Current Exhibition

About the Artists

“Floral Muse” art629 Gallery

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Annette Juliano @memajulianoartist

Annette Juliano is an award-winning artist with a degree in Fine Arts. She is known for her work in the field of portraits and is fascinated in capturing the fleeting moment of their expressions. Her use of color is strong and bold. “My goal is to create a sense of depth and understanding of my story and to invite the viewer to look beneath the surface of my work to discover the emotion and layers that are hidden there. Painting flowers helps me to enjoy the simple beauty nature provides and my desire for others to connect on a deeper level when they view my painting.”

 

Brittany James @brittanyjamesart

As a Jersey Shore native, Brittany began painting at Riverview Art School in Island Heights. She holds a degree in Fine Arts from Montclair State University with a concentration in painting. Her oil paintings are of surreal images, depicting the relationships between women, nature, and society. Brittany’s art is typically inspired by dreams, poetry, and words. She often paints bright, whimsical portraits of women surrounded by flowers, but with underlying themes of darkness. She likes to include contrasting imagery that is a mix of delicacy and harshness, and sometimes creates a break in the reality of the painting by using abstract drips of turpentine in the background to give the image a dreamlike quality. In addition to painting, Brittany teaches art classes at Inspired Minds Fine Art School in Lincroft and art629 Gallery in Asbury Park where she curates local art exhibitions like “Floral Muse”. Brittany has painted live on stage at multiple New Jersey theaters. She has been a muralist and featured artist for the Asbury Underground Art & Music Crawl, the Asbury Park City Mural Project, and the Sea Hear Now Festival, and has shown her work in several galleries in the New York tri-state area.

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Carla Valentino @carlavalentino31

Carla Valentino is a New Jersey Shore Area Mixed Media Artist and Art Educator. Originally a painter, her work now incorporates a variety of media including, paper, ink, graphite, acrylics as well as recycled materials such as cardboard and plastic and found objects. She is primarily influenced by Nature, the beach and ocean in particular, the passage of time, moon phases and her own personal history. Classical influences are the work of Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall, Georgia O ‘Keeffe, Dale Chihuly and Paul Cezanne. Pop Art, Cubism, Impressionism and Surrealism are also periods in Art History that she finds fascinating. Carla has been a high school art teacher for 24 years and also teaches adult mixed media classes. “Art is everything.”

 

Carol Magnatta @carolmagnatta

“My immediate surroundings and the natural world are what move me to paint. And of all nature's facets, color is the driving force. Whether creating a still life or figurative work in my studio or nature out in the wild, I work primarily from life. Sometimes I feel like nature uses me as a conduit to capture its wonders on canvas and share them with the world. No matter what the subject matter, this immediacy of approach is the common thread that ties my work together. I find my joy interacting with the world to make art. Working in oil paint in the tradition of generations of plein air painters, I see subjects in my own back your and places as diverse as the hills of Italy, a Greek island, or the Jersey shore. From braving the elements to find just the right view, to interpreting and pushing nature's color and light with my paint, to laying down brushstrokes that demonstrate the intensity of my experience, each painting is an adventure. I hope they bring my viewers along for the ride.” Carol has a degree in fine arts and is an award winning artist who has shown her work in many galleries across the New York tri-state area.

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Christine Cittadino @christinecittadino

Christine Cittadino is an art student from Eatontown, N.J. She is experienced in the mediums of colored pencils and, more recently, pastels. She has been studying with her mentor, oil painter Scott Nickerson, for the past eight years. “Scott has helped me develop my technique. I feel like my drawings start to look like paintings because of him. I am excited to share my work and be inspired by others.”

 

Christopher Evan Taylor @christopherevantaylor

Christopher Evan Taylor was born in San Antonio Texas. He grew up an “Air Force Brat” and frequently moved around the country, settling in NJ. Christopher graduated with a BFA from Thomas Edison State University. He studied with Grace Graupe-Pillard and has exhibited widely in the Monmouth County area. “Using the camera as a resource for my paintings, I take numerous photographs of the Northeast landscape. They include scenes from New Jersey as well as more recent world travels. With a desire to evoke a sense of place, I focus on the accidents of nature's design by using strong compositional elements as groundwork for my paintings. The resulting landscapes have a clarity and luminous quality that freezes time and space, allowing the viewer to escape, if only for a moment, to the tranquil world of my making. Starting in 1997, I began to incorporate the figure of a child in my landscapes. A young girl intermingled with nature's foliage adds a new metaphorical dimension to my work with implications of youth, renewal and blossoming innocence. In early 2000, I developed and nurtured my own children's garden, a uniquely structured environment, which has become a magical place of beauty, where my mysterious narratives can take flight.

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Denise Dmochowski @denisedmochowski

“Throughout my career I have been drawn to patterns and color with particular interest in the layering effects of collage. Whether I use paper or fabric, the end result is a piece created from overlapping prints. These collaged canvases then become the foundation for my paintings. Recently I have begun transferring these collage techniques onto chairs. Fabric is sewn together to create

large pieces of material that can be used to reupholster chairs. Many of the fabrics used are digital prints made from images of my paintings and photographs.” Denise attended Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutger University and has exhibited her art work coast to coast and abroad including Art Basel in Miami, Florida.

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Emilia Durkin @emiliaartandsoul

Emilia (Palladino) Durkin has always had art in her heart. She lives in Ocean County, NJ with her husband and two sons. She has a degree from Monmouth University. Born in Jersey City and a resident of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, Emilia is trained in art history and a self-taught painter of landscapes, flowers, and abstract art.

