FEATURED ARTIST:

Our Featured Artist is one of the many local artists whose work we offer in the Art Shop Gallery. Normally, the Art Shop presents a limited amount of work from an artist. When chosen as Featured Artist we expand their work throughout the gallery to give visitors a comprehensive appreciation for the artist’s work.

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019

NANETTE GARCIA

 

Woodstock artist Nanette Garcia has always enjoyed working in different mediums, from pottery to jewelry making, experimenting with different materials. She is an avid painter, working in watercolor and now oil.

Nanette has previously been a member of the Palette and Chisel in Chicago and a former staff member at Old Courthouse Arts Center. She has taken many classes and workshops with many inspirational artists such as David Leffel, Colley Whisson, and Scott Burdick.

“My work is traditionally representational. My love of people leads me to strive to convey their character through their mannerisms or expressions. My love of travel and being out of doors leads me to paint out en plein air where I am striving to capture the changing light, and movement. My love of composing leads me to set up a still life to paint a setting with lighting and objects that I find interesting in color and texture.”

For more of Nanette's work, visit: https://ngarc.fineartstudioonline.com

November 13–January 5, 2020

 


MAY/JUNE 2019

PEGGY DEE

 

 

Peggy Dee is a multi-media fine artist with Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and a Master of Fine Arts from Northern Illinois University. Peggy has taught as a visiting professor at the Northern Illinois University and currently teaches Painting I, II and III at the Elgin Community College.

With a strong emphasis in painting, Peggy's recent work focuses on her desire to share stories of figures in isolation with the viewer. "My art making celebrates the quiet, solitary, everyday moments that fill the greater part of any day."

May 1–June 30, 2019

Opening Reception: Saturday, May 11 from 7:00 pm–9:00 pm


 

MARCH/APRIL 2019

LISA BEARD

 

 

Lisa Beard is a photographer with a strong focus on conceptual work, much of it dealing with the universal complexities of human nature. With a background in education, literature studies, and psychology, much of her work takes from these disciplines in order to form narratives that most, if not all, people can relate to. Her work comes from a combination of things: her childhood and relationships, a curiosity about people and why they choose to do the things they do, her educational background, and her teaching and parenting experiences. Lisa is captivated by the extremes found between things: within different types of relationships, within one’s self, within ideologies, within the physical and metaphysical, and she is especially interested in the disarticulated space found between these extremes and what can be learned from it.

 

 

 

 

 


 

FEBRUARY 2019

KURT KAMHOLZ

Like a lot of artists, I paint landscapes. Though I have dabbled with other subjects over the years, I always seem to return to trying to depict the earth and sky and trees and water. I’m not sure why, but landscapes and I appear to be linked at some cellular level. I find that I can't not paint them. I can only try to make them sing.

Having lived almost my entire life in Crystal Lake, the landscape I paint is the one I know intimately – northern Illinois. Flat, broad, deceptively complex, and sometimes achingly beautiful, it’s a constant challenge and delight trying to capture the beauty of what many uninformed people consider to be a boring subject.

While I’ve been painting since I could hold a brush, I really learned to paint at Illinois State University where I studied Photorealism under Heartland School of Landscape Painter Harold Gregor. While there I also discovered Impressionism, particularly the work of Claude Monet, and most of my work has emerged from and is a constantly changing combination of these two competing styles. I try and balance on an unsteady ledge between them. In my best work I don't fall to either side.

Read more: Artist's Statement

www.kurtkamholz.com

 


 

NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2018

NAN SEIDLER

 

 

Nan Seidler is a mixed media artist and nature lover She was nurtured by creative practical women who embroidered, quilted, tailored, sewed and recycled everything. Nan has a passion for using many mediums, repurposing and adding meaning to gifts from nature, interesting discarded and found objects.

Nan often uses symbols or stories in her work. Her “SpiritLadders” are a visual reminder that we are all on a spiritual journey and that the journey will be crooked and uneven for everyone. She also uses the Zen symbols for Mind/Body (the circle), Strength (the triangle), and Home (the square).

Nan has a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a MSEd. in Counseling from NIU. She is a co-founder of Women’s Works, an International Juried Art Exhibit for women held during Women’s History Month at the Old Court House Art Center (OCAC) every March. Nan is an exhibiting artist at the OCAC.

www.nanseidler.com


 

JULY 2018

GAIL WILLERT

 

 

Gail M. Willert grew up a city girl in Chicago but has since escaped to live in the country near Burlington, WI. Willert has degrees in Photography and Design from the University of Illinois and The Art Institute of Chicago with Masters Degree studies at the University of Chicago. Besides art, Gail’s career path has included playing bass guitar in dozens of bands, teaching massage therapy and practicing soft tissue therapy at physical therapy and hospital clinics. Gail is presently still teaching massage and continues her private practice. She has exhibited locally in juried shows at the Rockford, Kohler, Wustum, Wright, and Koehnline museums as well as various galleries and art centers.

