Illusions & Enigmas Art Exhibition - May 2024

Best in Show

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Crystal Villegas

“Mother Daughter”

Oil on Hardboard

1200

Life is meditation through balancing movement and stillness. My highest work is to stay open to the messages life sends me, and then translate them with paint. It is with oil paints I feel I can depict the complexity of my chosen subjects in surrealist style. I choose to paint on wood surfaces that I prime specifically to receive oil paint, for the smoothness and sturdiness of wood adds to my visceral experience of painting, and creates a rich, realistic result.

Where simplicity

meets

profound expression…

1st, 2nd and 3rd Place Winners

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1st Place

Katie Wilde

Spin

oil on canvas

https://www.katiewildeart.com/

Katie Wilde is a Canadian visual artist with an affinity for nature, oddness and interactivity. She holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Ottawa, and has exhibited paintings, installations and interactive artworks in a variety of galleries and public spaces. Her work ponders curiosity and obsession in human nature, reflecting on natural history and what it means to grasp nature outside of a natural setting. In a recent painting series, ‘Nobody’s Home’, a neighbourhood in transformation is a vessel for shifting feelings about time, impermanence, and knowing one’s place in the world and on the land.

About ‘Spin’: “For years, I lived in the suburban sea surrounding a 100-acre agricultural island. In 2018, “Guelph’s First Net-Zero Ready Neighbourhood” began swallowing the old farmstead, sparking a series of paintings collectively entitled ‘Nobody’s Home’. Though I moved across the country shortly thereafter, I continued to photograph the site in various stages of construction and occupation over the intervening years, documenting the area’s digestion, lot by lot, into 100 acres of slightly-less-worse suburbia. The doubled house usually reads first as a reflection, but the doubling is actually a ‘translation’, in geometry terms. Turned 180 degrees, it hovers in space with no solid ground to rely on, left with only another version of itself.”

2nd Place

Jessica Meissner

Wandering The Line

Collage

$1,250

Shapes-U.com

Jessica Meissner a multi-media artist with a passion for transforming spaces into havens of joy. Each piece she creates is a handcrafted masterpiece, born from a deep love for the tactile experience of art and a desire to infuse everyday life with a touch of magic.

Jessica’s artistic journey began at a young age, but was honed at Red Rocks College, where she discovered the power of art to connect people and elicit feelings of joy.

3rd Place

Hannah Fitzgerald

Nyctinasty

Oil on canvas

https://www.instagram.com/hannah_fits/

Hannah Fitzgerald’s drawings and oil paintings reflect human emotion in times of stress through the use of subtly absurdist narratives, combined with traditional portraiture and non-traditional postures and lighting.
Her work explores themes of silent and symbiotic relationships, manifestations of care, comfort and nourishment, and examines the role of “caretaker”. It aims to lower humankind from the pedestal and place it under a sort of cinematic microscope, transforming us into “specimens” and likening our “distinctly human” needs, behaviors and abilities to those of all other living things on this planet. Fitzgerald’s daily experience maintaining a diverse collection of exotic plants and animals -and profound appreciation for all creatures- directly influences her work. She has a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York, and currently works as the lab technician at the SVA Bio Art Lab.

Artwork was judged on a variety of criteria:
Craftsmanship
Technique
Theme Relevance
Originality
Creativity

Honorable Mentions

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Robert Obier - Renaissance Man 2.0 (Science/Technology)
Robert Obier Renaissance Man 2.0 (Science/Technology) Mixed Media 65,000.00 https://www.obierstudios.com

Karen Kurka Jensen - Splendor on the Mountain 3
Karen Kurka Jensen Splendor on the Mountain 3 sumi-e ink and watercolor on xuan paper $2795.00 https://www.karenkurkajensen.com/

Jason Shih - Rising
Jason Shih Rising Cast bronze and jade 14,800 USD https://jasonshih.com

Laura Matson - DiscoDismorphia2
Laura Matson DiscoDismorphia2 Mixed: mirrored glass; nail lacquer; cosmetic makeup https://www.instagram.com/theballroomstandard/

Wendy Flores - Space
Wendy Flores Space Acrylic on canvas 24 x 36 12,084 www.wendifuldesign.com

Robert Snyder - Black Blowtorch
Robert Snyder Black Blowtorch Wheel-thrown and hand-built porcelain fired to cone 5 then luster fired with silver luster. $3,000. perpetuitypottery.com

Roberto Carlos Roman Don - SrCharls
Human dynamics
JPG Digital Collage
199 USD https://www.instagram.com/srcharls.portfolio/ — Roberto Carlos Roman Don - SrCharls - Human dynamics
Roberto Carlos Roman Don - SrCharls Human dynamics JPG Digital Collage 199 USD https://www.instagram.com/srcharls.portfolio/

Finalists

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Grant Arendse - Connection
Grant Arendse Connection pastels, metallic paint $1500 https://www.grantarendsecreativeexpression.com/

Wen Liu - EYE - HOME
Wen Liu EYE - HOME Digital Painting $6500 https://wenliu.myportfolio.com/

Under the tree of Heaven
Acrylic painting on paper
1000 EUR
https://www.instagram.com/mygallery_n8/ — Maka Gurgenidze
Under the tree of Heaven Acrylic painting on paper 1000 EUR https://www.instagram.com/mygallery_n8/

Steve Anderson - Mask Face
Steve Anderson Mask Face Digital Print $350 surruralism.com

Genny Costin - something else
Genny Costin Something Else acrylic on canvas gennycostin.com

Alfred Pritchard - Trauma Cat
Alfred Pritchard Trauma Cat Unsure Crypsym Studio

Lauryn Edwards - Ascension
Lauryn Edwards Ascension Gouache $203.47 https://www.instagram.com/la__uru/

Tomas Lagunavicius - A KALEIDOSCOPE OF ILLUSIONS 2
Tomas Lagunavicius A KALEIDOSCOPE OF ILLUSIONS 2 Digital art https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100008179871430

Jeanette Stofleth - To the Water
Jeanette Stofleth To the Water Digital Collage Artwork 972 www.jeanettestofleth.com

Liu Chun Chih - Eye on you Ⅰ
Liu Chun Chih Eye on you Ⅰ digital photograph https://www.artavita.com/artists/27747-chun-chih-liu

Andrew Wixson - Water Under The Bridge
Andrew Wixson Water Under The Bridge Photography $325 WB: www.wixson.co IG: wix.son

Judith Arnold - Inanna's Vessel
Judith Arnold Inanna's Vessel Mixed Media 1599.00 www.judysartwork.com

Roderick Schinn
444 #2
Paper collage
$444. Lizoddy52@aol.com — Roderick Schinn - 444 #2
Roderick Schinn 444 #2 Paper collage $444. Lizoddy52@aol.com

Artist Inquiries

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