L.M. Chan

Leather Sculpture

Born in 1946 in Taiwan to a very poor farming family, Chan toiled in the fields with his father and grandfather learning humility and discipline through hard work. Unable to suppress his artistic nature and with no money for pencil or paper, he drew endlessly in the dirt with a stick. Through a government Teacher Training Program he was able to get an education and was finally accepted at the National Art College. Gifted, he became a woodcarver, sculptor and painter.

Then fate stepped in and he became intrigued with the long lost art of leather sculpture. It took him five years of research and experimentation before he perfected his craft. In 1986, Chan was declared a "Living Treasure" by the government of Taiwan. They sponsored a tour of his work to Seoul, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Paris. His works are in the collection of the Heads of State of Hungary, Japan, Argentine, Poland, South Africa and Panama among others.

Chan's all leather sculpture reflects his expertise in creating life-like figures to scale which express depths of emotions and captures the color and movement of the soul.

"Leather is soft, alive, like skin. It is warm and allows for movement. It gives life to the work," explains Chan. And fortunately for us, Chan’s genius gives unique, artistic life to the leather, to feed the world’s soul. Chan does all of his own leather sculpting, which takes an inordinate amount of time.

Chan sculptures are on loan from the “Tia Collection: represented by Galerie Zuger in Santa Fe, NM

Alvar

Alvar Sunol Munoz–Ramos was born on January 29, 1935, in Montgat, a Catalan fishing village on the Mediterranean coast near Barcelona. He started painting oils at age twelve and at age seventeen was accepted at the Escuela Superior de Bellas Artes de San Jorge, the prestigious fine art school in Barcelona.

Before graduating from the Bellas Artes, he gave his first solo exhibition at Galleries Layetana in Barcelona in 1957. Alvar also won the Bolsa de Viaje Alhabra de Granada, a summer scholarship study trip to Granada. At age 18, Alvar entered a painting in a competition for the Young Painters Prize sponsored by the City of Barcelona. His painting won the grand prize and it is now in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modem Art, Barcelona, Spain.

Due to his early artistic successes, Alvar received many invitations for shows in other Spanish cities. During his military service he submitted one of his canvases for the Institut Francais awarded him the grand prize and a scholarship to study in Paris. Alvar arrived in Paris to paint in 1959. He met Juan Fuentes, a fellow Spaniard and director of the prestigious Parisian Galerie Drouant. Fuentes encouraged Alvar in his painting and brought Alvar’s first group of Paris oil paintings to the gallery. Fuentes’ gallery sold the paintings in one week.

Since a decisive solo exhibition in Paris in 1963, Alvar has exhibited regularly throughout Europe, the United States, Canada and Japan. His lithographs, paintings and sculptures have been presented in major shows at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, Salt Lake City in 1982 and the Wichita Art Museum in 1983. In 2000, l’Abadia de Sant Miguel del Fai in Catalonia, Spain mounted a retrospective exhibit honoring Alvar’s contribution to the Spanish art community. In 2001, three additional retrospective exhibits were mounted, two by the Instituto Cervantes in Toulouse and Bordeaux, France, and one in Athens, Georgia at the Georgia Museum of Art. The Kumamoto Museum and the Fukoka Museum, both in Kyushu, Japan, have purchased his lithographs for their permanent collection. His hometown of Tiana became home to his latest permanent public installation. In September 2001, a commissioned mixed media mural by Alvar was unveiled. The mural reflects on the four seasons, and is affixed to The Four Seasons Building, named in reference to Alvar’s mural.

Alvar now lives in Tiana and continues to create art in the mediums of oil, lithography, watercolor, bronze, ceramic bas relief and precious metal sculpture.

Nick Japaridze

Nick Japaridze’s work is distinguished from other by its themes, unlimited fantasy, high performance and professionalism. The artists conveys his emotions, moods, state of the heart and dreams via symbolic language seen in his paintings. The overall gamma of works, characters and even minor, from a first sight, details are all carry symbolic meaning. The artists explains that all the characters: whether it’s a king, a philosopher, a child, a jester or a musician are all depiction of his varying from day to day soul transparent to the canvas. Nick’s works can be described as unearthly, tale like and mystique creation regarded by the artist himself as a surreal and symbolic one.

The artist gets inspired from listening to special meditation music while working. Nick’s work is a combination of Georgian traditional murals, Asian décor and Mid Ages fine art technique. This technique utilizes multi layers oil brush strokes where the main stroke is being adjusted above by additional very subtle glazing layers. This takes a lot of time and effort however as a result of it the painting acquires a beautiful and colorful flare.

Andre Desjardins

The essence of life emerges with every stroke of Desjardins’ brush, every texture and nuance, transforming the empty canvas into a statement about the mysteries of life, love and our universe itself. His thoughts are made real and hidden faces break free from the chaos of life, giving an almost serene and tranquil feeling, while muted and subtle colors coax one into a dreamlike state of viewing the mysteries that Desjardins has revealed. Born in the small Canadian town of Hauterive, Quebec, Canada, on the north shore of the Saint Lawrence River on March 2, 1964, Desjardins earned his bachelor’s degree in Art from the University of Quebec in Montreal and owned a successful marketing firm before making the decision to pursue the freedom of painting full-time. André’s passion for life and the stories told in the faces of humanity developed early and have continued to evolve. Today he devotes his time, energy, and passion to translating emotions into images of timeless beauty and humanity as the founder of “Visual Emotionism.”

