Blue 2018 Show

This show will run December 1-31, 2018. Artists from around the world were called to submit their work. There were 86 accepted entries and they came from 16 different states in the USA as well as 8 other countries: China, Croatia, Japan, Moldova, Poland, Russia, South Korea, and Ukraine. A variety of styles and mediums were entered, including but not limited to acrylic, colored pencil, collage, digital, gouache, ink, mixed media, oil, pastel, photography, printmaking, 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 Natural High. They are a nonprofit drug prevention program inspiring and helping youth to discover and pursue their natural high instead of an artificial high. For more information about them, please visit http://naturalhigh.org/. Colors of Humanity Art Gallery, LLC is not affiliated with Natural High. 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.

Shel Waldman, Visionary, illustrator, painter

Growing up in one of the most divergent communities in the mid-west where many languages were spoken, and many immigrants resided, Shel experienced his first cultural inspirations via the diverse and eclectic neighborhoods of East and West Rogers Park in Chicago, Illinois. It contained a fusion of races, religions and ethnic cities that celebrated their distinct cultures with festivals, foods and music, and the religious symbolism often displayed on walls and store fronts that ranged from Asian and Ethiopian to European and Middle Eastern. A true melting-pot.

"I feel very fortunate to have experienced such a eclectic cultural upbringing, and one which nurtured and passionately influenced my original art and creative ethos. Because of this, I have been able to develop a connection with all cultures and obtain a better understanding of what makes all of us different but uniquely the same.”

Having spent later years teaching and exploring Native Aboriginal people throughout Michigan and Canada, Shel began to understand their deep connection with nature and the environment,and how each of them expressed their own cultural spirit. He became inspired to paint this profound relationship and fuse these elements in his work, creating a series of powerful art that speaks to the indomitable essence of the native culture and to the spirit of art that exists within nature, while illustrating the interconnectedness of humankind with wildlife and all living things.

Born in the 1960s, a student of the American Academy of Art and Chicago Art Institute and influenced by iconic illustrators like Mark English, Berney Fuchs and Peter Max, Shel has been painting beautiful, visually stimulating art for over 30 years. His style is eclectic and genuine, and one possessing an uncanny knowledge and ability with creating and teaching art in a manner for all to enjoy.

Now living in Hawaii and on the magical, humongously beautiful Big Island, Shel continues to explore his own inner spiritual path and grow as an artist and human being while connecting with nature and the land and with lovers of visual beauty everywhere.

About the Artist

Joanna Sokolowska, born in 1984, is an artist - painter and sculptor from Poland. Her rich education is both artistic and linguistic, both in Poland and abroad. Recipient of Fulbright Scholarship in 2013, she studied at the Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, USA, where she received her MFA degree in May 2015. Earlier she received Master of Fine Arts degree at the Department of Sculpture - Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2012 – with honors), Erasmus scholarship at the Department of Sculpture - Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, Italy (2009/2010); MA degree in English Philology at the Institute of Applied Linguistics - Warsaw University (2009); BA degree at the College of English Language Teacher Education- Warsaw University (2006).

International context is very important in her creative path. As a Fulbright Alumni, she travels and creates worldwide spreading the belief in the uniting power of Art, crossing barriers between cultures and divisions. She promotes Art as universal language wherever she goes. Once in Poland, she has been Sculpture and Painting Instructor at Warsaw Arts Academy and Officyna Art and Design Gallery. Her works are being sold in a few galleries in Warsaw (Napiorkowska Gallery, Officyna Gallery, Stalowa Gallery), as well as online international Art Galleries (Saatchi Art, TouchofArt, Artfinder, Gallery Store, BeArte Gallery, Kyo Art Gallery, Singulart Gallery, FineArtAmerica). She currently lives and creates in Long Island, New York, USA.

She exhibited her works in Poland (Warsaw, Lodz), Italy (Rome, Tivoli), USA (Vermont, Boston, NY) and Thailand (Krabi, Bangkok). She attended international residencies and seminars in USA (Vermont), France (St Nicolas du Pelem) and Thailand (Krabi, Bangkok). She is the finalist of Hestia Artistic Journey Art Competition in Poland, and an award-winning artist of 4th Annual Figures & Faces Art Exhibition by the Fusion Art Gallery.

