The top five artists in each category were given awards in the 6th Annual Cityscapes 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 6th Annual Cityscapes Art Exhibition page for contact information.
Congratulations again to all the winners and thank you for sharing your talent with us.
Best in Show (Traditional) – Feng Fei – “Outside the Window” – tempra
Feng Fei was born in an artistic family. Her father was a well-known Chinese artist and her first art teacher. He made her firmly believe that painting was a most beautiful lifestyle in the world.
She majored in advertising design in Beijing Industrial and Commercial University. In 1997, she worked for a 4A advertising agency but no matter how stressful her work was, she never gave up painting because she knew that it was her true love and inner spiritual world.
During the pandemic, she graduated from the Central Academy of Fine Arts where she put her heart and soul into the creation of visual art.
Feng Fei believes life and short and she will continue to paint until the last moment of her life. She is grateful to her family, art and God.
Feng Fei can be reached via her email.
Best in Show (Photography & Digital) – Paul M. Murray – “Havana Living #1” – 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.
Paul’s website is www.harmonicthreads.com
Best in Show (3 Dimensional) – M.A. Bailey – “Urbanoise” – glass mosaic on charred wood (Yakisugi)
M.A. Bailey originally hails from the East Coast of the U.S., where he grew up on the cliffs of the Palisades overlooking the Hudson River and New York City. There he began his love for culture and the fine arts and found the inspiration in his youth to study theatre and performance at Rutgers University and The Mason Gross School of the Arts.
After a long career working as an actor and singer in every imaginable medium – from theatre, TV, and film to video games and music videos – his interests and desires for other avenues of expression continued to grow and eventually brought him to start working with art that could be created by hand. He began by training in stained glass with a local artisan and has never since stopped exploring and expanding his points of view. His passions for new tangible expression flourishes, and he now devotes his time to working in his studio and exploring the creative process through his unique sculptures.
Some of his earliest 3-dimensional pieces took their cue from the traditional Japanese method of wood burning – yakisugi – a blackening of the wood that reveals clean, distinct lines and an inherent textural beauty. Combining that with his glass-making skills allowed for a unique take on sculptural relief and a furthered honing of his woodworking skills. Although his love for stained glass and for his particular use of it in unconventional ways hasn’t waned, the fragility of glass as a medium then led him to explore other materials. This exploration has brought him to his current series of works, utilizing resin and recycled plastics, combined with exotic woods, to create geometric sculptures that get their inspiration from both other historical art forms like traditional stained glass and totem carving – and the natural geometric configurations and array of colors found throughout nature.
M.A.’s website is www.mabaileyart.com
2nd Place (Traditional) – Frank Koran – “Columbus Circle Hot Dog Stand” – watercolor
Frank Koran currently lives and works in New York City. Drawing on the inherent fleeting nature of watercolors, his paintings evoke memories of places often looked over, revealing vibrant shared spaces hiding in plain sight. He uses the medium to explore transitory nostalgia in everyday urban life, among the forgotten corners of New York City with fresh brushstrokes and dynamic lighting. His work aims to bring the peripheral into focus and the unseen into view.
Frank’s website is www.frankkoran.com
2nd Place (Photography & Digital) – Ben Asen – “Moonrise over Water Towers, NYC” – photographic print
Ben Asen is a true New Yorker, born and raised in Brooklyn. He then moved into Manhattan where he began to fulfill his dream of becoming a photographer. He slowly built a career and for over 35 years has specialized in corporate, non-profit, editorial and portrait photography.
In the last five years, Ben has decided to dedicate more time to his fine art. He has traveled extensively throughout Europe, but New York is still the place that gets into his soul. He never gets tired of photographing his city.
Ben loves taking the subway early in the morning to explore and photograph all the diverse neighborhoods that New York has to offer. Many times, he doesn’t return home until the last bit of daylight has disappeared. Photographing cityscapes—especially the city’s iconic wooden water towers—has become his passion. Ben has collected several hundred images of these uniquely New York structures, but he finds that they are getting more difficult to find. The city’s ever-increasing number of high-rise buildings has either demolished or blocked views of them.
Ben always has a camera over his shoulder, never knowing when the next image to take will appear. He loves shapes and shadows in photos, but it is the right light that is a major factor in creating his images.
It’s All About The Light has become Ben’s mantra.
Ben’s website is https://shopart.benasen.com
2nd Place (3 Dimensional) – Laura Sturtz – “Cityscape” – steel, paint
Biography: Laura Sturtz is a versatile artist creating work in both 3D and 2D. She explores both geometric and organic forms in her artwork. Presently, her work is primarily in metals and wood. She also spent 10+ years almost exclusively creating in ceramic. She enjoys being challenged by processes that arise in exploring various media. Both wood and metal present joinery, form, and finishing issues. Testing and investigating traditional and non-traditional techniques is part of her process in developing an artwork. Laura has participated in numerous juried national and regional exhibitions and her work is in many national and international private collections. In the last several years, Laura has been involved in creating larger metal sculptures, which have been exhibited in various public art locations. Simultaneously, she works on at least two different bodies of work. She says that with so many options, life is too short to simply focus on one area to the exclusion of all else.
