About the Artist

ARCH is an artist from the Central Valleys of Oaxaca. At the age of 6 he took workshops in drawing and painting at the Casa de la Cultura Oaxaqueña. He graduated as an Architect from the Universidad Regional del Sureste (URSE) with an eye toward developing as an architect. The Covid-19 pandemic caused staffing cutbacks at his place of work. And this is where Pedro, ARCH, began his career as an artist. Always passionate about his beloved Oaxaca and its traditions, the pandemic changed Pedro's way of seeing things and he began to express himself through street art showing traditional values mixed with modern day impacts. "Perez Huerta sees life through love–hate and good–bad spirals – concerns and criticism vary with simple joys and pleasures. The visual language and pinch of humor skillfully balances the clash between the old and new worlds that have been shaped by different acute problems such as coronavirus, climate crisis and violence. However, Pérez Huerta’s works highlight the simple and important elements of local culture such as food, dance, mezcal and show that the traditional lifestyle is still very much present in the lives of portrayed people – the joys cannot be overshadowed even by global disasters." The Nation is describing ARCH's 2021 exhibit Oaxaca Day by Day. His images are now being reproduced using the giclee technique.

About the Artist

At age 18, Blair Atherholt set out on an undergraduate Pre-Med course of study at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. However, at exam time, when Blair thumbed through his notebooks from his classes, he came face to face with the reality that the notebooks were full of drawings and sketches instead of theorems and equations.

From that day forward, Blair determined not to pursue a medical career but an art career instead. He entered the Schuler School of Fine Arts in 2011 in pursuit of learning the techniques and disciplines of the Old Masters. The life works of Hans Schuler, Sr. (1874-1951) and Jacques Maroger (1884-1962) and their dedication to excellence in art represent the hallmark of the Schuler School and its mission in training students of the school.

Now at age of 30, having graduated from Schuler, Blair is focused upon traditional still life painting made distinctively his own with contemporary, imaginative subject matter. He strives with each new painting to improve his control of the medium, one measured brushstroke at a time.

His work has been included in multiple national shows, most notably as a Finalist in the 12th Annual Art Renewal Center Salon. His work is also part of numerous public and private collections.

About the Artist

Michael Banks is a native Alabamian, self-taught artist. Encouraged by his mother to create, Banks began a process of integrating found objects which yielded a folk art appeal. Salvaged boards covered with tar provided the perfect canvas for application of acrylic colorful images. Whimsical combinations of animals (is it a fish or a bird) and personification of shapes challenge the viewer to resolve the juxtaposition.

The Hurn Museum, formerly in Savannah, Georgia, and now a mobile museum, places under the umbrella of Folk Art, Outsider Art. In this branch, the artist experiencing personal or social distress re-enters the mainstream by creating works of art which express their needs, emotions, and hopes for personal fulfillment. Banks’ works do strongly communicate images of his inner world. The soulful eyes and imagination literally reflected in heads on his works beckon the viewer to come into Michael’s world. It is a magical place.

Banks’ works may be found in museums and are collected worldwide.

Born in Geneva, Switzerland to a French father and Swiss mother, Maud Coirier-Belser presents a voice in her paintings which resonates with the well-traveled and sophisticated without pretense. Her Chairs body of work captures ones we have seen in castles, kitchens and on patios! Each tells a story and has its own personality.

When I first met Maud, I was taken by her kindness and brilliant wit. Somehow, that aspect of her finds its way to her canvases.

Self-taught, Maud’s works are collected by followers from around the world, not surprisingly as she has lived in Thailand, Bangkok, Laos and Sri Lanka. She makes her home in Birmingham, Alabama and returns to Geneva as frequently as possible to visit relatives or to her private residence in the French Alps.

About the Artist

Victor Bokas grew up on the Gulf Coast of Florida, against a backdrop of palm trees, tropical beaches and sunbathers. Those images, along with Florida kitsch, lush color palettes and complex patterns are frequently incorporated into his paintings. Victor also pays homage to his Greek heritage with statues, columns, olives and vases appearing in his work. His painting Florida Vacation is re-imagined as a 15-foot x 88-foot mosaic floor that welcomes visitors to Orlando International Airport. Most recently, Victor's paintings, continuing with the Florida Vacation series, are curated on the walls of the C terminal where one catches the train from Orlando to Miami. His paintings are included in corporate and museum collections throughout the state of Florida and collected world-wide.

