Abstract & Non-Representational Works

21st Century Art

'Gallery Without Walls'

Evolve your state of mind.

21^st Century Art is committed to imparting a forum of diversity for creativity and expression. We aspire to empower artists by affiliating each with an audience. Additionally we hope to cultivate the desire for thought provoking original art in the general public by making it easily accessible.

'Abstract & Non-Representational Works'

March 1, 2007-April 30, 2007

By combining elements of the real, the surreal and the abstract, and using digital and traditional techniques, my work explores boundaries both metaphysical and artistic - with a particular interest in the intersection of these boundaries and the precarious spaces that lie in between. Whether dissecting form, saturating and drawing out underlying texture or isolating space and light, the resulting images are multidimensional with stark, ethereal qualities. They are created through the lens of a detached observer, one who is suspended in a purgatory-like realm. The images are personal meditations on religion as well as commentary on social and political issues.

My artwork is a manifestation of my truth, my direction and my desires. My quest is in search of the essence of the mind, spirit and soul, in search of the beauty of light and space. For in that search, the ordinary becomes extraordinary. My paintings are an expression of my vision, my life, and my love. Showing up at the canvas allows me to honor the emptiness and grief of my heart and allows me to discover a life of gratitude and peace. With every passionate stroke of my brush I am letting go, surrendering to the magic of the moment , I allow my story to be told. I am a self-taught artist, living and working in the Chicago area.

Selena Nawrocki is an Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Interior Design program at Valdosta State University. She received her MFA from the University of Memphis and a PhD from Mississippi State University. Her artwork has a contemporary flair created using the newest computer technologies. Using 3D Interior Design rendering programs, she has moved the camera view such that one gets an Escher-type perspective. The unique zinc framing of the irregular shapes makes each art piece as unique as the imagery.

Honorable Mention

No Title 2 © Herbert Diepold

I started painting about three years ago. At the beginning the art became my balance but since that time developed itself to an important part of my life. Now I started studying fine arts at the Academy of Faber Castell to learn learn learn. I'm searching for the right method to put my feelings and my sights of the world I'm living in in colour and form to hopefully arrive the viewers heard. Filled up with inspiration the journey is my reward.

With my passion for Oil Bars (oil paints in a solid stick form) and Oil Pastels as my medium of choice, I am constantly exploring the fine line between drawing and painting. I love to use alternating thick and thin layered vibrating lines of contrasting colors and smooth color washes to express the contour and vibrant energy of the earth around us. I work primarily on paper and in medium to large sized works suitable for framing for home and office. Originially from South-western Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountains, my love of nature and the contrasts of land and sky are illustrated in a painterly combination of color and line. My rich and intensely colorful impressionist and abstracted landscapes are about expressing a sense of belonging, of safety, of home. I try to draw you in and give you a sense of the majesty and the variety of the earth I inhabit in the Virginia countryside. Along with my use of brilliant colors, these techniques are combined to give a peaceful yet challenging landscape or abstract painting. Whether realistic, impressionist, or abstracted, my paintings are of remembered places of my childhood. All my paintings start with nature. Some favorite subjects of my art are back roads, the sunset's light illuminating the hills the distance, the unusual shape of trees in shadow… all leading you to wonder what is around the corner or how the sky will change next. In my paintings I try to recreate the emotions I feel when recalling a place… The sultry heat of a summer afternoon, the soft light of a misty morning across a valley or open field, the layering of shadows under a clump of trees where I used to love to hide, the vastness and changeablilty of the skies over Virginia. All of this I hope to share from my memories. I strive to give you a genuine sense of place while at the same time of rest, of quiet beauty, of repose.I have been most influence in my work by Ann Aves Martin (who studied with and was influenced by Wolf Kahn), Mr. Kahn's teachings which grew out of his own studies of Abstract Expressioninsm in the 1950's, the Impressionists with their study of the natural contrast of light and shadow, and by Rothko with his studies of human response to color against color.

