"Skies" 2016 Show

This show will run March 1-31, 2016. Artists from around the world were called to submit their work. There were 97 accepted works and they came from 19 different states in the USA and 11 other countries: Belarus, Canada, France, Germany, Israel, Russian Federation, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, and United Kingdom. A variety of styles and mediums were entered including, acrylic, collage, colored pencil, digital, glass, ink, mixed media, oil, pastel, photography, 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 entry fees from this show to SERRV International. SERRV is a nonprofit organization with a mission to eradicate poverty wherever it resides by providing opportunity and support to artisans and farmers worldwide. For more information, please visit their website http://www.serrv.org/. Colors of Humanity Art Gallery, LLC is not affiliated with SERRV International. 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.

I have been interested in photography ever since I was introduced to a darkroom in summer camp. I took photography classes during high school and eventually graduated with a BFA in Photography from Shepherd College in West Virginia. I set the degree aside for many years to work in computer graphics and printing.

I realized I missed photography. Film had changed to sensors, and computers replaced darkrooms, and I felt like I was starting over from the beginning. As I was teaching my children they should take risks, face their fears and pursue things that challenged them, I found out quickly that I needed to put my advice into practice. I just recently started entering my photography into juried shows and calls for art.

I passed this farm one evening and noticed it was for sale. In an area that is quickly losing farmland, I wanted to document the land before it was gone. The storm clouds were gathering overhead and a few drops of rain had started, but I wasn’t sure how much longer the house would be there before it was torn down, so I tried to document as much as I could before it was too late.

Biography

I was born on Sept.10 1985 in Saint-Petersburg (Russia) and have grown up on art. My interest in art was inspired and probably inherited from my grandmother. She was a talented artist who painted animals and nature.She coached me in my art education and taught me about beauty, sensitivity, humanity and joy. If there is no joy, I can't work at all. In my paintings I have tried to create a feeling of the beauty that I see all around me.I teach myself through reading, meditation, observation and practice.I don't have any one subject that I paint and I doubt I will ever settle down and just paintanimals, or birds, or flowers or buildings or whatever. There's too much out there to paint to commit to just one subject. I`m in love with oil finding a versatility and depth of colour not found with any other medium.

Mail: 7003070@mail.ru

Facebook: www.facebook.com/nmarinychartist

Instagram: @nat_gallery

Les Schmidt was born and raised in the Northeast, where frequent family trips to the shore and through farm country served as early influences. New York City, with its grand architecture and gritty atmosphere, was also a travel destination and source of inspiration for Schmidt. He moved to New Orleans in the early 1980s, where he became stimulated by the city's rich history of writers, artists and unique personalities, its Old World architecture, and its famous waterways. Schmidt was enamored with every thing the city had to offer, but did not start shooting until he reached his early 40s, when he was asked to style photo shoots for a local modern architect, and became captivated by the art and process of photography. He received his first 35mm camera and enrolled in the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts. After two semesters in the school and twice winning the Owen Murphy Faculty Award for Photography, Les was offered his first exhibition at Soren Christensen Gallery.

Schmidt primarily captures austere, coastal landscapes, but has recently developed a body of work focused on still-life, as seen in the 2015 exhibition Dorothy Jean at Guy Lyman Fine Art in New Orleans. His work has been shown in New Orleans, LA, Seaside, FL, Lafayette, LA, Breaux Bridge, LA and Cape Girardeau, MO. His photographs have also been used in the 2013 film Ender's Game, in the January 2012 issue of IQ Magazine, and in a Chrysler commercial starring Clint Eastwood, which premiered at halftime at Super Bowl XLVI. His work has been reviewed in Art Voices (Issue 21, 2009) and Pelican Bomb (November 2015).

Reservoir was shot in the mid-afternoon with lingering clouds slowly rolling in off the Mississippi River in New Orleans' Lower 9th Ward neighborhood. Schmidt waited until the water tower was fully under-lit and matched the cotton swab-like clouds before firing several frames off. Just blocks away was where the levee breached ten years ago during Hurricane Katrina.

Colors of Humanity Art Gallery

"Skies" 2016 Show

Best of Show

First Place

Second Place

Honorable Mention

Noteworthy

"Skies" 2016 Show (click on any image for more details)