Visit the 7th Annual Colorful Abstractions Art Exhibition HERE.
Best in Show (Traditional) – George Casprowitz – “Alter Ego” – acrylic on paper collage
Artist George Casprowitz has been a working artist for over fifty years. His quiet demeanor is a contrast to his art in which throughout the many different phases of his work uses vibrant colors, shapes and abstracts to draw in the viewer’s eyes.
George was born in 1940 in Hollywood, California. His first major employment was in the movie industry doing a variety of jobs on the production side of film making. A film is produced in a rectangular format like most paintings. It tells a story using visual stimuli and depending on its viewer to supply a lot of their experience to complete its story.
Much of George’s work depends on the viewer to relate its lines, circles and open spaces to ideas beyond the physical objects. George’s next occupation after graduation from the University of Oregon was as an architect in New York and Philadelphia. Good architecture is more than walls, doors and hardware. Good architecture needs to function well, but should also be good aesthetic experience. George tries to do this in his art. His paintings use lines and solid forms as a format but the remaining space is of equal importance. And then there is colour and texture. Color is the constant through all the various forms his paintings, prints and sculptures since his first one-person show in 1970 in Vancouver.
Since that first show, George has done one-man shows in Toronto, New York, London, Seattle, Portland, Calgary, Victoria, and Philadelphia in private and public art galleries. His work is in many public, corporate and private collections. George has also enjoyed teaching art at different times in his career.
He currently lives and works in South Surrey, British Columbia, Canada.
George’s website is www.casprowitz.com
Best in Show (Photography & Digital) – Gabriele Gracine – “Travel On” – digital
I am a self-taught digital artist. I create art for the pure joy of the experience and in an effort to bring the power of beauty to the world. My process is a proprietary technique I continuously explore and refine. The digital medium provides me with the magical tools to actualize my visions. My art is primarily the result of a conversation between my inner and external influences. When I approach the creative process, I’m seeking spontaneous expressions of direct feeling that emphasize the energies of essential form, movement, light, color and texture. I intend, with each realized conception to capture the viewer’s wonder and imagination with an image of visual poetry that is unique, deeply personal and extends an offer to contemplate the possibility of entering a new reality through the extraordinary digital world.
Gabriele’s website is http://abstractgaby.strikingly.com
Best in Show (3 Dimensional) – Brian Mark – “Byron” – alabaster
Born in Schenectady, New York, raised in Washington, D.C., I have been intrigued by art of all kinds for most of my life. By the time I entered college I, not knowing what I wanted to do, thought, and quickly abandoned, dentistry. Literature appealed to me and ultimately, I earned a PhD in English and taught English literature at university.
While I was doing scholarly work on English literature, I began to feel a tug toward doing, not just intellectualizing about art. My first artistic foray was in woodworking. After a while, I could not shake the impact Dylan Thomas’ poem, “In My Craft or Sullen Art” had on me. I kept feeling I was doing craft, not art, and I wanted more.
A friend urged me to look seriously at stone sculpture as my art focus. I eventually went to his sculpting class, and 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. I have been joyfully doing stone sculpting from that date to now.
Sculpting is something I simply cannot NOT do. It is a passion. I create abstract sculptures. I do not strive to make statements with my art. Rather, I try to bring beauty into this world, and at the same time soothe my soul by fulfilling the creative process.
Nature is raw. Art is practiced.
Each stone has its own language and I work 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, I cannot know what striations, hues, density, faults, lie under the surface. As I begin 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 my imagination marry and together say, “stop – our work is done.”
For me 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.
Brian’s website is www.brianmarksculptor.com
