Open 2018 Show

This show will run January 1-31, 2018. Artists from around the world were called to submit their work. There were 72 accepted entries and they came from 18 different states in the USA as well as 8 other countries: Canada, Italy, Japan, The Republic of Moldova, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, and Ukraine. A variety of styles and mediums were entered, including but not limited to, acrylic, collage, digital, ink, mixed media, oil, pastel, pencil, photography, spray paint, tempera, and watercolor.. The judging criterion was originality, interpretation, quality, demonstration of ability, and usage of medium. Other factors, such as the clarity of the images provided and their ability to be viewed online, as well as relating to the theme, also contributed to our decision. “Best of Show”, “First Place”, and “Second Place” winners received a monetary award in addition to special recognition.

We were very happy to donate 10% of all the entry fees from this show to Feed the Children. Feed the Children exists to end childhood hunger. For more information about them, please visit http://www.feedthechildren.org/. Colors of Humanity Art Gallery, LLC is not affiliated with Feed the Children. It is our hope that this small act of kindness will blossom and grow to help someone else.

Thank you to all the artists who participated! Your talents and skills gave us a diverse body of work to create this attractive show.

Buyers- Please contact the artists directly for sales. Colors of Humanity Art Gallery does not handle any part of the sale or collect any commission, it is solely between the buyer and artist. You may find a link to the artist’s website or email address below their work.

Hello! My name is Andreeva Ekaterina. I am an artist from St. Petersburg, Russia. By profession I am an interior designer and architect. I painted all my life, but painting has been seriously carried away since 2015. And from this time I can not imagine my life without painting. I'm just starting my way, and I'm sure that I have lots of interesting ideas ahead of me. My main inspiration is my family. I am a happy wife and mother of two young children. Thanks to them my fantasy will never run out, and I will make the world happy with new pictures.

Embracing your Dreams Dunnigan is the first painting of mine that satisfies an ambition to develop in my figurative work an ambiguity, a sense of open-endedness, an acknowledgement of the liminal, transient nature of our experience as a whole and the moments that make up its parts. I think that the desire to do so comes primarily from literary sources rather than from visual art, from a fascination with the way that certain writers - above all James Joyce - are capable of close and careful, yet passive observation, a sort of people-watching that registers acutely the many moments worthy of a brief focus; and such moments are more numerous than we normally notice - in fact we too often forget to notice them at all.

There are of course limitations to painting, and perhaps these limitations are my own artistic shortcomings rather than insoluble problems inherent in the medium, but I cannot aspire to match in painting the breadth of subject or precision of description available to the talented writer. I can only choose to portray what I have seen and, as I am not gifted with eidetic memory, satisfactorily photographed. I can, however, exert tremendous control over the visual stimulus that I wish to present, including the degree to which it illuminates the subject. The photograph then becomes a secondary source, while memory and style, along with personal associations and subjective evaluations of character combine to form a primary source. The photograph is a map to an area that I know well. The process of painting, and indeed the purpose of painting, is then to reduce the photograph to what it really is - a registration of the relations between bodies, values of light and shadow, positions of limbs, flaring of nostrils, etc. - and superimpose upon this foundation something that might be referred to as ‘literariness’ or the very thing that has made the moment, the person, the scene worth observing and then painting at all. This process may seem very simple and straightforward - to observe and attach personal meaning - but if we return to the idea of ‘literariness’ and ask someone to write about a gorgonzola

sandwich or a picture on their bedroom wall or a bureaucrat encountered long ago in a foreign country, it is not likely that we will find such accounts of much interest; to make them fantastically captivating as they once were for a split second - that is the tough task at hand. Another way that I have thought of the approach and its intended end is the idea of ‘finding truth in a trifle,’ that passive observation can uncover the candid and the honest natures beneath the facades we actually interact with, that there is some great underlying purity in all our shared existence - but this notion is as naive as it is charming, for we know that “the truth is rarely pure and never simple.” It might be as a feeling as simples as Lucian Freud’s saying that “as a human animal I take an interest in some of my fellow animals, their minds and bodies.” Finally, and perhaps this is a bit of self-flattery, I think of the images I wish to produce as visual manifestations of memory, or reproductions of interpretations and feelings, and that in painting them I am ordering the chaos of memories I’ve collected, re-visiting a notebook or diary in order to produce a short story.

