Artist Highlights

Meet Nicola Parente

Nicola Parente’s exhibition at the Manuel Felguerez Abstract Art Museum in Zacatecas Mexico, will run December 9, 2011 through March 9, 2012. This exhibition titled “Al Borde del Despertar” (“Edge of Awakening”) will feature 30 large scale abstract paintings.

According to Parente, “Art is a venture into worlds that are often only discovered in the attempt to represent them to yourself and others.” He prefers to paint in series, “exploring multiple ways of saying not the same thing, but similar things, related things—things that are in process and could go in a multiplicity of directions. The possibility of awakening is also the possibility of remaining unawakened. Our lives are more circuitous than linear, living in more than one environment, a step forward, a step back, moving through a land with no clear boundaries whose silence we interrupt with both our words as well as our marks of paint, discovering and inventing our futures.”

Museo de Arte Abstracto Manuel Felguérez

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Photos by Aaron Courtland Photography

Allan Skriloff

Primarily known for his portrait and figurative paintings, Skriloff’s works are noted for their photorealistic quality and examination of light. The Oil Field series was part of a five-year project, which explored the relationship between workingmen and their machines. Skriloff spent weeks at a time in the oil fields of Australia, photographing and studying the men at work. Once back in his studio in New York, Skriloff used the photographs to create the paintings. Both the Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.) and Realism movements heavily influence Skriloff’s works, stylistically.

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Elisabeth Smith

The act of making art reveals as many challenges and discoveries as I could ever ask for. It is within the process of making art that I find meaning and connection to life, and to the source of my creativity. My paintings suggest organic formations that seem familiar but remain elusive. It is within this ambiguity that I engage the viewer through harmonic color relationships, form and striking contrasts. I apply multiple layers of color and texture, which result in a quality of depth and complexity that encourages the viewer to contemplate the painting as a multi-dimensional atmosphere radiating a source of warmth and light. My paintings are environments that I invite the viewer into, to explore and investigate further.