Since my childhood, I’ve always been interested in geometry and so, I turned myself naturally into drawing and painting forms and interactions between them like the geometrical abstraction movement. I discovered the use of colors and the search for composition a real challenge that I enjoy every time I start a painting. I try to paint on my canvas what I feel in life and what I see around me transformed to the simplest expression which is the forms. It also shows that I like order and rightness with sometimes a little craziness in color or in a less right form. I hope that people feel the vibrations inside themselves when they see my works as they find inside my paintings a little bit of them and that’s also why they have no names so no one’s influenced.

When I was in kindergarten I was introduced to finger-painting for the first time and became entranced with color. All these years later I get that same excitement and anticipation as I watch each new painting develop, down to the last brushstroke. Working with the rich, buttery consistency of oil paint is indescribably satisfying.

Although I majored in art in high school, I didn’t get started as an artist until I went back to college at age forty. Up to that time I worked as a secretary, and put my desire to be an artist on hold until our son was grown. I’m so grateful to be able to pursue my purpose and God-given talent in life.

Planning color combinations so that the finished work will glow is a main objective for each piece; careful modeling of one color into the next, tonal contrast, and complimentary colors all come into play.

I love working with lots of detail — it’s challenging and I can really get lost in it. I use my own carefully-planned photos to work from. In deciding what to paint next, I look for scenes that will touch the viewer’s heart through the subject matter and my interpretation of it. This is why I’m an artist: to present scenes in oil that touch the heart, stimulate the senses with glowing color, and present a familiar scene in a whole new way. I love to portray florals up-close to bring out details that are complex and beautiful, and often go unappreciated in this busy and chaotic world we live in.

My artistic goal is to bridge the gap between the temporal and the ethereal realms by interpreting visually what can only be characterized as an intuitive rhythm. The immaterial is the conduit with which I intend to evoke a deep introspective posture that is sometimes elusive within the constraints of modern society. My purpose is a singular encounter with each composition.

Inspired by the beauty of the Shenandoah Valley, I have chosen to reinterpret the "landscape experience" as an abstrasct composition with a October hue palette.

After having graduated from Arizona State University’s fine art department in 1996, I turned to painting, after having spent the majority of my art career in drawing and printmaking. I draw my greatest influence in my creative turmoil not from viewing other art, but from anything that involves one creative person simply succeeding in their struggle to be heard and to keep their voice as pure and clear as possible. My current work is exclusively oil based, either on panel or canvas with sizes varying upon the impact of the work that is to be created. The abstract/non-objective work comprises a much deeper journey inward, touching upon raw emotion through a harmony of color, sometimes through a muted palette, other times utilizing a full spectrum of tones and value. Form and symmetry become steady backbones to each structural piece, whether incorporating organic shapes or by pushing color fields, each painting becomes a dance between order and chaos. Other work currently being explored is more representational and symbolic in nature, such as “Brick and Butterfly” and “From the Ashes of Empires.” These paintings carry a more traditional theme, with a greater emphasis on objects, imaginary and colored lighting and a simplified composition. My hope is for the viewer to walk away with a raw response to the imagery, evoking a sense of something powerful or greater than them selves. Dark, lush, timeless, provocative; these things I strive for in every body of work.

I am a painter of mulit-layered abstract exmainations of color and form. My layering technique incorporates water, clear medium, paint and ink using a palette knife to affect and enhance lines, forms and texture. Each painting is developed layer by layer over several weeks. I am largely self-taught and have been painting and have been painting with acrylic, oil and ink for 10 years, but have just recently begun promoting my work.

I am drawn to color because of the richness of it in my Carribbean heritage. I start off with an explosion of color. Then I let the color dictate what form or shape the painting will take. The usages of bright saturated rich or muted chromas are what I gravitate to in my work. These colors remind me of traditional Caribbean costumes that are worn in various holiday festivals or carnivals. By exploring hue and value, the paintings I create are an expression of rhythm, sensuality, and emotion.

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