André’s passion turned to painting early this century with the encouragement of friends like Pierre Bernard who urged him “to get out of the frame.” Such advice was just the right thing to say to a man who freely admits that “I love to be challenged.” Desjardins has embraced the freedom that pigment and canvas provide, to develop his “Visual Emotionism” style (simultaneously expressionist and humanist) that fuses the figurative with the abstract and tells the stories of those he has encountered.

Although Desjardins credits the Spanish painter Antoni Tàpies with having the greatest influence on his artistic style (primarily because of Tàpies devotion to making the insignificant significant and his evolution from surrealist to abstract impressionist), it was the death of his father when he was only twelve years old that was the most profound influence on his life and his art, for it has motivated André “to make him live again in my own accomplishments.” The art of Desjardins, the founder of “Visual Emotionism,” reaches out to touch the soul as it awaits the emotional reaction of the viewer for its completion. Like the conductor of a great symphony, Desjardin uses his hands to add both emphasis and nuance to his works, for each is a representation of humanity energized by the emotions of the artist himself. As Desjardins’ paintings continue to evolve, the melding of the old and the new, the Da Vinci with the Jackson Pollock, becomes more and more apparent. The fact that Desjardins chooses to create directly on the canvas serves to intensify the emotions instilled in each work as it tells its story with eloquence and passion and, through a closely guarded proprietary technique, crackling is induced to emphasize the fragility of life and add the feel of the old masters to each creation.

“Art is important because it is a universal and timeless language… it makes me feel immortal… to leave something that will last. It’s my way to communicate that kind of emotion.”

Fidel Garcia

"Art expresses the soul of humanity in
our common journey across the ages."

The art of Fidel Garcia blends figurative realism and abstract expressionism. His paintings call upon the viewer to experience the concurrency of our corporeal and spiritual selves, the coincidence of reality and fantasy, and the simultaneous existence of the physical and the metaphysical. Rather than simply asking for acknowledgement of these diametric forces, Garcia’s paintings assist us in finding the harmony and balance between them. Each image that emerges from his evolving series of canvases explores an unexpected and uncharted inner and outer world of human imagination.

Garcia visually explores illusion and reality, the dichotomy of life and the beyond, in his most recent black and white collections. In this series, Garcia explores the variety of drama between life and the afterlife, each image taking an unexpected twist into reality and then into a state of surrealism. From the foundation of his Mexican family and mentors of the dramatic history of Mexican art, Garcia has developed a unique internationally dimensional style that is imaginatively imbued with the visual power of the Renaissance artists, artist of the Spanish Baroque Diego Velazquez, American artist John Singer Sargeant, French Ecole des Beaux-Arts artist William Bourguereau, and modern artists Salvador Dali and Gustav Klimt.

As with so many of the great Masters, Garcia’s unique vision is an expression of his own spiritual journey. Garcia’s father also had a unique artistic talent, which he sacrificed in order to provide for his wife and seven children. When Garcia’s artistic ability manifested itself at the age of seven, his father supported and encouraged its development resulting in early recognition of Garcia’s talent during his childhood. Ultimately it was the support of his father, his wife and a brush with death in a bus accident which claimed the life of his closest friend – a fellow painter who was passionate about Garcia continuing his artistic career – that convinced him that he must continue to answer his true calling.

"For me, success as an artist means that I am able to live my life with creativity and joy."

Renzo

"I saw what I Dreamed and the Pigment Ran"

Renzo was born on April 11, 1953 in Martinez, California and raised in the state’s Bay Area. He has since spent one year in Brisbane, Queensland Australia, six years in Yelapa, Jalisco Mexico and nine years in San Diego, California. The youngest of three brothers, Renzo was raised within a conservative and strictly religious environment by his father, a retired Baptist pastor and house painter.

Renzo’s paintings express and communicate his observations of what he believes to be the basic qualities that separate humanity from the inanimate objects that surround it. His passion for Latin America continues to be a catalyst for his work.

Renzo’s images are opaque with transparent overlays to form composites, ranging from the figurative to abstract expressionism. In his 39 years of painting, Renzo has experimented with a variety of techniques and styles. He has always use of water paints, because of his connection with their unique qualities on the canvas. Building layer upon layer in a process of construction and illustrated depth, Renzo depicts metaphors and variables on relationships, spirituality, intent, and even tribal similes. His practice of alchemy, use brush strokes and habit of scratching at the surface of the canvas to produce a primal nature to these imaginary vehicles help to convey an ever illusive inspiration through each painting. With no formal academic education in the fine arts, Renzo began addressing his artistry as a profession early on in life and was represented by his first gallery before graduating from high school. During the same period, he worked as an Editorial Cartoonist for the local newspaper.

Renzo has shown his work throughout California and is in the permanent collections of the de Young Museum in San Francisco and the Crocker Museum in Sacramento. His work is also represented in the ongoing exhibition for the Kaiser Corporation, as well as public and commercial galleries in Chicago, Kentucky, Germany and Mexico. While painting, he has held various positions within the visual arts arena including: illustrator, art director, graphic designer and exhibit designer. He had also worked as an instructor and the career development administrator at The Art Institute of California, in San Diego, California where he was responsible for faculty management, curriculum development and undergraduate instruction.