Josh Brown is an American artist working out of New York City. As a summa cum laude graduate of the Savannah College of Art & Design [SCAD], Brown has pursued a lifelong passion of creating art, most notably through his paintings of animals.

Brown's bold minimalist style personifies the energy and attitude of his subjects capturing joy, magnetic characters, and curiously subtle movement. He does this deftly with sculptural brush strokes and a refined palette knife in both oil and acrylic, incorporating speckling techniques and other interesting textural elements onto his canvases.

Over the years the artist has championed numerous charity groups, battered women shelters, animal rights organizations, and children's hospitals.

Craigger Browne began carving stone while studying abroad at the Lacoste School of the Arts in Lacoste, France. After receiving a BFA from the University of Montevallo, he was hired to return to Lacoste as the assistant sculpture professor. While teaching and carving limestone in France, he was awarded a Guggenheim Scholarship/internship to study in Venice, Italy at the Peggy Guggenheim Collection. In May of 1992, Browne moved to Carrara, Italy to work and study at Studio Nicoli, a prestigious and historic studio founded in 1863. It was there that he discovered Carrara marble working on his own work and with the artigiani, the studio’s master craftsmen, honing his craft for years. In 1995, Browne returned to the U.S. to establish a studio in Birmingham and returned periodically to Carrara to work and purchase stone over the next 15 plus years.

In 2011, while participating in Sylacauga’s Magic of Marble Festival, Browne discovered Alabama’s world class marble. He was commissioned by the city to create “Sylacauga Emerging”, an eleven foot tall sculpture for the lawn of City Hall. He was invited to be the sculptor/artist in residence in Sylacauga where he continues to work and promote the purest white marble in the world.

The Magic of Marble Festival in Sylacauga celebrated its 13th anniversary this past April. The mission of the Marble Festival is to educate the public about the magic of this beautiful marble through its artistic, commercial and industrial applications.

Browne’s work may be found in corporate, public and private collections on five of the seven continents.

About the Artist

Annie Kammerer Butrus is interested in the intersection of place, landscape and memory. Her projects have ranged from focusing on the way new subdivisions frame out nature to the tracking of time by shadow tracing on the ground at peach farms in Chilton County, Alabama. She is deeply moved by the stories that shadows tell by capturing (fleeting) time and place. Annie is equally inspired by working from images and emotions drawn from being in the landscape onsite, in person, as well from moments of experiencing nature while driving which are inherently second-hand, virtual and simulated natural encounters.

Her painting Blossom Cloud presents a portrait about the Jasmine Hill garden in Wetumpka, AL. Working within the genre of landscape painting, the foreground, middle ground and background are interspersed between blossoms and blossom clouds and mirror images suspended without the pull of gravity. The tree branches create an organic map in the atmosphere and carve out blue puzzle pieces of the sky. Her method of painting with latex resist and flat acrylic paint allows for total control over the painted and unpainted surface. She intentionally paints the object in resist -be it tree or blossom- and then voids it out, removes it, in order to reference change in the landscape.

Butrus is a landscape painter who has exhibited her work nationally in galleries and museums. Her work is featured in the collections of the UAB Center of the Arts, the Children’s Hospital of Alabama, the Meredith/Southern Progress collection and many prominent private collections across the country. She has been awarded an Individual Artist Fellowship from the Alabama State Council of the Arts and was a featured artist with The Westobou Festival in Augusta, GA and an Emerging Artist for the Magic City Art Connection. Butrus has showed nationally at such places as The Rockford Art Museum, The Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame. The Wiregrass Museum, Space 301 in Mobile, Space One Eleven in Birmingham, Wellesley College, and The Cambridge Art Association.

About the Artist

Nancy Chaboun a Native Arizonan lives and works in North Scottsdale. She was introduced to art at an early age by her father, who studied for years with George Bridgeman at the Art Students League. Nancy studied art at Arizona State University and the Institute Allende in San Miguel de Allende Mexico. At 21 she married her husband, Hilal and began a 15 year career in women's high fashion. Buying from the best European and American designers, as well as creating the visual merchandising and advertising for four stores, translates an elegant perspective in the compositions of Nancy’s works on canvas. Since 1991 Nancy has happily focused on painting full time. She teaches classes and workshops at the Scottsdale Artists' School as well as various locations throughout the U.S., France and Canada. Nancy is a giving artist, sharing her knowledge freely while eagerly assisting other artists in avoiding challenges she has worked through. Nancy is creatively curious, constantly striving to learn, see and express more deeply with her own art.

