The top five artists in each category were given awards in the 6th Annual Colorful Abstractions 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 Colorful Abstractions Exhibition page for contact information.
Congratulations again to all the winners and thank you for sharing your talent with us.
Best in Show (Traditional) – Hannelore Fischer – “Intersection 5” – acrylic on canvas
Hannelore Fischer started her art career in Munich, Germany where she exhibited watercolors, etchings and pencil drawings. After immigrating to the United States in 1978, she continued her work as a graphic artist, illustrator and fine artist.
In 1987, she began her formal art training at the Sacramento City College focusing on painting, ceramics and printmaking. In 1994, she continued her fine art undergraduate studies at the UC Davis Art Department with Wayne Thiebaud, Mike Henderson and Squeak Carnwath, and mural painting with Malaquias Montoya. Her murals can be seen in Vacaville, Sacramento, Woodland, Oakland and Vallejo, California. She graduated with a BFA from UC Davis in 1998 with highest honors. In 2000, she entered the Master’s Program in Fine Art at John F. Kennedy University in Berkeley. She engaged deeply with Transformative Art practices, which created a shift in the way she views and experiences the world. In 2004, Hannelore graduated from JFKU with a Master’s Degree in Studio Art with focus on abstract painting.
Her paintings are inspired by nature. She creates visionary abstracts and landscapes in vivid colors, fluid gesture and pronounced texture. Hannelore’s painting process is a reductive method where she applies acrylic paint mixed with clear acrylic medium in washes, gestural brush strokes, and varying stipple techniques, then washes the paint application away at various stages of dryness, partially exposing previous marks. With repeated overlapping of shapes in dynamic interplay of colors, she fuses outer with inner reality.
Her imagery is often reminiscent of an otherworld, of microscopic cell structures or faraway galaxies. With her intuitive and meditative paintings, she strives to inspire the viewer and infuse harmony and beauty into her work as a celebration of life. She has exhibited her work in California and Oregon with enthusiastic response.
Please visit Hannelore’s website if you are interested in seeing more of her work.
Best in Show (Photography & Digital) – Y. Hope Osborn – “Cosmos” – digitally manipulated photography
Artist Biography: Y. Hope Osborn earns an MA summa cum laude in Professional and Technical Writing with Creative Nonfiction emphasis this month. Her education included valuable lessons in document design, website development, and Creative Cloud Suite, feeding her passion for photography. She seeks elusive great Captures and sometimes the creative twist to illustrate documents and web and promote art itself.
Hope began photography as a child with a 110mm camera. Without art education or photographer training, my experience grew with time and freedom from expectation. Only an expensive hobby then, digital cameras gave her freedom to fully engage in artistic perspective and imagination. She doesn’t mind amusing bystanders as she crouches for architectural angles or lies down for diminutive clover.
Despite her lifelong interest in capturing life, Hope only turned her passion professional in 2019 with competitions and exhibits and honing digital artistry and creative instinct. She shares her perspectives in social media, publications, and exhibits, such as in Portland, Oregon’s Black Box Gallery and Little Rock, Arkansas’ The Rep Artworks.
In June, Fusion Art honored her with a solo spotlight exhibit, and she has awards from competitions through Fusion Art; Black Box Gallery; Light, Space and Time; Art-Competition; Contemporary Art Gallery Online; J. Mane Gallery; Contemporary Art Room Gallery; and Monovisions. She continues to receive acceptances to publish both writing and photography.
Artist Statement: I am inspired by the poetry of alternative music, my colorful garden, my red feeder’s flitting hummingbirds, and textured architecture. I am inspired looking over my patio from my blue Edwardian sofa and over a valley of autumn-splendored trees from a hilltop. In the inspirations of daily life and rare jaunts farther afield, despite ill health and energy, I capture life to relax; remember; and, more recently in colorful abstracts, imagine worlds from and within my world.
Blessed with an artist’s heart and mind, I take my pictures, keeping and sharing, hoping you see my life and art for the opportunity to reach for things thought beyond your grasp to do or be, whether limited by discouraging words, poor health, marginal finances, unemployment, or life-shattering pandemic. Take a breath. Stay a moment. Find inspiration, as I do mine, through a medium you may appreciate life adapting around you or worlds awaiting within a sparkling twist on tulips.
I take photographs on a non-professional camera or my iPhone not just, because I am literally a starving artist, but because too much gear or too much perfectionism may hinder my movement. I may miss the rare moments when an unending monotonous valley of summer green is lit up by sun and shadowed by cloud to show hills and hillocks and reflect green variance and blue water. I use a variety of photography apps to show you what I see in life and imagination.
