauty -without resorting perfection nor conditionings- that all human beings have. It brightness and luminosity speak of permanence, light and wisdom. Just like art, it is put together and then broken down time and again. Glass molecules change, break apart and come together reorganizing themselves through heat, like a timeless unruffled embrace. The results are one of kind, unique, changeable and ethereal pieces. My body of work explores personal, community and country identity and the complex relationship between humans and the environment while simultaneously reflecting back into my own childhood memories.
To see more of Hugo’s work, please visit his website.
3rd Place (Traditional) – Monika Harmund Csanyi – “Calm” – oil on canvas
Hi, my name is Monika Harmund Csanyi. I‘m an award-winning Hungarian-American contemporary oil painter. Creating art has been a part of my life since I first held a pencil in my hand, and I love sharing my colorful world with others.
As an oil painter, I find inspiration in fragments of nature and man-made world. I love to see things from a different perspective, which perspective is also a part of our reality. My main goal is to open the eyes of the viewer and help others to realize how beautiful and colorful our life is. I would like to build bridges between the fantastic world around us and the people who appreciate the tiny, but precious and timeless moments.
My work is representational – sometimes with a little twist of impressionistic or abstract elements. I tend to paint series in regard to the exploration of a particular theme or image. My oil paintings can be recognized from strong, intense colors and meticulously elaborated subjects. My biggest passion is water, especially rain, and I’m working on a series using this element. I had 12 gallery exhibitions and I won 21 awards to date. I have paintings in private collections in the US, UK, France, Belgium and Hungary.
I am an associate member of Oil Painters of America (OPA), National Oil and Acrylic Painters’ Society (NOAPS), American Women Artists (AWA) and the Winter Garden Art Association.
To see more of Monika’s work, please visit her website.
3rd Place (Photography & Digital) – Francesco Lombardi – “Waves” – digital
Francesco Lombardi is an amateur photographer based in Italy.
To see more of Francesco’s work, please email him directly.
3rd Place (3 Dimensional) – Branimir Misic – “The Old Robot and the Sea” – mixed media wall sculpture
Educated as a mechanical engineer, I have been making stained glass and mixed media sculptures for over thirty years. The combination of my engineering and artistic experience has resulted in my original yet durable designs of robot sculptures, which are made from recycled metal and repurposed metal objects. The care with which I create my characters gives them, despite their physical immobility, an engaging personality. Drawing inspiration from movies, graphic novels, books personality, mythology personality, history personality and video games, my sculptures merge human, animal and mechanical characteristics to give each piece a unique personality. Multimedia robot sculptures, in particular, have become very popular with consumers, due to their unique fusion of human and animal characteristics. I have exhibited my sculptures all over Quebec, Canada and have won several awards.
To see more of Branimir’s work, please visit his website.
4th Place (Traditional) – Janet K. MacKay – “Islay Mist” – oil on canvas
Janet K. MacKay is a sculptor and painter working out of Worldview Studio and Gallery of Fine Art, located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She received her degree in Fine Arts from McMaster University and, after a government career in design and project management, she returned to her artistic roots in 1998. Janet’s oil-on-canvas paintings primarily capture the landscapes of Ontario and Quebec. Although her painting style is distinctively her own, it has been likened to that of the Group of Seven. She is presently working on a series of paintings depicting reflections of boats—from canoes and kayaks to fishing vessels. Her paintings are vibrant and distinctly Canadian. Janet’s bronze sculptures have an Art Nouveau flare and are primarily figurative, often focusing on dance. She is currently working on a series of sculptures capturing the graceful beauty of whales. Janet has participated in numerous solo and group shows and enjoys these opportunities to see, first hand, that spark of connection her art can make with its audience.
To see more of Janet’s work, please visit her website.
4th Place (Photography & Digital) – Mal Keeble – “Sunset under the Bridge” – digital photography
Mal is an emerging professional photographer based on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia. Mal is a communications and public relations professional and has a passion for storytelling – whether that is through words or images. Mal applies this storytelling approach through his photography.