About the Artist

As a medical illustrator for over 25 years, Amy has had the opportunity to use her artistic skills to build a professional career, explaining scientific concepts through pictures. The artwork she creates now is much more personal. While her paintings are representational in nature, they are as much about the process as they are about the final image. Blending her skills in realistic painting with mediums that allow more expression and spontaneity are important to this process. At times this happens with layers upon layers of paint. At other times a single mark is all that is needed to give the most information. Amy works in various mediums - oil, watercolor, acrylic - but oil is her preferred medium. Although her subject matter is varied - landscapes, figures, still lifes, animals - she is most intrigued with the figure. Often the personality emerges as Amy paints, allowing a connection to resonate with the viewer. Many of Amy's paintings are done alla prima, both in a studio environment and outside en plein air. Amy loves to paint from direct observation, as it allows her to observe subtle color shifts and paint quickly to transfer that information to a canvas. It is thrilling to race against nature as light moves and colors change, in hopes of capturing a single moment in time that she can share with the viewer.

About the Artist

Sam Collins is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio. After high school, Sam studied art and biology at the University of Cincinnati. He continued his studies with a Master’s of Science Degree in Medical Illustration from the Medical College of Georgia.

Sam has spent the majority of his professional career illustrating the intricacies of the human body, creating cellular landscapes, and explaining scientific concepts through pictures. He is a Certified Medical Illustrator and a Fellow of the Association of Medical Illustrators.

After twenty-five years of such specialized artwork, Sam is creating digital images and mixed media artwork that are reminiscent of days spent on family road trips when he was a kid.

Everyday objects - signs, buildings, cars, music, advertising imagery and events of the mid-20th century, influence Sam’s artwork. Sam searches garage sales, junkyards and swap meets for items he can use in his collage constructions. Sam combines his photos, acrylic paint, wood, metal, silk-screened images and found objects to create a story with his art. His artwork is a commentary on popular culture.

Sam currently lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife, Amy (also an artist) and their two children.

About the Artist

Dori DeCamillis is and always has been intellectually curious. Her current exploration, Without a Net, while revealing characters which represent her inner life, challenges us to shift our attention to recognize what she calls our ever present creative brilliance. In reading or listening to Dori, one gets the sense that we all will be more creative and conscious in everything we do if we accept her challenge.

Currently painting, writing & teaching art workshops and classes in Birmingham, Alabama, DeCamillis chose an intriguing path upon graduating with her BFA from University of Colorado at Boulder as she traveled the country in a vintage motor home selling her paintings along the way. She has exhibited in Galleries and Festivals on the West Coast, East Coast and parts in between, and you will find her award winning works in collections throughout the world.

Co-owner of the Red Dot Gallery, Dori has found time to author two memoirs: The Freeway which recounts her early road trip selling paintings and My Steamboat, an autobiographical coming of age look into her early years growing up in Steamboat Springs before it was Steamboat Springs!

About the Artist

Patty B.’s career in still life painting arose from her love of the decorative arts and the potential of realism to convey a symbolic narrative. Driscoll distills moments, where light, object, and flowers reveal themselves like characters on a stage. The paintings invite the viewer into an ephemeral world, where compositions are carefully prepared as treats for the eye. Driscoll considers each object as a memory keeper, family artifacts that represent the history of gatherings and celebrations.

Awed by the magic of realism, Driscoll draws inspiration from the often overlooked female Still-life painters of the Golden Age; particularly works by Fede Galizia, Giovanna Garzoni, and Maria Van Oosterwyck. Considered the lowest genre of academic art during the Renaissance, still-life painting was considered an acceptable realm of painting for these women to express themselves and earn a living. After years of working with the intricate processes of weaving and cake decorating, Driscoll is attracted to the exacting detail of the seventeenth century masterpieces and their depictions of intimate settings within the domestic interior.

