Steve Parton
About
His insightful portraits include those of the journalist, Craig Melvin, his wife, Lindsay Czarniak and their children, Senator John Glenn, and Danial E. Offutt lll. He has won numerous awards for his work, and has been voted Best of the Gold Coast by Greenwich, New Canaan, Darien & Rowaton, Westport & atHome Magazines. He is a Fellow Member of the American Artists Professional League, an Elected Artist Member of the Salmagundi Arts Club, and belongs to Audubon Artists, Allied Artists of America, the Portrait Society of America, and the Artists Collective of Westport. He also teaches art classes at his Westport studio. To learn more about him and his work, please visit www.stevenparton.com.
Artist Statement
I paint in oils in a traditional renaissance manner to give my subjects as much richness as possible. This is an indirect method, building up a monochrome grisaille underpainting over which I gradually add color with both transparent glazes and full bodied color. This is a time consuming and painstaking process. It offers very delicate tonal variations impossible with other painting methods.
Dionne Pia
About
Dionne Pia is a painting and visual artist based in Weston CT. She is an active exhibiting painter and has worked in a variety of professional media that includes photo editing, graphic design, floral design, illustration, and fulfilling fine art commissions. Her artwork has been included in numerous juried and invitational shows in CT and NY, and is represented in private collections throughout the USA. Dionne received a BFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design and spent a year in Rome, Italy attending the European Honors Program. The imagery is a fusion of historic and contemporary culture in an arrangement of unexpected associations and emotions. Underlying themes include grief, loss, protection, hope and even humor.
Artist Statement
“The act of making a painting fuels my curiosity - curiosity is the gateway to empathy. In this digital, heads-down culture all too often people forget about the natural world we share with the plant and animal kingdom. In my work I am deconstructing ideas of human rank superiority and staging a view that includes points of view from other cultures and other beings.”
2017 / Acrylic on canvas 36 x 36 inches $1,800
2017 / Acrylic on canvas 36 x 36 inches $1,800
2017 / Acrylic on canvas 60 x 36 inches $2,500
2017 / Acrylic on canvas 24 x 24 inches $1,200
2016 / Acrylic on canvas 36 x 36 inches $1,800
2017 / Acrylic on canvas 24 x 24 inches $1,200
Jay Petrow
About
Jay Petrow earned a BA in fine arts from Middlebury College. After graduating, Petrow had a long career as an editorial art director in New York City working for major consumer magazines such as Sports Illustrated, Time and BusinessWeek.
In the last 10 years Petrow has made major changes in his painting approach and his career. He gravitated to painting abstract expressionist works to explore his inner world and his emotional state in dealing with his son’s autism. Studying with abstract painters at Silvermine Arts Center in New Canaan, Petrow’s art has been on view in solo shows at local libraries and represented in group shows at the Westport Arts Center and the Silvermine Arts Center galleries.
Petrow also owns the Westport landscape company, PetrowGardens Landscape Design (www.petrowgardens.com), where he designs absract meadows using native grasses and perennials.
Artist Statement
I began painting in an abstract expressionist style after many years of representational work in order to connect with and express my experience fathering an autistic child. The day to day stresses and struggles to be a good father for my son have at times been overwhelming.
Love, anger, humor, sadness, and loss become an explosive convergence of vivid color and expressive brush stroke. A subconscious level of interaction with my emotions and my spiritual energy informs me as I connect with my inner world and visualize what’s happening on the canvas. I maintain this conversation from within and without throughout the painting process.
The entire body of work approximates a place that I inhabit physically and psychologically. My goal in painting is to recreate on canvas what I am experiencing inside, from high states of agitation and angst to feelings of calm. Incorporating vibrant colors and layering textures on the canvas, I strive to reconstruct a path through my emotional world that produces areas of high kinetic energy and serenity on the canvas.
To view more images please visit www.jaypetrowfineart.com
Guy Phillips
About
Guy Phillips was born in 1936 in Sydney, Australia. He worked in advertising in Sydney, Toronto for four years, and spent time in New York. In his mid-thirties he left a management position in a large international advertising agency to become an artist. He lived in Italy and then London for four years at the end of the “swinging sixties”. He studied part time and gained a one-man show, successfully exhibiting a series “Man in a Chair”. Returning to Sydney, he had two one-man shows. Moved to Connecticut in 1981 with local exhibits and private sales. He has joined a co-op gallery in Chelsea NY and has a solo show scheduled for November 2016.
Artist Statement
The figure has been my central interest with many variations: solitary figures, multi figures with an emphasis on movement, hard edge figures, figures defined by geometric shapes, and cutout figures on grids or suspended by strings. I have recently produced tall narrow vertical cutout figures framed in plywood. In addition to the figure, I have worked on cutout bridges and trees, and recently on windmills.
Acrylic on masonite 48 x 60 inches NFS
Acrylic on masonite grid 54 x 70 inches NFS
Acrylic on masonite 58 x 48 inches NFS
Acrylic on masonite 48 x 32 inches NFS
Acrylic on masonite, plywood 72 x 15 inches NFS
Acrylic on masonite 32 x 48 inches NFS
Diane Pollack
About
Pollack, a graduate of SUNY, studied at the Art Students League, NYC, the Roslyn Museum of Art, NY, the Drawing Studio, Tucson AZ and privately with Fran Bull and Gerry Samuels. She is a curator for the Bruce S. Kershner Gallery at the Fairfield Public Library, and a member of Art/Place Gallery, the Westport Artists Collective, Brag, the Ridgefireld Guild of Artists and the Surface Design Artists Association. She is a founding member of the Drawing Studio and the Sonoran Artists Collective, both in Tucson Arizona. Pollack studied and lectured at Asia Society Museum, NYC and has taught art to students aged 2-85+.