Photography is God’s gift of respite from a frantic world and restless thoughts. Being an artist is to be entrusted to express reality and imagination in ways that captivate, inspire, or inform to enrich lives.
Please visit Hope’s website if you are interested in seeing more of her work.
Best in Show (3 Dimensional) – Cynthia Correia – “Archway Shadows” – latex on wood
Cynthia Correia is a bold colorist and minimalist. Her dimensional paintings move you outside the lines and draw you deeper into her work. She uses color, shape, additive and subtractive measures to stimulate an emotional response.
She was influenced and inspired early on by Frank Stella and Josef Albers without understanding the impact color would have on the rest of her life. Inspired by unexpected color combinations she saw in nature and by her experience as a graphic designer and builder, she began painting on wood to express her passion for color and 3-dimensional art.
Please visit Cynthia’s website if you are interested in seeing more of her work.
2nd Place (Traditional) – Merritt Richardson – “Alterna” – acrylic on canvas
From an early age, Merritt Richardson enjoyed creating, finding magic in the possibilities of bringing something new into the world by her own hands. At a crossroads between graphic design and business upon entering college, opportunity directed Merritt to a business degree and, subsequently, a long prosperous career in an intense, fast-paced corporate life at a major sports product company. As a business and product strategy leader, she gained a greater understanding of the power of good design, the importance of color and quality materials and the emotional connection created by strong storytelling. Her profession afforded her the chance to travel extensively, observe many cultures, and experience first-hand some of the most inspiring creations, events and places in the world.
Career and family responsibilities relegated art to an occasional hobby until Merritt retired in 2017. At a new crossroad, her opportunity now is to draw on life’s experiences to explore the creativity she always knew would play a major role in her next chapter. Painting acrylic abstracts has emerged as her passion. Primarily self-taught, she draws on her knowledge of color theory and love of texture to intuitively create vibrant, bold, energetic pieces. She is inspired by complex simplicity and unexpected contrasts which are both prevalent in her work. Her favorite aspect of abstract is the variety of reactions and emotional responses that the same painting evokes for different people.
Initially creating for family and friends, she has expanded the reach of her work through private commissions, social media and local “featured artists” events.
Please visit Merritt’s website if you are interested in seeing more of her work.
2nd Place (Photography & Digital) – Roland Escalona – “Cascading Water” – digital abstract art
The digital abstract arts I am submitting for this exhibit are products of my fascination of colors, combined with my love of nature, particularly the hills and the mountains. These artworks are imaginations I see in nature, seeing from a distance, while driving on the highway leading to the mountainous areas of the Sierra Nevada, Colorado, or Utah. But instead of being covered with green grasses, rocks, or snow, they are covered with radiant and vibrant colors that you can only find in a fantasy world. I also focus more on the curvature forms to soften the overall feel of my artworks.
I normally start by figuring out what colors I would like my piece to be, but I let my imagination and creativity lead me to the overall geometry. With digital arts programs like Photoshop, I can play around with forms and change colors to my satisfaction, until I see the visual aesthetic that I am happy and satisfied with. My process involves a lot of trial and error, back and forth between one version to another. While sometimes it only takes few minutes, most of the time the process is few hours.
Roland can be reached via his email.
2nd Place (3 Dimensional) – Terry J Anderson – “Mod Totem” – acrylic on wood
I’ve immersed myself into art and architecture for most of my life. Childhood memories include numerous visits to the Chicago Art Institute. Early college studies, in the Chicago area, included formal art instruction. Heading to the west coast as a young adult, my interests expanded to architecture and construction. Now living in the desert, I’m inspired by the light, colors and over all Environment. Constructed Deconstruction Series As a restorer of vintage and architecturally significant homes for over two decades I have recently focused on the creation of “Constructed Deconstruction Series”. The Series involves the process of creating a three dimensional composition of fragments of former structures. Block Composition Series A staple of childhood toy chests for centuries, wood blocks are influential in a child’s early spatial and mathematical development. The block compositions are a reminder of childhood playtime but also evoke adult themes. Biomorphic Studies My Studio space in the Coachella Valley establishes a geographic point of reference for inspiration. My Citrus Twist Biomorphic Studies are inspired by the prevalence of citrus trees in the desert’s suburban neighborhoods combined with the midcentury forms ever present in the built environment of Palm Springs and surrounding environments.
Please visit Terry’s website if you are interested in seeing more of his work.