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

 

 


 

JUNE 2018

CINDY LESPERANCE

20 x 16

I incorporate a process that I developed, of meticulously applying small droplets of encaustic, a combination of beeswax, resin and pigment, one-by-one to the surface of the painting and exploring the relationship of these drips to the spaces in between them. The overall effect produces a tactile pattern that invites the viewer to touch. This process is, at the same time effortless and meditative, challenging and slow, but I’m always excited by it.

 

Artist Statement   Bio

 

 

 

 

10x10 10x10 10x10
16 x 16 16 x 20

 


MAY 2017

GABRIELA GUGANOVIC

Good Night Bad Morning

Gabriela is a native Hungarian artist, born in former Yugoslavia currently living and working in St Charles, USA. She received a degree in Early Childhood Education in Novi Sad, Serbia and proceeded to teach in international schools in Budapest, Hungary and Warsaw, Poland.

Passionate about art and photography she continuously created images in her free time and successfully exhibited and published her photography in Poland. After her move to Chicago in 2005 she earned a Certificate in Photography Technology with Highest Honors at the College of Du Page. She exhibits in the United States and Europe. She was shortlisted in the top 20 images for the 2015 Life Framer online international photo competition, named as a finalist for 8th editions of the International Julia Margaret Cameron Award and also for LENS 2016 International Juried Photography Exhibition. Her work has been featured in different art magazines in Europe and published in a US book BEST OF PHOTOGRAPHY 2014 by Photographer’s Forum magazine. Gabriela’s recent still life series is featured in Muybridge’s Horse online art magazine and her Portrait of a Woman as a Mother series in Umstandslos German feminist magazine. Some of her work is represented by AppletonArt Design.

End of Summer Chance was Given

 

Eve's Half At the Moment

 

 


 

October 2016

ESTHER ARON

Delightfully quirky describes the Boxes enclosing kinetic figures constructed of paper and wire. Pulling and releasing the wire or pumping it creates movement. The interactive device gives the work a playful element designed to engage the viewer with thought-provoking content.

Overall the content speaks to humanity’s perplexing construct as an apparently solid three dimensional being having a temporal impermanent existence. Why we live; why we die; what was before us; and what comes after; what’s going on here, and why don’t we know?

Looking for answers, I wander the fields of science, religion, mythology, metaphysics, all things Fortean, the strange and unusual. I turn my eye to the exterior world and my ear to my inner one. I look and listen and what I uncover spills into my art. The art gives no answers to those dogged existential questions, only glimpses of my search. www.estheraron.com

 

 

March/April 2016

MARY TELFER

Local artist Mary Telfer is our artist of the month for March and April. She is the judge for this year's Women's Works, and is the Gallery Coordinator at Lakeside Arts Park and an art instructor at McHenry County College and Northern Illinois Special Recreation Association (NISRA) in northern Illinois.

Telfer is a multi-media artist who uses language and humor to address issues of corporate structures, animal rights, and feminist agency. The media she employs include: photography, drawing, painting, collage, digital technology, and books in a practice that is both collaborative and socially engaged. Mary has spent a great deal of time curating and jurying exhibitions through the Wausau Festival of Arts in Wausau, WI, Northern Illinois University, and NISRA. She is committed to educating audiences about healthy living and veganism. She has an extensive exhibition history throughout the United States, exhibiting in Illinois, California, Massachusetts, and Vermont.

To learn more about Mary and see more of her work, please visit www.marytelfer.com.

 


February 2016

BERT LEVEILLE

"Intruder" by Bert Leveille

I enjoy many mediums to explore this alternate world (connected to and reflective of my familiar world). It jolts my perceptions.

I connect to these human-like figures, not necessarily human, but definitely mindful. I search for kernels of hope amidst adversity; spirit surpassing challenges; connections, compassion and empathy rather than discord...

This world is encapsulated in boxes and transforming in digital video. The videos were created by skripting the digital painting process. Some digital paintings are printed on archival paper with archival ink as artist’s test proofs.

 


 

November/December 2015

FRANKIE JOHNSON

by Frankie Johnson

 

Frankie Johnson is an accomplished artist with over 40 years of experience in oil painting and pastels. She opened Mainstreet Art Centre in 1994 with a talented staff of instructors. She conducts workshops in portrait and landscape painting at various locations at Mainstreet, The Clearing in Ellison Bay, WI, and Dillmans in Lac Du Flambeau WI.

She studied art and design at the Art Institute of Chicago and William Harper College. Frankie has participated in many juried exhibitions and plein air painting competitions and won numerous awards for her paintings through the years. Her paintings, including numerous portrait commissions, hang in corporate and private collections throughout the country.