Artist Statement
I moved into my new studio June 1, 2023, feeling exhausted and overwhelmed after emptying out my previous space in which I had loved working the past 10 years. Wanting to feel inspired and energized again I decided to set some limits/guidelines for myself-construct 12” x12” collages using cut and torn papers from only Vogue magazines, incorporating machine and hand stitching. I thought about color relationships, space, volume, scale, contrasts and movement. I have completed 21 so far and want to do more. Some earliest ones have been reworked and improved much to my amazement.
Steve Pomerantz
About
I come from a family of photographers and have been exploring the field since the mid-sixties. My greatest influences are my mother, my grandfather and my wife, an experienced artist and art educator. My grandfather, Louis, had a long-standing interest in photography. When he retired at 58, he began a series of second careers. My favorite was a children's photographer; I treasure hundreds of his slides. My mother, Arlyne, became an avid photographer after her retirement and still photographs now in her mid 80s. My interest in photography deepened during high school with the discovery of the dark room and some instruction from a friend. I have worked in film photography ever since and in the past few years have refined and practiced my skills while reading extensively. I hope to explore traditional photography, synthesizing my learning into an evolving vision to share with my audience for as long as possible.
Steve Pomerantz studied Sculpture and Pottery at Queens College with an independent study in theory and techniques in photography, silver gelatin and litho printing, and hand coloring. He has been in numerous juried shows in the last several years at the following galleries: The Carriage Barn, Ridgefield Guid of Artists, Westport Arts Center, New Pond Farm, and others. He also displays his art at the Marion Royal Gallery in Beacon, NY.
Artist Statement
As a photographer, my eyes are drawn to the way light falls on subjects as well as their texture and form; subjects that resonate include old machines with their implicit deep history. They almost appear to move forward in space while all else recedes. I get lovesick over many including cars, trucks, and trains dating from the 1950s and earlier. I may enjoy modern technology but it doesn't make my heart sing like a 1951 Plymouth, even if it will never run again. I create film photos with old cameras developed and printed in my traditional darkroom. Are we seeing a pattern here? In taking the photograph and then printing the negative, I seek to share what has moved me.
Silver gelatin print, hand-colored 23 x 19 inches, framed $390
Silver gelatin print 17 x 21 inches, framed $490
Silver gelatin print 17 x 21 inches, framed $390
Silver gelatin print, hand-colored 21 x 17 inches, framed $390
Silver gelatin print, toned with oil paint 23 x 19 inches, framed $390
Silver gelatin print, toned in selenium 23 x 19 inches, framed $390
Tina Puckett
About
AMERICAN FIBER ARTIST TINA PUCKETT is a self-taught artist who has been weaving since 1981.
Tina is much influenced by the bittersweet vine that grows locally in the northwest corner of Connecticut where she lives. The character of each piece of vine literally dictates what form each basket, bowl, wall sculpture or piece of furniture will take. As Tina then applies her imagination and sense of color to the structural form and to the weaving, indescribably dynamic and colorful works of art emerge.
Tina's study of set design in college developed her understanding of both color and construction. She has created her own weaving technique, which she calls "Dimensional Weaving," in which she lays down layer upon layer of reeds of different colors to produce multi-hued, richly-textured, highly dimensional woven sculpture. With her knowledge of construction, Tina is also able to build very sturdy pieces of furniture.
Tina's works have been exhibited in museums, art galleries, libraries and at craft show events both nationally and internationally. Her work has also been featured in magazines, newspapers, books and on television. Please visit Tina’s website, tinasbaskets.com, for a full listings.
Artist Statement
I was celebrating my 45th birthday when my grandmother Fern said to me, "I am ninety years old, exactly twice your age, and would like to give you some words of wisdom."
“You are about to begin the most important years of your life, so do what you are meant to do.”
Well, I thought about those words for a while and came up with some very distinct feelings about what it is that makes me feel most fulfilled. Weaving had become a very important part of my life — and even more so, using natural materials that inspired what the finished product would become as far as shape, color, design and especially function was concerned. I would dedicate my life full time to this craft that “called” me.
My woven pieces have varied functions. Some have utility — like the humble egg baskets from New England.
A lot of my objects, such as my wall hangers, come from “doodling”. Doodling helps me visualize form and technique.
The tables that I design came from an idea that I had many years ago — finding natural elements such as bittersweet to form the base, and then weaving the separate pieces together. I had studied set design in college, which was very useful because it had taught me a lot about carpentry and how to construct very solid pieces.
Weaving is a lot like painting. You can lay down layers of colors and textures to bring forth subtle or vibrant imagery.
I enjoy the diversity of the act of weaving, and I can’t tell you what I will be creating tomorrow, but I do know that I have a lot of interesting pieces of Bittersweet vines that are ready for my imagination….
I just have to step into my studio and “let it all flow….
Perceived Languages 11" H x 5" W x 4" D each $ 750.00 each
Stranger Things 30" H x 60" W x 14" D $ 3,000.00
5 Flowers 24"H 64"W x 8"D $ 1,800.00
Whimsical Wallhanger 23"H x 21"W x 6"D $ 350.00
Mississippi River 20"H x 60"W x 9"D $ 1,800.00
Mesmerized 56"H x 26"W x 20"D $ 3,200