Botanicals 2021 Show

This show will run August 1-31, 2021. Artists from around the world were called to submit their work. There were 102 accepted entries and they came from 17 different states in the USA, as well as 8 other countries: Belarus, Canada, Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Russia, Spain, and Ukraine. A variety of styles and mediums were entered, including but not limited to acrylic, alcohol ink, colored pencil, digital, ink, marker, mixed media, oil, pastel, photography, roses, stained glass, 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 The Nature Conservancy. The mission of The Nature Conservancy is to conserve the lands and waters on which all life depends. Colors of Humanity Art Gallery, LLC is not affiliated with The Nature Conservancy. 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'm a professional color pencil artist, I'm drawing with color pencils since I was a child.

I like to find the beauty in simple subjects.

When I was in College, I realized that all the self-taught techniques that I had acquired that far were not enough. I needed some formal training and guidance, and I found it through the lessons of Sarita Muñiz. I learned how to paint with oils and I was captivated by pastels. The new learning also helped me to still improve with colored pencils, and I realized that colored pencils were my technique. However, I felt that there was a long way ahead of me in order to become the best version of myself as an artist.

Over the years I have explored incessantly pastels and colored pencils, striving to perfect my technique, experimenting, trying out different brands of pencils and paper, and facing bigger artistic challenges every time. I attended pastel courses with important Spanish artists like Aurelio Rodríguez, Rubén Belloso, or Enrique Donoso. Through these masters I learned a lot of valuable techniques that I was able to apply with colored pencils. When I felt I was ready, I burned my ships and decided to devote myself exclusively to colored pencils.

Little by little, I realized that I could reach as much realism as I wanted using colored pencils. At the same time, the technique allowed me to communicate the strongest emotions. Colored pencils became my language as an artist. My work became meticulous, even obsessive, carefully observing the world around. I experimented with shapes, volumes, textures, and composition, trying to recreate the harmonious beauty of small objects of everyday life, which are a form of art for me.

I have always enjoyed capturing Nature and I love Still Life. My first works with colored pencils were always botanical: mushrooms, fruits, Medicinal plants. the idea of painting two simple tangerines on crumpled paper sounded like a real challenge to me, and I was won over almost immediately. Two shiny orange fruits with green leaves on brown paper, something as simple as beautiful. It reminded me of the classic still lifes I studied in depth when I was painting years ago and I really enjoyed every detail.

That kind of work is very dear to me."

Tatiana Chepkasova was born in 1973 in the town of Tchaikovsky, Perm region.

In the 1990s she worked as an artist in the workshop of decorative and applied painting. Then for a long time, she worked in areas that are not related to art. Received a higher education in economics. However, brushes and paints have always attracted her. She took up easel painting professionally in 2015. She received additional professional education at the Surikov Academy of Arts, in 2017 she defended her diploma under the painting program.

Since 2017, she has taken part in more than 20 exhibitions and art projects. Works are in private collections in different cities of Russia: Moscow, St. Petersburg, Krasnodar, Ufa, Kaliningrad, Kazan, etc., as well as in countries: Greece, Israel, Ireland, Canada, China, Switzerland. She is a member of the Creative Union of Artists of Russia and the Eurasian Union of Artists.

"Oil painting is my favorite technique. It seems to me that oil is a living material that most sensitively absorbs the energy of life. However, I like other techniques as well. For example, acrylic is very good for more decorative or abstract work. Tempera is perfect for work with finely detailed details. Each technique has its own charm. Unfortunately, life is too short to master them all well.

I was inspired to work on "Lilac in a can" by a beautiful bouquet of lilacs that my husband gave me. We put this bouquet in an old yellow can, with which my husband used to go to the store for milk as a child. The glass horse has also been preserved since our childhood."

I was inspired to paint “Irises” by a bouquet I saw in a shop, and thinking about how sad it was that they last so short a time. I thought how similar we are to flowers but on a different time scale. We appear, reach a crescendo in some manner, wane, and disappear. And while the specifics of every life are different, we all face certain choices. (Sadly for many people, these choices are made for them by circumstance). Two of the most basic choices which we make repeatedly throughout our lives are of how much risk to take, and the extent we nourish or repress our passions.

To illustrate these notions, I have the Irises on a table protected inside a house. The nature outside represents unpredictability and risk. The inside of the house represents sanctuary from risk. One can picture the flowers growing outside and now finishing their lives inside. For passion I lit the flowers with natural light through a window. The crossbars of the window cast a cross over the arrangement. In this instance the cross represents a great passion, be it spiritual or otherwise. It is the light illuminating the lives of the flowers, but not bathing them.

In general, I’m fascinated by juxtaposition and metaphor and I explore them in my art. In fact, I consider the many years I spent as a custom home builder as an example of juxtaposition; in this case of left-brain perfectionism and right brain creativity. I always made sure there were features that people had rarely or never seen. I even included some of my art in the form of murals and mosaics.

It was during my years in construction that I focused on mosaics which incorporated found objects and tiles created from flea market discoveries. I lost virtually all that work in a wildfire in 2009. The fire gave me the perspective on how evanescent things are. An artist casts our work into the void to last through the ages, but it may not do so. The primary joy is in the creation of the art and the sharing of it. Much like a conversation between friends that comes to a close but the memory of which lingers, a piece of art is a conversation between the artist and the viewer, but with a tangible souvenir. In my art my side of the conversation is an explanation and invitation to my world.

As a practical matter, I began painting as a discipline I can indulge while traveling and painting soon took over my focus. Much of my work is influenced by the California expressionists, particularly for their use of color and composition. They replace or enhance the colors of nature. My color schemes often move within a world I would love to see where colors are more vibrant and less predictable than found in nature.

I paint in a variety of styles, because different styles seem appropriate to different messages, and the inspirations can be random. I painted my series of flower still lifes in a realistic style since the subject seemed formal to me, and I felt it well suited for what I wanted to say about life. In what I call my ‘Number Series’ which are large abstracts that incorporate numbers and letters, I’m telling a different story. Here it is the juxtaposition of rigidity symbolized by inflexible symbols, and fluidity represented in how they’re displayed and in my use of color. The abstract style suits the abandon in which I try to capture the numbers and letters.

My figural paintings are often metaphors. In one of my figural pieces a man sits formally holding part of a wig bust from the 1920s. In the painting you may think of the man reaching out to a woman who will not let herself be completely present. In another figural painting I have a man playing chess with a ghost. They play at the same time. While the man is looking back at the viewer, seeing himself being seen, the ghost does not know that he’s revealing himself to us. This is a conversation about what we do and don’t want seen of ourselves, and the game we’re always playing with the people who see us and know us.

I usually don’t think these things through explicitly. Much of what I create comes from a subconscious inspiration and the idea for a composition and color pattern. I enjoy the process. But I am a man who can’t sit still, and like the cycle through genres and styles. In recent years, I have painted aerial landscapes and graffiti-inspired works, and now while painting realistic still lifes, and feel pulled into expressionist portraiture. My art is my telling you about my world. I hope to increase my profile because I am finding that creating art without sharing it is a one sided conversation.

Colors of Humanity Art Gallery

"Botanicals" 2021 Show

Best of Show

First Place

Second Place

Honorable Mention

Noteworthy

"Botanicals" 2021 Show