Driscoll received her MFA from the California College of Arts after completing her undergraduate work in Studio Art and Art History at Skidmore College. She now lives and works in her hometown of Birmingham, Alabama with her husband, two children, two dogs, and two cats.

They say that an artist cannot hide behind the canvas. This is so true of Addison Duke. He revels in large canvases completely covered in layers of paint, the palette of which encompasses the full range of the color wheel. Addison does not shy away from vibrant color balanced with subtle shadows of hue. A written message oft times his favorite phrase placed strategically on the canvas, uplifts and at times, challenges the viewer.

A world traveler, Addison has landed in Birmingham, Alabama to pursue his career as an artist. He brings with him a vision of wonder at what he has seen and how he sees it.

Two Worlds

One Journey

OBJECTIVE: SELF DISCOVERY AND FINDING OURSELVES IN ONE ANOTHER AS WE EXPLORE DIFFERENT ERAS AND CULTURES, ALL ON THE SAME JOURNEY WE CALL LIFE.

The circle of life can easily be found in the birth of a newborn baby to the end of life’s cycle. The continuum of life is found from one generation to the next. The ongoing desire for freedom, justice, equality and a quality life has been common throughout generations. History often repeats itself. Life is different, yet the same for all mankind regardless of the era or culture in which we live. We experience love, anger, fear, sadness, laughter, and loss. We desire connections and a sense of belonging with others.

We are all more the same than not, but sometimes seeing ourselves in another being, in another world is not always easy to do. Most will only notice the differences of opinion or lifestyle of a stranger, rather than focus on what makes us human.

The rediscovery of my grandfather’s photographs from over 60 years ago reminds me all too well how different yet same the world still is. I unknowingly came to follow in his footsteps after his life’s journey ended and my journey began. Our two worlds collided through our love of photographing the everyday life; remembering today when tomorrow won’t remember the life that once was, yet strangely, is still the same.

Two worlds: my world and his world. Your world and the other’s world. We are all on one journey and it’s called life.

Leigh Ann Edmonds

A lifelong artist born in Dothan, Alabama, Beverly Erdreich attended Newcomb College in New Orleans obtaining a BA degree in Art History. She has more than 30 shows to her credit including exhibits at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, the Center for Contemporary Art in Santa Fe and permanent collections in the Birmingham Museum of Art. Her works are collected in other museums, private and corporate collections throughout the U.S.

While Erdreich’s focus over the past decade has been works to spotlight issues such as abortion, aids, atrocities of war and repeated acts of inhumanity, a new body has emerged as a foil to this darker side of nature. The paintings currently reflected on this site are included in Transformations, the result of Erdreich’s escape and refuge; her successful walk through life with an optimistic view.

“Some of this work reflects quiet and contemplative moments, other pieces show celebratory and joyous times. Included are compositions that are extremely complex showing that harmony can be achieved even with conflicting forces.”

About the Artist

In 2017 Madison Faile was honored by his alma mater Troy University which hosted his Exhibit, entitled *Apparitions*, showcasing the works over his young career. At first blush, the title and creations would indicate a collection of paintings and sculptures of supernatural appearance. Yet, the very definition of apparition is the appearance of something remarkable or unexpected or the act of becoming visible.

Madison’s talent in drawing is remarkable and his compositions unexpected. He obtains the rare ability to paint emotions on canvas. Whether in the searching gaze of a clown or the ethereal stationary flight of black birds, intuitive feelings consume the canvas and viewer.

And from those feelings, one begins to see Madison: he is visible within his works. His experiences in life both joyous and melancholy, his constant curious exploration of various mediums of art and his growth as he pushes to find the best within himself all within clear sight.

To experience the works of Madison Faile is to follow his journey. Do not expect to do so without a state of feeling.

Madison’s works are included in private and corporate collections. His most recent endeavor is with the newly opened restaurant, Ravello, in downtown Montgomery, Alabama, which showcases Madison’s figurative paintings in a modern Italian setting.

About the Artist

Isabelle Gautier was born and grew up in Normandy,  a few miles from The Landing Beaches in north-western France. Working as a professional artist over the past fifteen years, she has paused long enough to raise her children having moved to Milton, Georgia in 1999 with her husband where she lives and works today.