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Eric Miller

Eric’s professional artistic journey began at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where he studied printmaking, illustration and photography, earning a Master of Fine and Applied Arts Degree. In line with these talents, Eric has always excelled and worked professionally as a photo- realistic illustrator/painter and photographer in all creative media which included television, advertising agencies and client media campaigns for an array of educational and entertainment institutions. His multi-talents enabled him to work creatively in these genres while running his own graphic design agency, Eric Miller + Associates since 1988. His tenure in advertising enhanced his personal creative juices in fine art, which never left his purview. For the past several years, Eric has devoted most of his time developing and refining his creative work towards his fine art through photography, resulting in a series of floral prints. These particular prints were inspired by the flower paintings of Georgia O’Keefe, with their symbolic nature open to individual interpretation. The American poet Edwin Curran sums it up best, “Flowers are the music of the ground. From earth’s lips spoken without sound.”

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George Melton @gmeltonart

"In these paintings I am profoundly influenced by the seductive luminosity, ethereal quality and acute attention to detail exhibited by the artist Martin Johnson Heade. In the smaller studies, I appropriate elements from his work into my own compositions in a humble attempt to imitate as closely as possible his masterful techniques. "Quetzal After The Storm" is a composition derived from knowledge gained from these studies. Infused with touches of surrealism, my work becomes a dreamscape where the divide between the real and the imagined begins to blur and where the familiar is transformed into the extraordinary. This journey takes us on a detour away from our everyday existence into a world of evolving lifeforms, mystical lighting, brilliant colors and melodious sounds. It may also lead us into a world of fear, danger, uncertainty and raw survival, a reminder of our tenuous residence on this fragile planet.”

 

Heather Brown Cadalzo @heatherbrowncadalzo

“A self proclaimed “realist-expressionist”, I strive to capture the beauty I perceive in the world, with an infusion of color and light. A large portion of my work focuses on my connection with nature. Sometimes I attempt to replicate the perfection I find, with an

emphasis on texture and movement. People who are observant, are drawn to enjoy the sea, the sky, animals, etc. We collectively appreciate how these aspects of our world feel familiar and mysterious all at once. A portrait artist at my core, I often compose candid moments of human interaction with the world. I may also personify animals and creatures to encompass a universally understood human emotion. Lately my muse has been the sea, the sky, and scenes from my recent travels. Regardless of the subject, I am attracted to this beautiful life, and the essence of being present and interested.” Originally trained in oil painting by mentor Elaine Sgambati of Riverview Art School, NJ. Heather received a BFA in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts in NYC. She is the owner and founder of Inspired Minds Fine Art School of Lincroft, where she has been teaching art to all ages since 2006. Heather’s work has been shown and received many awards regionally. She specializes in portraiture and live event painting. Her goal is to achieve a likeness but also to capture the energy of the person or moment in time.

 

Irina Shoyet @irinaphotoboutique

“Originally from the picturesque seaside city of Odessa, Ukraine, my loveaffair with photography began just a few years before my move to the U.S. Settling in New York in 1995, I dove into the craft, taking artclasses and workshops with distinguished artists and photographersthat greatly refined my technique. My career as a freelance photographer blossomed in New Jersey. Specializing in event photography, I've partnered with theaters and dance troupes such as Alborada Dance, Amazonas, and Cimarrones, capturing the vibrant spirit of the stage. The realms of fashion and product photography also draw my interest, blending creative vision with a commercial touch. My deepest passion, however, lies in the world of art photography and the creation of distinctive collages. Although largely self-taught, my work has gained recognition through multiple exhibitions across New York, New Jersey, and beyond, and can be found in private collections worldwide.

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Jim Twerell @jimtwerellart

Born and raised in New York City, artist Jim Twerell graduated from the School of Visual Arts in NYC. Prior to dedicating himself to oil painting, Twerell attended the New York Film School and worked on the production of independent films. He is currently based in Ocean Grove, NJ. His most recent paintings are of surreal abstract images inspired by flowers.

 

Judi Hull @justjudiart

Judi is a painter of anything she can find. Bold, friendly colors and uplifting inspiring subject matter are among this artists favorite things to paint. “Todays world can be a complicated and dark place. There is just so much everyday simple and natural beauty around us. Why not just paint it.” Judi “JustJudi” is an Asbury Park, New Jersey based artist

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Kristen Tanchak @scoobysnaxart

Kristen Tanchak is a native of Red Bank, New Jersey working with a variety of mediums such as acrylic paint, epoxy, ink, paper in addition to recycled matter and numerous objects. These materials consist of paint scraps, rusted metal, sticks, flowers, bones and much more. The aim is to capture beauty in these pieces by exploring the process- walking through nature to collect specimens, pressing plants in old books, choosing which pieces to add to the puzzle, etc. Inspired by both the simplicity and complexity of nature, she finds herself intertwined in all things alluring and peculiar. Kristen has been a self taught artist since a young child using the rhythm of intuition and imagination to enhance her creativity. Creation keeps the brain moving when everything else feels sedentary.”

 

Lea Lumière @l.ealumiere

Lea Lumière is a multi-disciplinary artist and writer. Her exploration of art includes cinema, dance, poetry and visual artistry. She has published five works of poetry, and exhibited in both a solo show and group shows with variations of her art. Her work has strong thematic elements of grief, the body, and the subconscious.

 

Sandy Taylor @staylorbelmarstudios

“My art language is influenced by the natural world and the serendipity of a moment. My art ranges from plein air as a sense of time, place and season, to abstraction of surface, texture and color. I work in the space between representation and abstraction, of imagery mining memory and form.”

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Tracy Coon @tracycoonart

"My body of work includes printmaking, painting and drawing and explores the tension between human existence and nature. Each artwork is a story that evolves through a stream of emotional consciousness. Feelings are expressed in line, shape, and color.”