Joanna shares her passion for Art by connecting to her viewers directly via social media, recording movies from her studio and travels on her Youtube Channel. To see her world visit:

❀ WEBSITE → https://joannasokolowska.com

❀ FACEBOOK → Joanna Sokolowska ART https://www.facebook.com/JoannaSokolowskaART/

❀ INSTAGRAM → JoannaSokolowska_ART https://www.instagram.com/joannasokolowska_art/

❀ TWITTER → joannasokolart https://twitter.com/joannasokolart

❀ YOUTUBE → Joanna Sokolowska ART https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFgmHXYxVVU51z59mLKrLbg

About the Artwork

"Infinite" - oils and acrylics on canvas, 30/40” (76/102cm), made in USA, August 2018. “Infinite” belongs to the series of my most recent paintings exploring the depths of human interior and soul. The depicted figure is portrayed in the state of being moved, touched, connected. Her hand touches gently the most delicate place one her body, the neck, where the pulse can be felt, while her eyes are directed above, beyond the frame of the painting, which draws attention to the invisible, the source that is beyond human perception; intangible, but at the same time very close to us. Her body is submerged into the symbolic blueness, which represents both the sky and the sea, and is associated with open spaces, freedom, intuition, imagination, expansiveness, inspiration, sensitivity, as well as spirituality, faith and depth. The tangible and intangible worlds are permeating; the flesh and the spirit are connected.

“Infinite” thus summarizes my main inspiration and focus: the human being, with his dual nature - sensual and spiritual. Through figurative art I transfer elemental content of human existence that people, in a natural way, may come to read, without knowing the code and cultural context. I combine elements of realism with expressive, emotional quest for power of expression.

The human form is like a temple; a sphere of sacrum, which encompassed the richness of emotions and experiences. These states of mind are sources of exploration for me to seek those binding qualities that make us human. Human, but also part of the infinite universe. Painting is a way for me to convert intangible feelings, intangible soul, into two-dimensional forms.

I am fascinated by the richness of human interior life and the ways we express feelings outside of language. Human body as a vessel for soul. Trying to paint an intangible emotion or human experience has become my biggest challenge.

My main intention is to move, to touch, to invite the viewer to reflect and explore the beauty of own being, and to seek further, beyond material life. My works are evidence of a search for the means of expression that split the self into a dilemma of human experience. Face expressions, gestures, serve as references for form. Painting becomes ‘a meeting place’ – a meeting with the inner and exterior selves, while at the same time opening up a meeting space with another’s essence.

I live at Namyangju city in Korea, where is small town, with my wife who is also drawing paint together. Namyangju city is wonderful combination of city and nature. It, in a way, is an advanced city and it, in another way, is also a country side. It is very pleasure for me to draw paints in these two sides of Namyangju city. North Han River is located nearby my place as well as Seoul is also not far from my home. It is also my big pleasure to have tremendous painting ideas or sources coming from this place.

I started painting when I was 14 years old, and it has passed 32 years so far. With an active and positive personality, I had worked as a management committee for Sosabul Art Exhibition, Sosabul International Art Festival, and Art Association and also contributed to the development of Korean Art by making West Sea Art Fair.

Currently, I am full-time watercolor painter, run Apple-green Art Studio, and teach painting to the public people. I try to inform the excellence of Korean watercolor art through exhibition or SNS to Korea or abroad as much as I can. I contribute to the development of Korean watercolor art by providing technical support for the manufacture of watercolor brush of Herend Brush.

My paintings are about animal, plaints, or people who are easy to understand, however various people and animals in the paintings are not specific object themselves. It is about acting like a charm that draws empathy and stories from viewers. As I see the people who see my paintings and make different set of bridges, I believe that anyone can find the intersection of empathy in my paintings of materials not for them to discover the theory of modern art.

The quiet confrontation between the subject and the subtopic makes each subject stand alone. Seeing but not facing each other, creates mixed dialogue and tension by placing in a strange space, which helps viewers find their own point of intersection more aggressively, interpreting the reality's reproducibility of poetry, not its own meaning I believe that the

metaphorical painting can even reach deeper as like in the sentence of the Book of Anxiety written by Fernando Pessoa, it is said "Dreaming Bordeaux is better than getting off the Bordeaux train station even closer to the truth."

My work this year seems to be relationship-oriented, but at the same time it was time to look at absurdities and contradictions encountered by isolation-oriented tendencies I hope it can be a time for those who look at my work to think about myself or about other people relationship.

Colors of Humanity Art Gallery

"Blue" 2018 Show

Best of Show

First Place

Second Place

Honorable Mention

Noteworthy

"Blue" 2018 Show