Her early artistic development was inspired by a love of nature, color and design. Influenced by the French impressionist artists of the 19th century, Gautier has a strong passion for 20th century expressionist painters as well. She embraces tachism, a style of painting adopted by some French artists from the 1940’s involving the use of dabs or splotches of color or poured acrylic. The approach is similar to abstract expressionism. Her extensive travels across all continents have left a lasting impression on her prolific oeuvre . Her work has a distinctive style that employs a rich balance of vibrant colors and neutrals, abstraction and representation, movement and calm that transitions beautifully from her landscapes and abstracts to her flower paintings.

Isabelle’s works have been featured in the TV Show “Christy Knows Best”, Southern Appalachian National Show, 2013 HGTV Smart Home, Neiman Marcus Gallery, Marietta/Cobb Museum, Kennedy-Douglass Center for the Arts and the Atlanta Fine Home Sotheby's International Realty art collection.

Gautier is proud to support her community donating countless paintings or time to local organizations and charities mostly aiming to help children and women causes.

About the Artist

Nelson Grice was born in Nashville, Tennessee where he gained a love of entertainment and creative expression through the performing arts. He moved to Alabama as a teenager and expanded his interests to visual arts, particularly photography, eventually earning a BFA and M.Ed from the University of Montevallo. Teaching at the high school level since 1996 has opened Nelson’s vision of creativity to include sculpture. He is convinced the eyes of his students have enabled him to see more clearly the imaginary world.

Recently recognized in the 8th Annual American Art Awards for his work The Piper is Calling, a 31 x 18 x 15 bronze, winning 3rd place in the category of Best Representational Sculptor, Nelson’s works tend to be whimsical animal sculptures. His works are included in corporate and museum installations. 

About the Artist

Richie Gudzan is a Southern creator and conservationist, born in Georgia and raised alongside the woods, creeks and coastlines of Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama. Water holds a particular magnetism for Richie, and his experiences fishing, surfing, and paddling shape the soul of his artwork. Richie uses big brushes, striking composition and stark contrast to evoke power, subtlety, and flow in his paintings.

Fish are some of Richie's favorite subjects. His recent work is rooted in an old Japanese printmaking technique called Gyotaku (ghee-oh-TAH-koo). Using the actual fish he catches, covering them with non-toxic pigment and gently laying handmade natural-fiber paper on top to reveal a mirror image imprint, Richie makes his art. Once the prints are dry, he composes and mounts the fragile paper to a wood panel, and finishes the painting in thin glazes of vibrant color. His fish are cleaned and eaten after the initial prints are created - never wasted. Water is life to Richie, and his art is about story, connection, respect and gratitude.

About the Artist

Tami Hallman is a Birmingham, Alabama-based still life watercolor painter with a passion for exploring the intricate details of everyday moments. Her work dives deep into the nuances of objects and scenes often overlooked, revealing them through layer upon layer of translucent watercolor. Inspired by the transparency and precision of the medium, Tami uses her distinct technique of extensive layering to bring a subject to life with incredible accuracy, echoing the way she processes the world—by fully immersing herself in each detail.

A graduate with a BFA from Whittier College in California, Tami finds her inspiration not only in objects but in her life’s rituals and experiences: travel, capturing daily images, savoring curated cocktails, and dissecting special moments. Like her artistic process, she replays cherished experiences in her mind, translating them meticulously in paint. Janet Fish’s still lifes have greatly influenced her dedication to portraying specificity, particularly in complex elements like glass and ice, which she renders with a controlled, sensitive hand.

Each of her paintings is a study in patience and observation, revealing beauty in overlooked elements. Through her work, she seeks to uncover every layer of a moment, building a visual story that speaks to the depth and significance in even the simplest of things.

Hallman’s works may be found in private collections throughout the south and at Canary Gallery.

About the Artist

Elias Nicholas Katsaros was born of Greek parentage in Istanbul (Constantinople), Turkey in 1945. Upon arriving in Athens, Greece at the age of 19 he attended the Art Institute of Athens where he was taught the basics of the Byzantine technique, a technique which would influence his painting of icons in the future. Mr. Katsaros also didextensive studies and work in interior design of homes, set decorations for theater and ballet productions while in Greece.

