Mary Brace
It’s been a wild and crazy ride. I have degrees in nursing, mechanical engineering and computer information systems and have worked in all three of these disciplines. I was born and raised in Grand Rapids but have also lived in Ann Arbor and New England. I have always had a strong interest in the visual arts and although I do not have any formal art training, other than classes here and there, I love this form of expression. I have a particular fondness for watercolors and pastels. The colors are stunning and the mediums are endlessly creative. There is a small art studio at home and the walls are pinned with many colorful images.
About the work
Title: Color Explosion
Medium: Mixed media
Description of work: By day, or rather by night as I work third shift, I am a very proud nurse at the Meijer Heart Center as I feel there is no job like this anywhere else on this planet. I have always had a strong interest in the visual arts and continue with this interest as a hobby when time permits. I am especially drawn to images that explode with color and texture, whether they are abstract or more realistic in appearance. I think people who view and appreciate art are often drawn to images due to these color and textural expressions regardless of the reality of the piece. The image I am submitting for Art Prize is an example of this abstract type.
Caleb Brennan
Title: septem mores morior
Medium: wood, metal, other
Description of work: This work will be no larger 8' high x 16' long x 4' wide. The actual dimensions will be affected by the site this is created for.
The work can go either inside or out. Space needed is for the actual piece. Viewers will need to be able to access around it, and a few views from farther away would be good.
My work is content based. This work will combine abstract structural forms and figurative elements. The current plan is to have multiple figurative elements situated in a rhythmic progression contained within a structural box. The subject matter, crucifixion, is open for interpretation. (I have found most people come with layers of beliefs & emotions, I offer a chance to sort through these.)
The viewers are invited to respond on whatever level they chose. I would like to have nearby, a means for people to write their response to the sculpture. I think dialogue is key to this work
Peter Carney
I am a Graphic Designer by day and a passionate painter by night. I have a renewed interest in painting loose and portraying depth. I'm working toward fewer brushstrokes and am most inspired by the work of Carol Marine. I am an alum of Kendall College of Art and Design, a member or the Kendall College or Art and Design Alumni Group and a member or the Grand Valley Artist Guild.
About the work
Title: Bill's Teapot
Medium: Acrylic
Description of work: Loose and impressionistic. Just 16" x 20". Bill's Teapot is a still life of a teapot.
Jake Evers
I'm a graduate from Catholic Central High School and I currently attend Grand Rapids Community College.
About the work
Title: Darkness & Light
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Description of work: My piece will be a 36"hx 48"w acrylic painting on canvas. I have created a concept painting which you see here - I am currently working on the larger piece. The painting depicts a white dove hovering in darkness - with the quote by Martin Luther King Jr. - "Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. My painting pays tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. and all he believed in.
Agnes Fisher
Been doing art since teens. Work mainly in oil and acrylic. Taught Art on secondary level for 40 years. Learned most from Edgar Boeve'. Am exhibiting at Washington Square Gallery, Holland, Mi.. Been represented by and exhibited in Agora gallery in SoHo NYC, one woman show in Caldwell, NJ.
Sold nationwide and Europe. Living in Grand Haven, Mi. moved from NJ 3 years ago.
About the work
Title: nederland
Medium: acrylic on canvas
Description of work: It is a triptych reflection of an impression of a typical Dutch scene. It is mainly black and white in its first execution with three colors (primaries) added for focus, emphasis and light.
The first panel owns the sun which sheds light in decreasing effect from that to the second and least to the third panel.
Randall Gornowich
Title:Vision Transcends
Medium:Digital photography, dye-sublimation, steel and wood.
Description of work: I'll be displaying two 9' high slowly revolving cylinders (6' in circumference) (one inside the other.) The cylinders will be rotating in an opposing directions with an internal light source illuminating from the center. The outer cylinder will be created from a transparent fabric/ material, printed photographically using dye-sublimation with pictures of clouds seamlessly woven together. There’ll be space between the clouds so the viewer will be able to see parts of the inner cylinder. The inner cylinder will be created from a translucent material, on it, pictures of multicultural children clothed in light colors and floating. As the two cylinders revolve in opposite directions it will look as if the children are appearing and disappearing between the clouds. The title, “Vision Transcends,” refers to their innocent, hopes, dreams, and desires. The audio component will have the faint voices of children talking about all their wishes regarding community in their future.