Mal specializes in landscape, adventure, event and action photography, and donates his time generously through volunteering his photography skills to pet rescue and community organizations. Mal is a traveler, adventurer and hiker, a combination that fits perfectly with his pursuit of capturing landscape, wildlife and action images.
When asked about his approach to photography, Mal replied, “I take a minimal approach to my work and don’t get caught up in chasing the popular social media images or get stuck in the mumbo jumbo of photography jargon. I like to tell a simple story through my images.”
Mal’s images have been featured by ABC Australia and in local newspapers.
To see more of Mal’s work, please visit his website.
4th Place (3 Dimensional) – Caterina Stambolic – “The Head” – alcohol ink, duralar, resin on wood panel
Artist Statement: “Prone to Overthinking” is an ongoing series created by Caterina Stambolic exploring the relationship between viewer and art object as that experience relates to how we experience reality both as shared beings and as individuals. The structures and patterns themselves take their cues from images of neurons, mapped cell structures, and brain scans.
When considering the impact our brain chemistry has on the way we each experience life, these wall-mounted sculptures are designed to highlight the diversity inherent in our perception of them. They may shape light independently, but they rely on the position and movement of the viewer relative to the work. The pieces presented in this collection have taken inspiration from the colours, calm, and energy of bodies of water.
Each piece has been created with the solace of lakes and rivers at their core. Sculptures are adhered to resined wood panels suitable for wall mounting, and have an average relief of 6″.
Biography: Caterina Stambolic is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in Toronto, Ontario. She graduated with a BA Honours Studio Art from Brock University in 2017. Most recently, her work has been shown at the 2020 Toronto Outdoor Art Fair (Online), at Ontario Place’s 2020 Winter Light Festival, and the 2018 Annual Ontario Society of Artists’ Emerging Artist Exhibition.
Caterina works primarily in sculpture, photography and animation, but is always experimenting in new mediums. Harnessing her own experiences with depression and anxiety, her work seeks to make sense of those feelings and create spaces where people can feel a sense of togetherness and peace. This has led her to investigate how our brain chemistry, and specifically mental illness, affects so much of how we relate to our world on a physical level.
To see more of Caterina’s work, please visit her website.
5th Place (Traditional) – Richard William Barnett – “Duck Dive” – oil on panel
Richard Barnett was born in Alexandria Virginia on August 16, 1962 and now resides in Thousand Oaks CA. Like many young boys of his generation Richard’s first artistic influences came from the figures and depictions of movement found in comic books, but exposure to the color, light and brushstrokes, found in the paintings of the Impressionists, showed him a new world. His vision was further altered through exposure to the figures of John Singer Sargent, inspiring him to pursue something that might link these influences.
Richard’s formal education in painting took place at Roanoke College in Salem Virginia, and the School of Visual Arts in NYC, and his work has been shown in galleries in Maine, Virginia and California. Currently he is showing in the member’s gallery of Studio Channel Islands in Camarillo CA.
Richard now embraces a fairly simple, yet infinitely complex goal, exploring the figure in all its diversity. A fitting pursuit for one lifetime.
To see more of Richard’s work, please visit his website.
5th Place (Photography & Digital) – Paul M. Murray – “A Lucy Vincent Sunrise” – color photography
My photography remains a work in progress. I am very much a visual traveler who interacts with people, places, objects, and ideas on a variety of levels through several planes of vision that intersect with time and space. At those intersections, I may capture a moment and portray it with my implied perspective. The journeys to those intersections afford the opportunity to see and perhaps become intrigued by what I am experiencing.
Often the storytelling aspects of the photographic art form capture my attention and motivate a series of related images. Although my perspective is predominantly reality-based, I acknowledge not only the subjective nature of what I portray in my images but an interest in pursuing at times more abstract images.
To the extent that my images enrich the experience and vision of others, I feel that I have achieved a way of communicating that is unique to me as a photographer.
To see more of Paul’s work, please visit his website.
5th Place (3 Dimensional) – Chiara Vincenzi – “Sea View from an Imaginary Window” – textile
Chiara Vincenzi is an Italian fashion designer, artist and educator living and practicing in US.
To see more of Chiara’s work, please email her directly.
