Visit the 6th Annual Artist’s Choice Art Exhibition HERE.
Best in Show (Traditional) – Yue Zeng – “Night Watcher Black Panther” – oil
Yue Zeng’s painting practice sees her producing a diverse range of imagery in a fantastically detailed and, at times, photorealistic technique. Recent projects include a particular focus on mythical creatures and magical scenery. She also specializes in imagery of wild animals in oil as well as in pencil.
She thrives on challenging projects, creating a range of visual effects and meticulous textures within her paintings, often working with complex reflective ocean surfaces, animal fur and dappled light. Her landscape and seascape paintings are expansive and atmospheric, showing open vistas over fields and waves, and closer views of mossy trees.
Zeng uses a variety of media including oil paint on stretched canvas, delicate gouache on paper and beautiful, monochrome pen and ink drawings.
Yue Zeng’s webstie is https://yuezengartstudio.com/
Best in Show (Photography & Digital) – Juan Cavalleiro – “Social Wall” – digital drawing on aluminum sheet canvas
My work revolves around the celebration and the examination of social justice, nature, movement, society (good or bad sides), and humans, with the use of fantasy as emphasis. I love using my graphic design background and creativity to give my works that extra something that I believe is there but can’t be seen with naked eyes.
Juan’s work can be viewed on his Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/a.c.jc
Best in Show (3 Dimensional) – Douglas Aja – “Football Buddies” – bronze
Douglas Aja has been sculpting African wildlife since the late 1990s. Since that time he donates a portion of the sales proceeds to various conservation organizations as well as donates sculptures for fund raising events. Though he sculpts a variety of species, he specializes in the African elephant. Many elephants are known individuals from Amboseli National Park in Kenya. He has been a longtime supporter of Amboseli Trust for Elephants, ElephantVoices, The Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, Action for Cheetahs in Kenya and Laikipia Wildlife Forum (LWF).
Aja’s bronze sculptures are in the private collections of elephant researchers Cynthia Moss and Joyce Poole, wildlife cinematographer Martyn Colbeck, the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, the Bennington Center for the Arts and NBA great and Basketball Hall of Famer Sam Jones.
Traveling to Africa for the first time in 1978, Doug took part in a wilderness education program with the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). There he studied wilderness and mountaineering skills, outdoor leadership, minimum impact camping and Kenya’s culture. He continues to visit East Africa regularly to take photos, gather reference material and to further his knowledge and understanding of his subjects. He often backpacks on Mount Kenya, through Maasailand and has climbed Kilimanjaro.
Doug’s website is https://gallery.artistsforconservation.org/artists/1238/gallery/all