Artist Statement: In my Shadow Sculpture series, I’m exploring taking the linear aspect of drawing into 3-dimensional relief. As a sculptor, my primary concern is with form in three dimensions. In sculpture, the artwork changes as the viewer moves. Relationships between forms shift. Creating in 3D requires the artist to be in several places at once. The accidental or planned way the light falls on my Shadow Sculpture series creates a changed piece each time it is exhibited.
Laura’s website is http://artist123.com
3rd Place (Traditional) – Robert Padovano – “Williamsburg Bridge, View from Marcy Avenue” – acrylic on canvas
Biography: Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, self-taught artist Robert Padovano is best known for his vibrant Impressionistic cityscapes of New York and its’ surrounding environment. His painting method incorporates both Impressionist and Pointillist techniques, often juxtaposing dabs of pure thick color side by side. When viewed at a distance, the eye mixes these colors to give a luminescent quality to light and shadows.
Robert’s paintings are part of many private and international collections. He has exhibited at The Staten Island Museum, The John A. Noble Maritime Museum, The Newhouse Gallery of Contemporary Art, The E. Mayan Studio in New York City, Union Gallery in Lambertville, New Jersey, National Lighthouse Museum, and many others. His work has been included in juried shows at The Salmagundi Club in New York and the American Artists Professional League.
He has also done public murals for PS 41 in New Dorp, Staten Island, and for the SI Arts Culture Lounge at the SI Ferry Terminal, and has been part of the “Sing for Hope” Pop-up Piano project for the last 9 years.
Robert attended Brooklyn College and studied design at The School of Visual Arts in New York City. He is also an award-winning graphic artist, and has received numerous national and international design awards from Print Magazine, Graphis, Creativity Annual, and American Corporate Identity, among many others.
Artist Statement: I have always loved Impressionism. Even as a child, I could recall stumbling onto a painting by Monet or Sisely in a book and noticing something about it that was very different from anything I’d seen before. The colors and images were very bold and beautiful, but somehow the fascination went beyond that. It would remind me of a moment or a time that I could recall feeling myself. This was magical to me. It would become a defining moment in my life, affecting the way I looked at art from then on. I knew I wanted to do this myself. When I paint, my goal is to capture the atmosphere around a subject, not just the subject itself. Whether it is the color of the morning air, the look of the city after a heavy rain, or how the late afternoon sun can completely change the mood of a day, this is most meaningful to me. I find it thrilling to be able to recreate that feeling in my own paintings. If I can make the viewer feel the same thing, then I feel I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. This is what I want others to see in my work.
Robert’s website www.padovanofineart.com
3rd Place (Photography & Digital) – Cindy Charles – “Through the Windshield” – digital photography
Cindy Charles is a Digital Photo artist based out of Montreal, Canada. Although, she has never had formal training, her love of photography has been her passion for years. Dabbling in many mediums such as painting and pottery, none has captured her imagination and creativity more than photo artistry. Her inspiration is strongly driven by vibrant colours, textures and shapes. Architecture and retro objects are among her favourite things to photograph. She joined the popular on line course Photoshop Artistry in 2017 and never looked back. After honing her new techniques, photography took on a new dimension. Through this medium, ordinary photographs are now transformed into creative, artistic pieces. Cindy spends hours a day creating art. She has since amassed a prolific portfolio, which has led her to exhibiting her work and selling her pieces. Her art has been in many issues of the magazine Living the Photoartistic Life, where she was recently honoured as the featured artist.
Cindy can be reached via her email.
3rd Place (3 Dimensional) – Barbara Gilhooly – “Pop-Up City” – acrylic on plywood
Biography: Barbara Gilhooly was born in North Dakota in 1963. She attended the University of North Dakota and received her BFA in 1986. Concentrating on printmaking and sculpture, Gilhooly earned her MFA from Colorado State University in 1989. Gilhooly works as a professional artist and maintains an active exhibition schedule. Recently, her work was shown in Paris, New York, Colorado, and several exhibitions in the Twin Cities. She works in a variety of materials and is known for her sculptural wire, paintings on wood panels.
Artist Statement: My city paintings are not any specific place, but a celebration of the patterns, shapes and lines of all cities. Growing up in North Dakota, I was attracted to the excitement and architecture of the downtown cities I saw on T.V., movies and magazines. I work on wood because I’m interested in the surface and layers of a painting. I was trained as a printmaker, with a strong background in drawing. Line is an important element in my work. I start with layers of paint on wood panels and build a rich active surface before a composition evolves. I carve linear patterns into the wood surface. I work intuitively as I apply paint with brushes and cards; or remove layers with sandpaper, Windex, or carving.
Barbara’s website is http://barbaragilhooly.com
4th Place (Traditional) – Xindi Zhao – “Sunshine on Highway” – oil on canvas
Since he was very young, he has felt a connection with painting. At that time, he was just curious. He didn’t continue to pursue it until he started to go to college. The main focus of his work is the urban landscape. He often wanders around the city, looking for buildings with a sense of age and style. His urban landscape is done using oil paintings on canvas or panels. His paintings are basically photos of places he has been to.