Deborah Gryka
Artist bio
In 2005 I was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease the same week I had brain surgery for an aneurysm. In 2008 I had to stop my PD meds due to side effects. Inspired by my young dog’s exuberance, I chose a healing path by hiking into the nearby woods with him to set up a studio tent in the middle of a friend’s forest, adjacent to a 63-acre nature preserve.
This is my third season in the outdoor studio. Each time I head into the woods I feel a sense of anticipation and wonder, never knowing just what will be revealed, and each time I come home with a different story. I’m so grateful to use my art to tell them.
About the work
Title: Turtle Woods
Medium: Silverpoint and Gouache
Description of work: I work in silverpoint and other metalpoint such as gold and copper, layered with gouache--done on clay coated paper or wood panel. On occasion I use some egg tempera. The proposed piece would be framed under glass in a 16" x 20" or so frame. My work is small, the painting itself will be about 9" x 10" (perhaps more or less depending upon the subject I choose). I may pattern the work after one of the paintings posted here, but much more likely will create a piece based on what I experience in my studio camp as I study near and in the nature preserve this summer, using my tent for overnights and day trips. I've been blessed to share my site with a red fox family who have raised young in a nearby den for two summers now. This marvelous area is rich with plant and wildlife.
Kim Maguire-Gualtieri
Artist bio: I am a full-time working artist with a studio at Park Trades Center in Kalamazoo. Born in Chesterfield, England, I have an undergraduate degree in Sculpture from Sheffield University. I have most recently exhibited in San Francisco in a month-long exhibition. I am active in the Kalamazoo art community and exhibit in my studio space.
About the work
Title: Elephants Don't Belong In Circuses
Art form: Film / Video
Medium: Animated drawing
Description of work: A five minute black and white animated drawing. It is a response to the presence of the circus in Grand Rapids last year at ArtPrize. Part drawing, part discussion, part documentary, this piece will consist of animated charcoal drawings of an elephant overlaid by text and a discussion about the use of animals in entertainment.
Mark Heibel
Grand Rapids born and educated. A graduate of Union High School I enjoyed many classes at the Grand Rapids Art Gallery when it was on Fulton.
Pottery and weaving along with jewellery making and painting and drawing with Richard and Judy augmented my art courses at Union High. I dabble with drawing and acrylics until I can retire and have more time.
About the work
Title: Madonna and Child
Medium: Pencil
Description of work: The work grew out of a project assigned to me in History of the Italian Renaissance given out by Professor Belcher while at GRCC. While contemplating a photo of the piece to write upon I began sketching it. The more I studied the composition the more intriguing it seemed. While information is widely available on it and speaks of classical pyramidal form and subject matter and formulas used at the time it 's pose speaks speaks volumes on the human condition. It is in the church of Our Lady in Bruges and is the only sculpture of Michaelangelo outside of Italy. Next year it is in the works for me finally to pay a visit to Bruges (the best preserved Mediaeval beer city in Europe) to see it in situ.
Marjory Koster
My work has been shown in national and international juried as well as annual one woman shows and is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Art, Grand Rapids Art Museum as well as many colleges & private collections. I was included as 1 of 10 avant-garde print makers in 1967 at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. I am a printmaker of the 1960's & 70s. I studied intaglio at Pratt Institute in New York and chose woodcut as my media,developing blocks unique in the history of printmaking, combining textured 3-D objects embedded or attached to wood with the traditional cut or save, black or white method. I used American contemporary images & objects as symbols to express my social commentary. I used special ways to print by hand, the bas relief of my blocks. I was commisioned to create light panels to be framed & viewed like colored glass-the color of the images varying with the light. Am included in many Whos Who References.
About the work
Title: FROZEN STILLS: CROSS SECTIONS OF MATTER, MOTION, AND MAN IN SPACE.
Medium: WOODCUTS: BLOCKS AND PRINTS, INK DRAWINGS AND COLLAGES
Description of work: Choose 1 or all 15 PIECES 36X40 INCHES each.
Dennis Nielsen
I have spent my life living with an artist/art educator. Her passion for art has been absorbed by me. I taught elementary school students for nine years how to create multimedia projects on the computer. I went home each evening and played with digital images. I took ordinary photos and transformed these images into objects of beauty. This June, I retired from teaching. I hope to spend the rest of my life sharing my wife's passion in the creation of images from heart and soul.
