I am creating a site-specific drawing on the twelfth floor, which has been executed on site during the course of installation.
Please see my blog www.theflatfile.blogspot.com for more information about the artwork.

Most of my work is done in oil on canvas. I work largely from photographs I have taken myself of scenes to which I had a personal response, and I try to capture the essence of that response in the painting. My paintings are fairly representational and the inter-mountain Western US has been the focus of much of my work. Occasionally a photo taken by someone else will be my subject matter.

I am not afraid of color.....Vibrancy, based on bold and daring hues are what my paintings and travel photography entail. Giving still-life breath through color is something I aspire to do with every piece. Each work reflects my personality; one filled with optimistic bubbles of vivacity and versatility. Even the gloomiest of paintings have flickers of light that signify hope. Van Gogh inspires me because his paintings are truly versatile. Beneath each of his pieces lie a certain sense of urgency and reckless abandon that greatly appeal to me. My undying passion for travel is my current muse. Born and raised in Nigeria; this fact remains an undertone in the bold, tropical colors I gravitate towards.

I have drawn and painted since childhood.
I paint what interests me.
Right now I am interested in painting people and pets.
I try to give my paintings a sense of the individual-ness of the person or the pet.
I love love love dogs.
I also love cats, fish, turtles, even some rodents.
Bringing their adorable faces to life on a canvas is exciting.
More of my work can be seen by contacting me at
Chris@dacom.com or by going to my website at
www.cmastudio.com or www.cmappleton.blogs.com

I had an idyllic childhood; at least that’s how I choose to remember it. I paint sunlit landscapes, charming old houses, warm interiors and dreamy nocturnes because they remind me of my halcyon youth but memory is such a fickle thing that what I recall could be a fabrication or at least an exaggeration. Making these paintings causes me to examine the impressions of my past that I have held as truth for so long. The act of painting provides me with a metaphorical crowbar to pry open my long held assumptions. I am becoming open to seeing new truths.

self taught

mixed media has allowed me to redefine the classic painting statement. it is a constant source of delight, opening up depth, range and texture. i express myself using materials as a total gestalt, creating images from the turmoil of my mind

"Heart"

This series of sculptures is an attempt to integrate the East and West.

At the heart of creation dances the Lord of the Dance, who directs and undergoes the integration of all opposites, male and female, creation and destruction, crucifixion and resurrection. Out of this beating center, the material world takes birth. The central sculpture in the exhibition is called "The Nataraja," or "Lord of the Dance.” The dancing figure inside this sculpture is crucified and resurrected, male and female.

The four sculptures surrounding "The Nataraja" represent creation’s four-fold nature: the four directions, and the four seasons. Each is a human figure dancing inside a musical instrument. The dancers are inspired by the choreography of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre. The sculptures of the four seasons are made of mixed media, but primarily one of four metals: gold, silver, bronze and steel. These four metals are associated with the Hindu understanding of time, which is divided into four ages, or yugas. There is the Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. Each age is a necessary season of growth for creation and for human beings striving towards their goal of union with God through love.

Washington DC based artist Chris Bishop pays homage to his two true loves in his Pretty Girls & Robots series of paintings. Bishop employs bold outlines, cartoon simplicity and bright colors to bring to life the empty, cold-hearted death machines... and those are just the girls!

Karen Butler works in a variety of media to create works of art that are playfully bold. Each oil is worked like sculpture to capture depth in color and produce strong, dynamic forms. She formally launched her career as an artist with Artomatic in 2007. Ms. Butler is a Washington, D.C. native who maintains her studio in the D.C. area. Commissions welcome.

My parents often took us sailing where I spent many hours contemplating reflections and shadows against dark, shifting waters. I remember glimpses of jellies ascending to the surface beneath my dangling feet as the hull carved waves into the ocean. These memories fostered my interest in peeking into other worlds. Thus in my compositions I employ textured surfaces and shading to portray inner life and provide emotional context - glimpses of feeling and instinct reflected in the outer self.

You Want to be a Peace Dove!
People are tired of sitting around watching cable and Twittering their friends: they want to do something. People are sick of anti-peace. People want peace.
Come pander to your basest desire by embodying peace or get high off someone else’s. I’ll be taking pictures and posting them over the next month.

About Me
I am an installation artist, poet, and interested in peace. I characterize my projects—which include photography, sculpture/construction, and video in varying combinations, and usually seduce passers-by to engage in public displays of art-making for peace—as Situationalist Lite.

My work over the past few years includes Peace Kiss, For the Love of God, The Making of Abu Grab Barbi and Is that Your Hand Sticking Out of the Cage. My poetry has appeared in College English, Agni and other publications and I’ve read around town at the Black Cat, Miller Cabin, Café Muse, Artomatic and Iota. I will be reading at Artomatic at some point—stay tuned for details!

Things I know I’ll be doing this summer: making more art and co-judging FLIKinteractive, an Art Whino/Art Outlet show of new media art.

About Debbi Collins
Debbi Collins is a muralist and portrait painter from Jacksonville, FL. and she designed and painted "Peace Love Dove," the incredible triptych for "You Want to be a Peace Dove!" Her work was recently featured on "Extreme Home Makeover." You can email her at debimonde@gmail.com

I must have hit my head. I can think of no other reason why I started seeing these cones everywhere, blazing neon, as chartreuse as an orange can be, desperately begging to be seen.

You know them, don't you?

When's the last time you really noticed them?

Safety cones are sprinkled throughout American existence - beacons of fleshy, antibiotic hysteria just dying to tell us, innocent us, about that nasty hole in the asphalt (it could twist your ankle!), the two-block deep gaping maw of a unbuilt hotel (did you notice?), the freshly-planted cherry tree in the middle of a barren field (careful!).

I give you true-to-life photographs, with the goal of sadistically nailing a FedEx-arrow awareness of their ubiquitous Chicken Littleism as firmly to your psyche as to mine. (Where do they come from?)

They're everywhere; I can assure you of this.

Feel free to pick up sunflower seeds and/or plants on the 12th floor. We're trying to get as many people to grow sunflowers as possible -- then create and share art inspired by the sunflowers. The website for this project is: www.SunflowerArtFestival.com

My art this time is my iterative sculpture project:

This piece "What's in the box #5" is an iterative transformational serial sculpture with polymedia post-existance artifacts. The first sculpture in this series was a zinc casting in the shape of "Yin." This piece was melted down and transformed into a Sun symbol. The Sun was then turned into a pyramid, which was later melted down and cast into a crescent moon. Each time the piece is re-melted copper and tin are added which will eventually transmute the sculpture into bronze. When a new iteration is displayed representations of all previous forms will accompany it. Since the current version of the piece is inside a black box you can't see what the sculpture is - only what it was. Stripped bare of quasipladarntinic pontificants and needless inert obfusticating neologisms this project may also be construed by the layman as an excuse to melt stuff and use big words.