In Embracing your Dreams Dunnigan and Gary, Nighttime Poolside, Arizona October, I think I’ve managed to bring about this sense that there might be more than first meets the eye, but you haven’t any idea what it might be. There are of course a handful of people who might remember the particular evening, the Montreal winter, the filthy, over-heated apartment, the smell and sound of it, the two subjects themselves, etc., represented in the Dreams painting. A somewhat wider contingent is familiar with both men in the picture and the nature and the idiosyncrasies of their relationship; such people are perhaps more privileged than those who are only acquainted with one of these two men. Those who have no point of reference and cannot possibly know that James Dunnigan, poet and literary scholar, has a tendency to be found sleeping in social situations, and that this is the reason that ‘Dreams’ has caught on as a nickname, but not the source of it; the embrace, however, is for all to recognise as a signifier of friendship - or kindness, or love - which I hope is universal.

My name is Katya Greco, professional artist and business owner of Katya Vadim Greco Art Studio/Gallery. I am very pleased to be able to create exclusive hand painted original works which are available to the public. I operate an exclusive stand-alone Studio/Gallery located in Swissvale, PA at my residence. In November I celebrated my one-year anniversary of opening my Studio/Gallery hosting six exclusive exhibits; “On the Way-My Horses” “Open Heart-Shelter Dogs” “Endless Summer-Orchids” “Summer Seascapes” “My Venetians-Under the Mask” “Garden of Joy”

Website: http://katyavgrecoart.com/

Events: http://katyavgrecoart.com/events

“Fuoco Di Venezia” (Fire of Venice) was the beginning of a series of Venetian masks that I created which I find very fascinating and mysterious to tell the "story behind the mask!" This specific work was the illusion of the spirited lovers and the fire and passion that is created with “Carnaval.” As you view each work on my website: http://katyavgrecoart.com/venetians you will see my creations inspired by my love of Italian art and “Carnaval”

I also find my inspiration with spring flowers and blooming trees to create my still life works. I enjoy painting friends, family and pets for portraits and world travels to paint the joys of a landscape. You can access all my works on the links below

http://katyavgrecoart.com/still-life

http://katyavgrecoart.com/portraits

http://katyavgrecoart.com/horses

http://katyavgrecoart.com/pets

http://katyavgrecoart.com/landscapes

I want to take this time to share with you my background and love for art. I was born and raised in Kiev, Ukraine. I was blessed to come from a family of artists and art historians which influenced my journey in the art world. I started at a very young age learning from my family how to draw, paint and express the beauty of nature that surrounded me when I was a child. My family noticed that I was a quick study and I had natural talents that needed to be explored. With the support and encouragement of my family, I was accepted and graduated with a Fine Arts Diploma from Shevchenko State Art School. My education continued with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Theory and History of Arts from State Art Institute of Kiev, which is now, National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture. After completing my bachelors, I accepted a position with Museum of Western and Oriental Art in Kiev, which is now known as Bogdan and Varvara Khanenko Museum of Art.

In 1994 I immigrated to the United States and made Pittsburgh, PA my home. I worked very hard and enrolled in The Art Institute of Pittsburgh and graduated with a degree in Graphic Design while I obtained my U.S. Citizenship. I traveled to Europe, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean to visit many of the top museums in the pursuit of studying art. When I was not traveling abroad, I spent my free time in Pittsburgh visiting the Frick, Carnegie and Warhol Museums. You can read my complete story by clicking on this link: http://katyavgrecoart.com/publications

I hope you find the appreciation that I have for painting through my works and the beauty that I see every day. It gives me great pleasure when I can provide joy to others with my paintings!

Colors of Humanity Art Gallery

"Open" 2018 Show

Best of Show

First Place

Second Place

Honorable Mention

Noteworthy

"Open" 2018 Show