About the work
Title: Mary of Medjugorje
Medium: Photography
Description of work: My daughter is a novice in a cloistered Carmelite monastery. Two years ago, shortly before she was to leave our family, she decided to make a pilgrimage to Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Medjugorje is the village where six visionaries have experienced apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary since 1981. My wife and I asked to join the pilgrimage, knowing it would be the last trip we would take with our daughter. It was an amazing, life changing event. I have never felt so close to Our Lord Jesus Christ and his Blessed Holy Mother, as in Medjugorje. I long to return. I pour over photographs of our journey, and relive one of the most precious moments of my life. I took a picture of the statue of Mary on Apparition Hill. It was a nice picture but nothing special. I played with the photo a long time until I felt I caught the essence of Mary. I enter this photo into ArtPrize out of pure love. I love the woman who gave birth to our savior, Christ the Lord!
Jill Raby
Title: All That Remains
Medium: Natural and recycled materials
Description of work: After a particular brutal Spring storm, I started to pick up branches and various other items left behind in the yard. Upon creating an interesting collection of materials, this piece began to come alive...
There will be two or three "creatures" made of sticks, grapevine and various other natural/recycled resources, enjoying a meal together.
Morgan Showalter
Artist and educator Morgan Showalter was raised in Onekama, MI and is known primarily for his video works. His recent projects have focused on the experience of becoming a father.
Solo exhibitions include the Örebro Läns Museum in Örebro, Sweden and Cheapart in Athens, Greece.
Group exhibitions include: Sink/Float at Area405, Baltimore, Photo España04, Madrid; Medi@terra; The Tashkent Biennale, Tashkent Uzbekistan; “VideoCream” at artandgallery, Milan Italy; “Small Brother” at The National Gallery of Art, Tirana Albania; The Chiang Mai Social Installation, Chiang Mai, Thailand; Medialab, Madrid; Videoformes 2007; FIPA07;
He has participated in a number of artist's residencies throughout the world.
Mr. Showalter received a BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute, College of Art in 1992. He graduated from Central Connecticut State University in 1997 with K-12 Art Educator certification
Julie Walden
I live in Chicago, Illinois, where I am a social worker by profession, and enjoy a variety of artistic endeavors in my spare time. I hope to integrate these interests by providing trauma-focused, art psychotherapy.
About the work
Title: Holy Spirit
Medium: paper, spray paint, fishing line
Description of work: This piece is meant to evoke an interwoven image of the Holy Spirit as a dove, and the Holy Spirit as fire. The resultant image is a (roughly) 12' x 14.5' curtain made up of 700 small paper birds. (The curtain hangs from a 12' pole rigged up to the ceiling.) Each bird started off as a white doily that holds a prayer. Each doily was folded into a dove that is flying the prayer heavenward to the ears of God. Scripture says that the Holy Spirit intercedes in our time of weakness--when we do not know how to pray--with sentiments that words cannot express. The Holy Spirit continues to intrigue me, especially as the feminine aspect of God.
Julie Wirth
Although I have been drawing pictures since I was a child, my professional life took another turn. I was a university research scientist for many years involved in studies of human infectious agents, breast cancer and immune recognition. A few years ago I received an MS in epidemiology from Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan and now am involved in research on the effects of environmental chemicals on human reproduction. I grew up in Philadelphia and have lived in Austin Texas, Denver, Lansing and now have a home in Grand Rapids Michigan. I’ve remained an active artist for many years, taking courses in design, figure drawing and painting at Kendall Collage of Design, and have experimented on my own in acrylics and watercolor paintings. While I use the dramatic colors of acrylics in vibrant, active abstract pieces, I love the texture and feel of painting with watercolors. My pieces have been exhibited in local art galleries and art fairs.
About the work
Title: Pumpkins
Medium: watercolor
Description of work: I like painting from real life, and loved the trail of pumpkins fading into the distance. It perfectly captures fall and harvest time in Michigan. The orange of the pumpkins was vibrant and I could feel the crispness of the dried vines in the field. I did a small watercolour of just one pumpkin, just to get the colors right and the vines and branches in the background. It was fun to paint the various sizes and shapes of the pumpkins. Its one of my favorites.
Jim Wisnewski
I have taught art at GR Catholic Central for 40 years where everybody calls me MR. JIM, and art education at Aquinas for 14 years. I have done many pieces of art over the years in a variety of media. Although I consider myself primarily a sculptor, I also paint, do graphic art, multi-media and printmaking. Now that I am retired from CCHS I am enjoying more free time and have been able to undertake more ambitious artwork.
About the work
Title: John the Baptist
Art form: 3-D
Medium: Mixed
Year created: Work not created yet
Description of work: John the Baptist is just emerging from the Grand River Jordan, dripping wet. He seems to be pointing at you.