Upon arriving in America in 1969 Elias continued his studies in Byzantine Iconography while studying and working in New York for several years.  He has made Huntsville, Alabama his home where he established his studio with his wife Elaine. His work can be found in churches all across the United States.

After 45 years spent painting murals filling churches with Byzantine Iconography Elias retired in 2016. With his good friend and mentor Helen Vaughn, Elias is freeing himself from the strict discipline necessary to paint Icons and returning to his first passion: painting landscapes, still lifes, portraits and more...even trying his hand at abstracts.

As a child, Tatiana Kaupp, the daughter of anthropologists performing field work in Mexico, explored workspaces and engaged with folk art makers. In addition to attending colorful ceremonies, celebrations and fantastical dances, Tati, as she is known, interacted with beautiful and whimsical objects in her parents’ home. These early experiences were instrumental in enhancing her sense of wonder in art and the process of creating art.

Magical realism, the transformational qualities of an art object and its function, the liveliness of the possibilities of art and art making, the value an object can hold on many levels…these ideas inform Tati’s work today. Color, pattern, narrative, function and the environments they inhabit are at the core of her work. Her personal art vocabulary comes through whether she is working in oil, watercolors, hand building in clay or throwing, working with wood in wall sculptures or furniture. Tati is interested in exploring materials and methods to create art pieces that transform the magical realism of her youth into magical abstraction.

About the Artist

Nancy Lloyd has boundless energy to explore hidden details, untold stories, beauty in unexpected places, the unusual in the ordinary. And while she loves painting traditional landscapes, she is also drawn to the intimacy of the interior landscape, the interior world of people, whether revealed by a voyeuristic glance through a window in a restaurant, the observation of camaraderie of strangers in a neighborhood bar, the subtle gestures between two sweethearts, or the overlooked beauty of a row of garbage cans in a back alley. A seeker of the light of France, Nancy enjoys painting en plein air, especially the beauty of the California Coast, the backroads, the hills, vineyards set against the open sky,  landscapes, farms, and cows transformed by light.

Born in Georgia, raised in Alabama, Nancy resides in Northern California in a lovely cottage where she can lean out her back window and snatch a luscious lemon from a tree.

About the Artist

Creativity is the lifeblood of the Canary Gallery. As the gallery owner, and a resident artist, my passion is to create art that embodies the best of our surroundings. Whether it be buildings, bikes, or boats, my oil and canvas works celebrate the beauty of form as we see it around us.

The Canary Gallery is the product of a lifelong pursuit of the arts. My goal is for the gallery to provide an environment to celebrate the artists in residence, while providing a forum for creativity to thrive.

About the Artist

E. Bruce Phillips, Jr. realized at an early age that art was his passion. From a participant in a pilot art program for talented first graders, to drafting and architecture courses in high school and college, to his MFA in painting from SCAD, studying in Italy and France, Phillips has explored the use of color, mixed media and found objects. His current works reflect the interconnection between humans and the environment with man-made structures and nature. Photography is central to his works: whether of architecture in Montreal or New Orleans, gritty crumbling buildings and bridges in Birmingham, Alabama, or topography thousands of miles above Barbados.

Phillips hopes to evoke emotion with his works. He revels in conversation and dialogue with creatives and curious alike and has successfully connected “. . . when people openly share their own experiences and are willing to understand different perspectives and ideas.”

Bruce’s current Exhibit Vanishing Point 2 is on view until July 31, 2019 at the Hoover Public Library Gallery. The SCAD Museum of Art showcased Vanishing Point in 2018. Prior to 2018, Phillips has exhibited in the Johnson Center for the Arts, Troy, Alabama; Tuskegee University Legacy Museum Tuskegee, Alabama; Rose Parks Museum, Montgomery,, Alabama, Hammonds House Museum, Atlanta, Georgia and other venues. He is the 2016 recipient of the Individual Artist Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and currently serves as an assistant professor at Tuskegee University where he challenges his students to create with passion and purpose.

