The ideas that engage me, and have remained an underlying theme in all of my artwork is a study of behavior and connections which extend beyond words.

In observation, there are certain moments when the connection is made – when ‘something exciting’ happens and people connect with others, or that which is outside us.” The “others” can be human, animals, objects, or even unexplainable situations or feelings. This work conveys that very point in time where the connection and energy exchange radiates.

To act – interact – react is the sequence of life and experiencing the moment. In my photography, as in my videos, in the art I make – the moments in time are captured, compressed and reinvented for the emotional impact. In editing and adding the special effects, emphasis is placed on the viewer to observe a new way of thinking about the issues.

As an artist, I believe it necessary to be ready – Be ready - “you are now ready – for the experience outside your current frame of reference.” 1/08

Monica J. Brown is an interdisciplinary artist exploring the intersections between visual art, sound, movement, poetry, prose and performance. Her work is concerned with the stories that we choose to tell ourselves about our origins. Our identity can be shaped by the mythology upon which we base our existence, and the subsequent labels we choose or are given. The stories of our personal history which live in our bodies and the stories of our ancestry which we carry in our DNA can also shape the way in which we view the world and our place within it. Her work is also an investigation of genetic memory and generational healing: gathering the stories from the past, knowing them, and sharing them as a means to healing learned dysfunctional patterns as well as embracing inherited strengths and gifts.

While in college I discovered the writings of American geographer John Wright who coined the term “geopiety:” geo from the Greek for earth and piety from the Latin pietas meaning sense of duty of filial love. This word so perfectly expresses my love and sense of devotion to the places that have filled my life. The landscapes of Georgia, New England, Florida, and the Midwest; the waters of the Great Lakes, Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and the Gulf of Mexico all figure prominently in my work. Although my work edges mostly on abstraction, I have always thought of myself as a landscape painter. Artists like Helen Frankenthaler, Anselm Keifer, and Cy Twombly inspire me greatly. Through line, color, material and gesture I attempt to honor the landscapes that I am deeply attached to. These landscape explorations are filtered through both experience and memory. Imagination plays an important role as well.

The primary focus of my work is abstract, stemming from an interest in technology, geometry, machine aesthetics, architecture and nature. Over the past decade, my work has been concentrated in the areas of painting, printmaking, digital printmaking, and drawing. My works explore the combination of inkjet print with traditional fine art media to reveal process and create a dialogue between the hand and machine. The intermingling of new and old approaches play against each other and promote a collision between the intuitive hand derived images vs. mechanically mediated ones. On the picture plane a war is being waged between the neutrality of the computer and the fallibility of the human hand.

Granite Palombo is an interdisciplinary artist who has exhibited nationally and internationally in places such as Chicago, New York, Paris, Edinburgh, Washington, Toronto, and Hamburg. Her work has been widely reviewed in various journals such as the Chicago Tribune.

As an artist/photographer, I work with light. Photography is about light and photosensitive materials. The process itself is magical. The landscapes in the photographs are visual metaphors for the artist’s transformative process and journey of reclaiming a sense of self and connection to the world/community. Stevens has exhibited her work nationally and internationally including the Los Angeles Photography Center; Galeria Tonalli, Mexico City; University of Arizona, Tucson; Alexandria Museum of Art, Alexandria, Louisiana; Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky; and Laguna Gloria Art Museum, Austin, Texas.

Chiyeko Yuki is an ARC affiliate member living in Niigata, Japan. Her oil paintings have enjoyed great success in many international exhibitions, combining modern expressionistic process and painting techniques with Japanese sensibilities. Yuki applies layers and layers of colors on canvas through a labyrinth of slurs, scumbles, scratches , scrubs, scraps and her own calligraphy. Yuki’s every moment and movement on can­vas is fluid and spontaneous as she captures the fleeting moment of life: joy, hope, suffering, sorrow, agony, conflict, peace, and serenity.

Amy Zucker is a Chicago artist whose installations confront and challenge our cultural notions of what happens to us when we grow old and what it is like to be old.  This body of work is informed by a nursing practice with older adults.  Amy worked as a registered nurse on an inpatient geriatric psychiatry unit for sixteen years and most recently for four years as a geriatric case manager in the community.  The art work integrates patient care experiences with the incongruous one dimensional picture that our culture paints when describing the elderly.  It is the absurdities of these ideas that fuel the art work.