3rd Place (Traditional) – Ulf Koenig – “2D or 3D – 2nd” – acrylic on canvas
Ulf Koenig lives in the City of Ulm, south of Germany. Since 2004, he works as a self-educated freelance artist and designer. He has mainly produced minimalist sculptures, which associate technology and architecture. Since 2018 he also creates acrylic-paintings, honestly initially only as a kind of relaxation for his demanding sculpturing. These are mostly concrete-constructive and look sculptural (e.g. the submitted artwork “2D or 3D – 2nd”). Ulf Koenig has shown sculptures and paintings in more than 50 solo-, group-, online-exhibitions in Europe, Canada, USA, he received 6 honors and awards, and he appeared in around 30 reports of art-magazines, catalogues, newspapers.
Please visit Ulf’s website if you are interested in seeing more of his work.
3rd Place (Photography & Digital) – Gareth Jones – “Punctuation Series No2 – Question Mark” – photography & digital art
Photography is Gareth’s artistic release and brings his imagination, vision and inquisitive mind to visual life following a career as a forensic scientist. Gareth’s explores bold abstracts or unique perspectives created from his original photographs or digital art and presents moments of beauty, quiet joy, or intrigue balanced with drawing attention to important issues. Everyone needs a break from today’s negative news and Gareth provides a breather from todays stressed world whilst still bringing difficult issues into his art.
Gareth is convinced that balance is a critical life component and hopes his art will heal this disparate world through creative expressions, thoughtful moments and visual enjoyment. Gareth photographs anything that makes him stop, look, think, smile, or feel and puts his unique take on it. Gareth’s images offer something to everyone. His curiosity fuels exploration via the abstract and imaginative images that arise from his on-going search for images that “click”. Gareth touches people with his images and that is his inspiration.
Please visit Gareth’s website if you are interested in seeing more of his work.
3rd Place (3 Dimensional) – Lollie Ortiz – “Rainbow Wave Spirit” – acrylic plastic abstract wall sculpture
Lollie Ortiz, an award-winning artist, has a love of laughter and curiosity that emanates from everything she touches. Her artistic path began in grade school where she enjoyed entertaining herself with anything colorful and messy. “Free expression” soon gave way to pursing an art degree from the City College of San Francisco while working part-time in a printer’s shop. The Los Angeles School of Design offered not only a sense of adventure but also the excitement of diverse creative exploration.
Embracing a professional career, Lollie slowly advanced from developing freelance assignments to being the creative director of her own production company. Clients included ABC, CBS, NBC, The Travel Channel, Disney Products, HBO and MediaBook Internet Advertising, Inc.
Lollie’s has exhibited works in both art and photography from 2006 to 2018. Since then she has enjoyed the pleasure of acting in TV and films, but also a new passion in 3D pop art and mix-media sculptural designs.
Please visit Lollie’s website if you are interested in seeing more of her work.
4th Place (Traditional) – Zhou Jie – “Joy on Wutong” – acrylic
Zhou Jie, also known as Jiuye, was born in April 1964 and currently lives in Shanghai. He holds a master’s degree. National first-class artist.
His artistic style and philosophy is to let the color illusion, visual music, and make oil painting more fashionable and closer to the aesthetic pursuit of young people. He has been invited to participate in painting exhibitions such as the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China by the world’s Chinese artists and the famous artists entering the Pegatron Art Center, Shanghai International Design Week, etc. His works have been well received by audiences and collectors.
Zhou Jie can be reached via his email.
4th Place (Photography & Digital) – Mark Rein – “Line and Shadow 1” – photography
Mark Rein was born in Poland in 1976 but immigrated to Australia as a young boy with his family in 1982, at first settling in Melbourne. As a young man he began his working life in the retail industry, which ate into his time to create art; however he would paint at any opportunity and found a following at his place of work, selling several pieces to workmates. After many years in retail, an opportunity arose allowing him to devote more time to painting and photography. He currently resides in Sydney, working from his studio at home.
He mainly works with oils and acrylics but is prone to hit the tablet for digital work. His subject matter can vary greatly from traditional paint-on-canvas with themes ranging from still life to landscapes or abstracts full of colour, to digital art in which he creates realistic drawings on a tablet. Besides painting, photography is another passion of his, whether it be taking pictures of colorful things like flowers, or interesting things like angles and shadows in the urban environment.
Please visit Mark’s website if you are interested in seeing more of his work.
4th Place (3 Dimensional) – Brian Mark – “Greenpeace” – marble
Artist Biography: Born in Schenectady, New York, raised in Washington, D.C., Brian Mark has been intrigued by art of all kinds for most of his life. Literature appealed to him and ultimately, Mark taught English literature at university. While he was doing scholarly work on English literature, Mark began to feel a tug toward doing, not just intellectualizing about, art.