About the Artist

DEBRA EUBANKS RIFFE is a native of Tupelo, Mississippi. She earned her BFA from Howard University, College of Fine Arts, Washington, DC and has been a professional graphic designer and illustrator for more than thirty years. Debra lived abroad and traveled, extensively, around the Caribbean basin. Much of her time was divided between the northwestern seaport city of Barranquilla and the Department of La Guajira Peninsula located in the northeastern tip of Colombia, S.A. near the Venezuelan border. She participates in juried exhibitions, locally and regionally, and is the recipient of many awards including an Individual Artist Grant presented by The Cultural Alliance of Birmingham. Debra has studied under internationally renowned printmaker and illustrator Barry Moser and she participates in select workshops and classes around the country, biennially. Her block prints are included in many collections, both private and institutional, including the Birmingham Museum of Art, the Freedom Rides Museum at the Historic Greyhound Bus Station (Montgomery, AL), Dillard University (New Orleans, LA), Athens State University (Athens, AL), Indian Springs School (Indian Springs, AL), the Bluff Park Association Permanent Collection (Hoover, AL), and at the National Historic Landmark 16th Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, AL), to name a few. Debra teaches linoleum block relief printing workshops several times a year.

While living abroad, Debra discovered a common set of experiences that parallel patterns found in the culture of the American South. Food, race, religious traditions and music are topics that continually shape her visual narratives. Her style varies from whimsy to historic. Debra enjoys the versatility and the immediacy of drawing with a pencil and the physicality of turning the wheel of a printing press. Through simplicity of form, she uses basic art principles to convey shape, gesture, attitude, movement and emotion. Her compositions, mostly figurative, are images of African Americans performing routine tasks in timeless, solitary reflective moments; tasks that speak of social status and identity, intimacy and a sense of place. Debra appreciates the ordinary and, within each print, she attempts to record details and subtle hallmarks that will stir an emotion the viewer might respond to. She works from memory, sketchbook drawings or from photo references culled from newspaper and magazine clippings. Occasionally, Debra will stage a photo shoot and select wardrobe and props designed to capture the angle and intensity of light and darkness, dramatic shadows or variations of patterns and folds on quilts or fabric. Once an edition is complete and numbered, Debra attempts to guide her viewers with a title based on dialect derived from features in southern speech. The elements of black vernacular are lyrical and layered and many times, when rooting around her favorite bar-b-que haunts or juke joints in Alabama and Mississippi, she will extract bits and pieces of random conversations that she has overheard or engaged in, with incredible eclectic patrons, and combine phrases or expressions into her titles. The titles of her finished prints are always written in lower case.

Although she was introduced to printmaking in college, Debra's technical skills and methods have evolved through trial and error and she has become more adept at isolating concepts and refining forms. Printing with a single color allows for more spontaneity than mixing colors and layering in the reduction method. Debra enjoys the challenge of printing images with a rich, black oil-based ink. The contrasts of sharp black modulating lines on bright white archival printmaking paper gives each print an infinite range of tonal variations and texture. Carving wood or linoleum allows very little room for error but Debra enjoys the technical challenge of balancing intricate details and negative space.

About the Artist

William J. Rushton is a native of Birmingham, Alabama, and a recent graduate of Colorado College. He is currently in his third year at the Charles Cecil Studios in Florence, Italy, where he studies portraiture using the sight-size method of drawing and painting. This type of training, which strives to emulate the technique of great artists such as Titian, Velasquez, and Sargent, facilitates observation and selection. Portraits are drawn mostly life-size and always from life, without recourse to photography or artificial lighting. Repeatedly viewing the subject and its representation at a distance, the artist moves forward only to add or make adjustments to the paper or canvas. Consequently, the portraits—in charcoal, pastel, or oils—bear a notable likeness to the models themselves and, while somewhat impressionistic at close range, gain clarity and strength when viewed from afar.

William is available for commissioned portraits in charcoal or pastels. The subject must be available to sit for his or her portrait and will be able to watch the image develop through multiple sittings.

About the Artist

Clarita Scioscia is an award-winning artist from Tampa, Florida. Her passion for art is inspired by colors, textures, and forms found in nature. She has always enjoyed the outdoors, hiking, canoeing, and observing mother nature’s natural beauty. From chasing chickens in Key West, the goal of which was to capture the magical moment the sunlight dances on the feathers, to endlessly sorting through extensive collections of photos her friends send her in search of elements of a composition or evocation of expressions, Scioscia embraces the creative process as much as the creation.

