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Armand Cabrera makes his home in Northern Virginia. An award-winning, self-taught artist, Armand is a full time oil painter represented by galleries across the United States.
Armand has spent over 2 decades as a successful production artist in the computer games and entertainment industry, creating conceptual designs and background art. His clients include LucasFilm Games, Disney, Electronic Arts, Virgin Entertainment, Zynga, Nickelodeon, Microsoft and Paramount Pictures. Armand is also recognized in the fine art field of Imaginative Realism. Armand has had numerous One-Man Exhibitions and his work is found in notable corporate and private collections around the world. He has been juried into the prestigious Laguna Plein Air Competition, Plein Air Easton, California Art Club Gold Medal Exhibitions, International Museum of Contemporary Masters “Salon International”, Napa Valley Museum, The Haggin Museum and many other national exhibitions. Armand has been honored with top awards at many of these shows. Armand writes weekly informative articles about his painting process, the business of art and historical artists on his very popular blog. ArtAndInfluence.com. He teaches studio and plein air painting, when his schedule permits. Armand is often published in regional and internationally-known art publications. International Artist Magazine, American Art Collector, Art of the West, Art Business News, The Piedmont Virginian, Elan Magazine, Plein Air and Southwest Art Magazines have recognized Armand as one of the premier, contemporary painters in the country. Armand will be exhibiting at our First Friday Event on April 6 from 6 - 9 pm. Sunset Hills Winery will be pouring and wine will be available for purchase. Cooley Gallery Artist and Instructor, Elaine Nunnally will be exhibiting her work through February 28, 2018. Elaine's exhibit is entitled "Painting the Interstate" and the exhibit captures what the beltway looks like through the eyes if an artist. The paintings are a calm and realistic rendition of what we see as day-to-day.
For the past few years, I have been working on a series which I call the Highway Series, or Interstate Series. It came about while traveling on the interstate and finding the scenery so much like an abstract painting. The elements of design are right there: the landscape, the sky, the curve of the highway, the geometric signs, the overpasses, and the colorful cars that speed by. We spend an enormous amount of time behind the wheel of a car, so this is a common experience to all Americans. I often call my paintings “tributes to Eisenhower”, since it was Dwight D. Eisenhower who started the interstate system in the U.S. back in the 1950’s. I use heavy applications of watercolor paint, sometimes directly from the tube. The blending of bright color is done with a stiff brush (thank you Skip Lawrence) and the results are always a surprise, since I never know exactly how a painting will come out. It’s great fun and I hope when people see my work that they will think, “Wow, I never thought about highways like that!” ~Elaine Nunnally Elaine has been doing art in some form or another for all of her life. It was as natural as breathing, and, although there were no other artists in her immediate family, her parents were very supportive and encouraging. Although she has an undergraduate and graduate degrees in art education, she gained knowledge of watercolor from the many workshop instructors she has worked with over the years, including Linda Baker, Skip Lawrence, Mark Mahaffey, Judi Betts, and Pat Dews, to name a few. If you want to learn, then learn from the best! EIaine retired from teaching over 5 years ago and has finally been able to pursue her passion for painting. Recently, Elaine has been honored to have her work juried into some of the most prestigious national and international watercolor exhibits in the country, including the American Watercolor Society, the Northwest Watercolor Society, the San Diego Watercolor Society, and the Missouri Watercolor Society, to name a few. A signature member of the Baltimore Watercolor Society, the Illinois Watercolor Society, the San Diego Watercolor Society, the Virginia Watercolor Society, the Missouri Watercolor Society, and the Potomac Valley Watercolor Society. Join us at, The Cooley Gallery, for an opening reception on Friday, November 3, 2017 from 6-9 pm.  -Pattee Hipschen, Painter Trees have been the primary focus of my paintings for the last several years. I like their repetitive shapes - the leaves, the trunks, the branches as well as the reflections they make on the ground and in the water. I continue the idea of repetition to the canvas, painting in multiples - triptychs and diptychs. I capture my subjects with and without leaves, in different seasons and at various times of day. I paint in oil, with a pretty vivid palette, on both canvas and wood panels.  -Carrie Althouse, Potter
I started potting, and I practiced, I failed miserably but never gave up. Along with lots of flopped pots, I had incurred many costly mistakes including kiln and glazing disasters. Through all of this, I was developing a feel for the clay. I was experiencing how the clay moved, what I could and couldn't do to it, how far I could push it, when it would flop, and when it would become a work of art. I was developing the muscle memory that it takes to move each finger individually. With the help of books and videos, I was teaching myself which in turn gave me great insight into teaching others! I was well on my way to being a potter. Please join us at our artist reception for: Andrea Cybyk and Yoshiko Ratliff Friday, October 6, 2017 6:00 - 9:00 pm Wine tastings will be poured by, The Barns of Hamilton Station and music by Charlie Cain Exhibit will be available to view October 1-31, 2017 Over, Under & Through by Andrea Cybyk I employ repeating and overlapping shapes to build luscious color, rich texture, and dynamic movement in my acrylic paintings. Imperfect, organic ovals, orderly grids of rectangles, or jagged geometric forms pile atop each other, teetering between control and chaos. These layers create unexpectedly rich moments where they intersect, producing mysterious colors, anticipated, but not mixed on my palette. Crisp, deliberate white space serves both as a pathway through the painting and as a resting place from potential overload. I create large hand-cut templates as a way of repeating forms and patterns, rolling on fluid acrylic paint with rubber brayers rather than paintbrushes. The brayers lend a faceted, jewel-like quality to the pigment, backlit by the white of the paper. I work in both positive shapes and negative space (the space between shapes) delighting in the