 

 

by Frankie Johnson by Frankie Johnson

 

October 2015

KAREN SCHUMAN

shown above:"Balance Bouyancy"

 

Making art gives me covert glimpses into my own mind, and so it has become a study of human nature for me, my own and others. The hours spent working give me the time to consider the more spiritual aspects of the work. I begin with a concept in mind and devise the best way to bring it to its ultimate visual culmination. I work with many materials and techniques; from hand-dyed fabrics to handmade paper; I paint, sew, bead, or sculpt, as the piece requires. As I “cultivate” a piece, the concept itself develops even further into more abstract avenues, to ultimately create a story that is personal to me, but still open to free interpretation by others. Many of the concepts of my artwork are based on Peruvian shamanic work that I am currently learning and practicing. I use a whimsical style to lighten up and add humor to some of the darker aspects of my concepts…..to pay homage to the light side and romance the shadow side.



August 2015

NANETTE GARCIA

shown above: "The Old Machine Shed"

My work is traditionally representational. My love of people leads me to strive to convey their character, through their mannerisms or expressions. My love of travel and being out of doors leads me to paint in plein air where I am striving to capture the changing light, and movement.  My love of composing leads me to setting up a still life to paint a setting with lighting and objects that I find interesting in color and texture.

Attending the Palette and Chisel in Chicago, has helped me to grow as an artist . I have been very fortunate to have been able to take many classes and workshops with inspirational and very generous artists such as Scott Burdick, David Leffel, and Mary Qian.

My goal as a painter is to grow by continuously studying and to continue painting.


 

June 2015

MARY HILGER

For those who know me, they know if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s artist statements. For those who don’t know me, well, now you know. They are many times as painful to read as they are to write. I never even read all those little cards at museum exhibits. It takes away time I could spend just looking at something I may never have the chance to see again. But we live in an information age, so here is some information, which I hope you enjoy reading.

I take absolute joy in just making things and have since I was teeny weeny. As I began to study art and learn the rules, my first loves were painting and drawing. I never really thought of myself as photographer, it was more of a way to capture a moment for memory, a kind of archiving. But as one of my college professors said, it’s about learning and unlearning and there is always so much to unlearn.

I always hated being in the darkroom. But with the advent of digital cameras and working on computers, camera as an art tool became interesting to me. I once told a photographer “I know how to make an image, just not with this tool.” Knowledge of device counts for a great deal in photography and that I am still learning. (And unlearning)

So here are some of my photos, I hope you enjoy them

"Ice Cream" "Hangin'" "Candy Man"
shown above: "The Grim Reaper"


May 2015

FENG BIDDLE

I am a Chicago-area artist working in different media: oil, acrylic and pastel. I love the richness of oil paints, and the immediacy of drawing and painting at the same time with pastels. These media are like friends with different personalities.  I enjoy spending time with each, knowing their differences will draw my interactions with them in somewhat different directions.  In a way, my paintings are the conversations I have with these friends.

My approach to art is to paint from my heart, as I explore the nature of what I see with my eyes and my imagination. Using a representational starting point, either real or invented, I examine the relationships of lines, shapes and colors. My works are largely abstract, evolving as an interaction between my vision and the process of arranging and applying color to paper or canvas. While literal images may contribute somewhat to my images, I am mainly interested in presenting simplified flat shapes, and creating color relationships. I try to rely on line and shape as content, while using color to create the emotional component in my paintings.

 


March and April 2015

Paul JustenPAUL JUSTEN

The images in my paintings arise from a profound love of nature. The many varied colors and patterns in nature are what inspire me as an artist. Growing up among the hills of northern England cultivated my fondness of tranquil settings, and I believe my paintings often reflect this. I work predominantly with oil and acrylic and tend to surround myself with as many as ten paintings in various stages of completion. My best work usually starts with preliminary sketches which enable me to work out value and composition. After the initial structure has been established I allow myself to be spontaneous and accepting of the unforeseen “happy accidents” that occur in the final painting process.

My paintings have evolved through many different styles and techniques over the course of my career. I started out gravitating towards photo realism and then moved through more impressionistic-type paintings. Of late my landscapes have become more spontaneous and nonrepresentational than the majority of my previous work. Artists that have influenced me are innumerable, but two impressionists that have really left a mark on me are Claude Monet and John Henry Thwachtman. Thwachtman’s painting “Arques-la-Bataille” is beyond genius in its design, yet at the same time, as his friend Childe Hassam once said, “…was delicate even to evasiveness.” Recently I have been captivated by the color field painters of the 1950’s, such as Clyfford Still and Mark Rothko. Their pure emotional approach and disregard for detail has been a complete revelation for me and my technique.

I feel I have just begun to scratch the surface of what is possible as an artist and have found a connection with what Rothko believed, “The progression of a painter’s work, as it travels in time from point to point, will be toward clarity…and to achieve this clarity is, inevitably, to be understood.”

 

Contact the
Arts Center