Wet Paint

This show will run September 1-30, 2017. Artists from around the world were called to submit their work. There were 62 accepted entries and they came from 7 different states in the USA as well as 7 other countries: Canada, Germany, Kazakhstan, Russia, Taiwan, Ukraine, and Vietnam. A variety of styles and mediums were entered, including but not limited to, acrylic, airbrush, colored pencil, gouache, house paint, mixed media, oil, 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, 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 Habitat for Humanity. Habitat for Humanity’s vision is a world where everyone has a decent place to live. Colors of Humanity Art Gallery, LLC is not affiliated with Habitat for Humanity. 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 was born on March 1st, 1983 in Barnaul, Russia. Was very fond of drawing since I was a child, so my parents chose an art school for me, which I had successfully graduated from.

At age 15 I have opened hip-hop culture for myself, particularly got very interested in graffiti drawings. I gathered my own team of like-minded friends, took part in each competition in every Siberian city there was. Most of them brought me awards or prizes, depending on the type of competition.

Since then I have been asked to create designs in private homes, stores, clubs by drawing graffiti there. At the same time I applied for architecture degree in local university, which I graduated from in 2000.

Although I had quite a big number of requests to draw graffiti, I felt that it was not enough for me. Spraying paint out of a can did not give the quality I wanted to achieve, so I got interested in aerography. Graffiti and aerography are very close to each other, in my opinion, but aerography offers much more opportunity to make a painting realistic.

Starting from 2003 I took part in many regional competitions, in 2010 – got 3rd place in Nationwide Aerography Contest.

Aerography allows to socialize quite a lot. For instance, once I took part in the event for Russian Record Book, I take time to coach young and perspective artists who want to improve their aerography skills.

I prefer to work in aerography style because it gives me more opportunity to express myself, through big graphical paintings along with highly detailed, almost jewel-like, hyper-realistic works. It is interesting to watch a viewer of my works while he compares and thinks how it was possible to draw the details.

The most inspiring for me is to draw people, showing their character, mood… I challenge myself to show it through their body or parts of their body. When I draw hands or backs, I have a goal to make the painting as realistic as possible, show each detail and the mood of the character comes out of it.

About the Artist

Sandra Burm is best known for the realism she puts in each painting, using the most detailed brush possible to bring her paintings to life. Sandra’s paintings are so real it’s as if you could step inside them, pick up that leaf or flake the rust off a car bumper. Her style of painting is realism, and the more detailed the better. Sandra has practiced her art since she was 3 years of age when picking up her first crayons she was drawing her favorite cartoons she saw on TV before she even knew her colors. She attended College of DuPage and has been painting on and off all of her life. Sandra is award winning artist and photographer as well, taking Best of Show ribbons in multiple contests throughout Georgia and also in online shows. Sandra has finally found the time to pursue her lifetime dream of being an artist and photographer, who works in many mediums as well as wood crafts. Sandra is from the suburbs west of Chicago, Illinois and now is living in a northern suburb of Atlanta, Georgia.

Elliot Appel is a self-taught artist who has been a painter for more than 30 years. As a child, he was fascinated by film and frequently sketched pictures of the celebrities he admired to see if he could capture a likeness. Mr. Appel continued sketching in this way through high school, and his first major encouragement was finishing second place in a poster-making contest for a play that was to be performed at his school.

Subsequently, Mr. Appel enrolled in New York’s City College, registering for a degree in liberal arts but left college after one year to travel in Israel. In between jobs, Mr. Appel spent the next few years traveling through Europe, fortifying the education he’d begun with trips to museums in Paris, Geneva, Florence, Milan, Venice, Rome and Athens. He spent time in public squares, sketching the scenes around him, preparing the groundwork for future paintings. In his early twenties, Mr. Appel sold the first of many paintings in the photo realistic style that has come to define his art, a cathedral in acrylic paint, based on a photo from a magazine.

Mr. Appel’s cityscapes and storefronts call to mind the iconic images of American artists like John Sloan or Edward Hopper, who were influenced by film, and whose crisp, light-flooded takes on modern realistic street scenes inspired American film sets for decades. Appel’s images of old New York City storefronts, with their graffiti-covered doorways, city grime and sharp perspective both confront and draw the viewer into the vital, cinematic-like worlds that he creates. He has often said that he tries to capture “details of everyday life that people may not notice or take for granted as they rush from place to place.”

Colors of Humanity Art Gallery

"Wet Paint" 2017 Show

Best of Show

First Place

Second Place

Honorable Mention

Noteworthy

Wet Paint 2017