Mark’s first artistic foray was in woodworking. After a while, he could not shake the impact Dylan Thomas’ poem, “In My Craft or Sullen Art” had on him. Mark kept feeling he was doing craft, not art, and wanted more. A friend urged him to look seriously at stone sculpture as his art focus. Eventually, Brian Mark went to that sculpting class, and as he tells it: ‘As soon as I set foot in the studio and looked at the work the students were doing, I was hooked.’
That was 20 years ago. Mr. Mark has been joyfully doing stone sculpting from that date to now. Sculpting is something he simply cannot NOT do. It is a passion. He creates abstract sculptures in harder stone such as marble, calcite, onyx, and others. He does not strive to make statements with his art, but rather ‘tries to bring beauty into this world, and at the same time soothe my soul by fulfilling the creative process.’ His work has been seen in many art shows and he looks forward to continuing his love/work in stone.
Nature is raw. Art is practiced. Each stone has its own language and Brian Mark works to understand that language. Some of the learning comes from striving to listen to what each stone is saying. Each has a color, a shape, and a hidden beauty. While valuing that uniqueness, “I strive to let my imagination fly free, in order build upon nature’s creation: blending raw nature with understanding the language of this stone. And, so begins the conversation between stone and sculptor.”
When a stone selects me, Mark says ‘I cannot know what striations, hues, density, faults, lie under the surface.’ As he begins chiseling and grinding, “the stone talks to me, saying, ‘I have this special colored line running through me: preserve it.’ Or, ‘slightly shift the angle of this or that curve,’ Or, ‘work with me: together we can bring forth that special surprise, that new beauty never before seen.’ The conversation continues until nature’s stone and his imagination marry and together say, “stop – our work is done”. For Mark that conversation must lead to a sculpture that has movement, movement, movement. That movement is stone brought to life in a way never before seen.
Please visit Brian’s website if you are interested in seeing more of his work.
5th Place (Traditional) – Loretta Ana Kaufman – “Animated Forms XI (Double Monologues IV): Series M” – acrylic on canvas
The natural world and the life around us have always inspired Nashville painter and sculptor Loretta Kaufman. They are the sparks that start the process. Loretta began Series M in 2013, with an interest in male/female relationships in our diverse natural world. Some of the themes she wanted to work with were communication, nurturing and competition. In 2016, her ideas about the series changed as well as the forms; and in 2019, the palette was expanded from the original black, white, grey and rust. Loretta continues to paint with acrylics working between the boundaries of representation and abstraction. Reducing the subjects to bold simplified forms she likes to create lots of excitement, tension and often lots of space in the canvases. Series M is work in progress.
Please visit Loretta’s website if you are interested in seeing more of her work.
5th Place (Photography & Digital) – Elizabeth Kayl – “Opposites Attract” – digital photography
As a photographer by passion and not trade, Elizabeth Kayl is intrigued by both the ordinary and extraordinary. She enjoys traveling and never explores without her camera, poised and ready to provide the next canvas to paint through a lens. She is particularly fond of creating works in abstraction and monochromes and has an affinity for the subject matter of trees, skies, and architecture. Elizabeth has had her work included into juried gallery shows in 16 different US states and in 3 international countries in 2020 alone. Elizabeth has recently won a first place and a Visitor’s Choice in two galleries in the US. By day, she is employed as the Director of Parks and Recreation for the City of Loveland, Colorado.
Elizabeth can be reached via her email.
5th Place (3 Dimensional) – Jacki Cohen – “Dreamcatcher” – glass
I love color, vibrancy, and bold design. These are what ignite my soul and fuel my spirit. Whether it’s a crimson sunset, a bold runway ensemble, or a fresh sprig of basil on a balsamic glazed Caprese salad, my passion is in transforming everyday objects into innovative glass designs through sensory observation, imagination and meticulous technique.
I’ve worked in painting, drawing, and ceramics. But fused glass is the single medium that allows me the full expression of my unbridled creativity. My positive, energetic outlook informs my approach to both life and art, and my work speaks to the joy and exuberance I feel in my everyday surroundings and community.
Art enriches the soul and brings light to everyone. When someone connects to my colorful outlook on life, I want them to be able to bring my creations into their home, their office or share it with friends and family.
My custom work allows me to design pieces based on your unique take on the world. We can work within your chosen color palette and sense of design to create one of a kind pieces, wall hangings, installations or functional decor elements that reflect your individual style and spirit.
My studio door is open by appointment. I can’t wait to create art that engages your soul and speaks to your passion and imagination.
Please visit Jacki’s website if you are interested in seeing more of her work.