The reason why he chose to paint urban landscapes is that he has been very fond of architectural design since he was a child. When he was in university in China, he had the opportunity to study in Florence, Italy. His life experience in Europe has stimulated his curiosity in all kinds of knowledge, including sculpture, architecture, film, new media, and animation. This also gave him a strong interest in art and painting, of which European architecture has the greatest influence. European architecture is very distinctive, and many buildings have traces of sculptures, which illustrate the evolution and process of history. This inspired his strong desire to understand them. This is also where he first learned about architecture. When he came to the United States from China, he set his goal even higher. He believes that urban architecture is the best representative of a place. It reveals the history and culture of a place but also records the style and environment of the place.
He has been to many different cities. He likes the feeling of light very much. Light always brings warmth to people. At the same time, the light is dazzling. So most of his works are about light in the city. His paintings are roughly divided into two-time points: sunrise and sunset. He believes that lighting is the most special of this era. Sunrise and sunset are very warm rays. This is a very different feeling. Through his paintings, he wants to show his audience how he feels about the combination of city and light so that they can also experience this feeling. Imagine a painting with warm light on buildings of different styles, evoking different feelings: this is exactly what he wants. He hoped that the audience would watch his paintings with an immersive feeling.
Xindi can be reached via email.
4th Place (Photography & Digital) – Marcia Berg Haskell- “Providence #6” – digital photography
As an artist, Marcia uses a number of starting points. Her drawings may be used as a starting point for her paintings or may be scanned into the computer and manipulated into computer art. Her photography may be post-processed for color and density, or she may manipulate them into her ‘Fractured Fotos’ where no aspect of the original is sacred. Another starting point for her art is paint on paper or Yupo. Her original paintings were layered acrylic paints, with a variety of surface characteristics, to create non-representation scenes.
Marcia’s style of creating artwork is ever changing. As a former scientist she loved to experiment and that desire has carried into her artwork. She prefers trying new techniques and new visual approaches rather than continuing to work with whose she has mastered. Her photographic work tends to try to capture her reactions to the physical world around her. It frequently is abstract or manipulated and is designed to present the viewer with the sensations associated with her feelings or emotions. Today she adds elements such as rhinestones, wire, glitter and/or metallic inks to many of her pieces, feeling these create a stronger viewer experience.
Marcia loves nature and has many photographs of flowers and leaves. She is always looking for new ways to capture the essence of the plants and bushes around her. Similarly, she enjoys photographing trees and has a series of ‘Tree Faces’, where the branches, bark, sun and shadows create the shapes of the faces. No physical object, from nature or manmade is outside the range of her camera.
Whatever the material Marcia’s goal is to reflect her unique vision of the world and all its possibilities.
Marcia’s website is www.marciascreativeworld.com
5th Place (Traditional) – Shurong Lin – “Empire State Building” – oil
Lin Shurong is a Chinese artist. He is a member of the Fujian Branch of the International Federation of calligraphers and painters, visiting professor of Prince Australia Academy of fine arts, a member of the Artists Association of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region. He is also a graduate tutor, a painter of the Chinese sketching club, a painter of Beijing Golden Zhengde calligraphy and Painting Institute, President of the Oil Painting Institute of the Australian Federation of Chinese artists, and the executive vice president of Sydney Chinese Academy of calligraphy and painting Head of Prince Australia art school. He has long been signed with Prince Gallery Sydney and Art & frame performance Corp.
Shurong Lin can be reached via email.
5th Place (Photography & Digital) – Kathy Brady – “NYC Sailboat at Dusk in Storm” – digital photography
Kathy Brady’s photography style is best described as simple and natural but passionate. Her favorite subjects are animals and nature. She enjoys getting to know each subject, up close and personal through the lens, and revealing something deeper in the resulting photo. Kathy is greatly inspired by wild animals and loves when they trust her enough to let her take their picture; they seem to sense she will do no harm to them. Kathy hopes her photographs ignite a deeper appreciation of the emotions and unique qualities in all the living creatures God put in the world. “See the world differently” is her motto.
Kathy’s photography has won multiple awards and has appeared in physical and online galleries including “Fusion Art” in Palm Springs, CA, “Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery,” “Grey Cube Gallery”, “Shoot the Frame’s Shoot the Wild”, “Artroom Gallery Online”, “1650 Gallery” in Los Angeles, CA, “The Gallery in the Park” at the Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Westchester, NY, “Gallery MC” in New York City, “Colors of Humanity Art Gallery,” “Confluence Art Gallery,” and “Green Door Art Gallery” in St. Louis, MO. Kathy has also been published in UK magazine, Wildlife Photography World.
Kathy is a “Wildlife Conservation Society’s Wild View” Top Contributor and has been featured several times. She is also a Curator for “View Bug” and has had her photos displayed several times on their opening page and on their Wall of Fame in addition to being part of their “Behind the Lens” series for their social media and blog.
Kathy’s website is www.wolfeyesphotography.com