Clarita blends realism and impressionism, thereby making animals, plants and people come alive with new life, energy and warmth. Of her figurative works, she commences with eyes and acknowledges that “when I can see them looking back at me, when I catch a glimpse of their personality, the rest falls into place.” In using a painterly, realism style, she breaks away from modern art, and is not afraid to leave evidence of her brush strokes. She directs a path to follow to allow the full experience of the art itself and the process behind it. Her paintings illicit feelings of cheer, happiness, balance, warmth and a carefree spirit, evidenced by her loose and expressive brushstrokes. Her works make you feel at ease and longing to escape to the moment captured in the painting. As all excellent painters, Scioscia has an eye for seeing extraordinary beauty in ordinary things.

About the Artist

The educator in artist Julie Snidle will give you the history of the process of creating encaustic works. The word finds its origin in Greek and means to heat or burn in. Using a small blow torch, Julie fuses beeswax-based paint with heat after each layer is applied; a process discoverable in works of art for thousands of years.

Influenced by her travels, Julie’s work is ethereal and pleasing. Her non-representational paintings take you to the countryside of Provence with its blue sky, to wheat fields in the Midwest where the yellow peeks back at you, to a garden in Belgium where you struggle to describe the beauty of that pink flower!

Home for Julie is in Fairhope, Alabama but you’ll find her teaching encaustic workshops throughout the U.S. where her art is found in private and public collections.

About the Artist

As a child, Billy Solitario would look out of his bedroom window and across the water to a sliver of land on the horizon. The island in the distance, known as Horn Island, would become a major inspiration for Billy throughout his career as an artist. Born in 1972 in Southern California where his father worked for the Apollo space program, Billy and his family would later relocate to Ocean Springs, Mississippi, the home-town of famed artist, Walter Anderson (1903-1965). Inevitably, Billy soon realized his passion for nature and art through the work of Walter Anderson and the landscapes surrounding his beachfront home.

Billy possesses a degree in art from the University of South Florida and Tulane University in New Orleans. However, he credits his classical foundation in painting to the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts, where he has taught landscape and portrait painting since 2005. Today, Billy still finds time to paint plein air style, which he favors over studio painting. Painting outdoors gives Billy the opportunity to enjoy his two passions at once, nature and art. Plein air painting also allows for an authenticity of color and scale that photographs or memory may fail to reproduce. Billy is well-known for his landscape paintings, but most notably, his cloud paintings. Cloud formations were something Billy learned to appreciate in the 1990s, but the unpredictability of those gaseous shapes posed a challenge for the plein air painter. Unfixed and fluid by nature, clouds taught Billy to work quickly and efficiently as he learned to master the voluminous cumulonimbus cloud, his favorite to paint.

Billy has gained notoriety for his work and has been highlighted in “PleinAir” magazine along with “Boat U.S.” magazine. Billy currently resides in New Orleans, not too far from his childhood home of Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Even now, years later, he occasionally visits Horn Island to gain inspiration from the billowy dunes and ocean sounds that inspired both him and artist Walter Anderson. Perhaps if you fancy a boat ride to Horn Island, you can find Billy behind his easel, toes in the sand, brush in hand, gazing at the cloud formations above.

About the Artist

America’s foremost realist painter Edward Hopper is credited with saying “[g]reat art is the outward expression of an inner life in the artist, and this inner life will result in his personal vision of the world”. Such is the art of Keith Thomson.

You see in the works of both Hopper and Thomson a love of Titanium White and an “interconnectivity between each element within [the] paintings” which highlights relationships “between subjects within an image”. Take Thomson’s Ninja for example. The dress of the young female shopper juxtaposed to the boxes of fruits and vegetables could be a bolt of fabric extended along a long table. The brilliance of the artist in drawing our attention to this interconnectivity is delightful. And Thomson does it again and again in his paintings.

Thomson’s brilliance does not stop with his paintings and their titles. He is a prolific writer of mystery novels, a political cartoonist, and former semi-professional baseball player (in France). After obtaining his degree from Columbia University, Thomson resided in New York and Boston before making his home in Birmingham, Alabama with his dog Trouser. He retains connections in New York, having recently successfully completed a Solo Show, Alabamanhattan, at the Planthouse Gallery.

In addition to Canary Gallery, Thomson’s works may be found at ugallery.com; novels from keiththomsonbooks.com