complex colors created where layers overlap. Some pieces are deconstructed by physically separating the layers into a series of mylar templates that allow only a partial view of what lies below. Works on paper are mounted on cradled wood panels or canvas, sealed & varnished, allowing the forms to float visually beyond the edge, unconfined by conventional mat & frame. Artist Bio A native of Northern Virginia with an engineering background, Andrea Cybyk worked in the software industry for 15 years, studied printmaking and painting along the way, and finally abandoned the techie world to paint full-time. Having grown up in the contemporary home her parents designed and built themselves, she comes from a family of technical creatives and fiercely stubborn DIYers. Andrea has exhibited at BlackRock Arts Center, The Cooley Gallery, Chasen Galleries, Greater Reston Art Center, ArtSpace Herndon, The Art League Gallery, Vale Arts, HNTB Architecture, Artomatic and the Workhouse Arts Center. Her work has been in countless juried and group shows. She has won multiple honors including two purchase awards from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. Andrea is currently an Artist-In-Residence at Palette 22 Restaurant in Shirlington and runs an exhibit program for 868 Estate Vineyards in Loudoun County. Yoshiko Ratliff, Crystalline PotteryArtist Statement
Ceramics have been a constant in my life and heritage. The shapes, finishes, and colors in my one-of-a-kind pieces reflect my experiences, environment, and what I find moving and beautiful. Art is found in the linkages formed between the earth, the artist, and the user through the shape and functionality of each piece. The shaping, glazing, and firing of each piece lead to endless possibilities, challenges, and new ways of self-expression as an artist. Crystalline Glazes Crystalline glazes are one of the most difficult and challenging glazes to produce.This is because they are unusually difficult and time-consuming to formulate and fire.They require meticulous attention to every detail.I fire one-of-a-kind porcelain pieces to over 2350 °F in the kiln, quickly dropping the temperature several hundred degrees to the range where crystals will grow. The crystals form in the glaze in a chemical reaction during cooling and grow from small nuclei created during the melting process when silica and zinc come together to form zinc-silicate. Each glaze composition, together with the firing and cooling schedule, and glaze thickness, makes different forms and colors of crystals. I love producing and sharing beauty from such a challenging and complex process.
Lauren has painted her entire life. This innate creativity later translated into formal training and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from James Madison University, as well as continued development at the Art School of Lorenzo de Medici in Florence, Italy. Lauren has called Virginia home all her life, moving from Lynchburg to Old Town Alexandria and now settled in Western Loudoun. She is drawn to the quiet beauty of her environment as she travels locally and abroad, using these scenes as the basis for her lush and energetic paintings. Upon graduation, Lauren opened her own storefront in Old Town Alexandria, where she sold her art successfully for 6 years and developed a strong clientele. Many of these clients were intrigued with the hand-painted refurbished furniture Lauren sold along with her paintings and antiques, and she began helping customers with furnishing and wall treatments in their homes. This experience working on clients’ interiors naturally led Lauren to integrate her home and design skills with her fine artwork.   BIO: Denise Rosile is a painter who lives in Northern Virginia. Her current focus is on expressive representations of emotional content, which include symbols and words. She holds a BFA from the Columbus College of Art & Design, has taught expressive art, and is currently a visual art instructor at the high school level. PROCESS: Thematic Imagery meets intuitive mark making. ARTIST STATEMENT: I am experimenting with the contrast between representational elements and symbolic imagery in order to express personal content and engage the viewer in a visual dialog around unspoken truths. WORD SERIES: Personal Truths. The cage functions as the structure onto which orbs in varying stages of illumination and/or intensity exist in either a caught or freed state. With this model I am exploring emotional currents which flow unbidden through the individual, and the words which emerge from this dynamic process. FIGURATIVE SERIES: Trapped. The imagery represents the struggle for personal freedom, specifically when an individual feels powerless over her/his circumstances. The figure of a woman trapped in a box is life size, painted on a 24” x 24” canvas, replicating a 24” x 24” box in which the woman “sits” within its boundaries. Rebecca Grace Jones was born and raised in Hagerstown, Maryland into a family of artists where creativity was encouraged and nurtured. She studied art at Towson University, receiving an MFA, and taught commercial art at her alma mater for twelve years. Rebecca’s career as an artist has morphed over the decades from freelance illustrator to fine craftsperson to painter. She now focuses on painting in mixed media at her home/studio, just outside of Shepherdstown, WV, which gives her great happiness. Artist Statement When I start a mixed media painting I rarely know what it is going to turn out to be. I work intuitively and without reference. I am interested in building up textures with my materials and creating a series of layers that reveal the history of each one’s application. Often a collage is painted over, scraped off and reapplied in a new form. The repeated constructing and destroying and recreating builds a rich surface. The pieces are often finished with details, sometimes whimsical, always with attention to the subtle beauty of the mark. I paint mostly with acrylics on watercolor paper and wood panels and add Thai and Yupo papers, tissue and rice paper with inks, chalk and oil pastels, charcoal and colored pencil. Rebecca Grace Jones Rebecca's work can be found in the gallery or you may view online by simply clicking on the images below to be taken to her page at our online store.  "Wasatch II" by Laura Edwards
Original Painting Oil on Yupo 27" x 34" We have but one artist that uses "Yupo" for their works and it has raised quite a stir among those who attended our artist exhibition last week. "What is Yupo"....has been the equivalent of "Where's Waldo" and we enjoy nothing more than questions concerning art. What is Yupo - Yupo is 100% recyclable, waterproof, tree-free Synthetic Paper that is extruded from polypropylene pellets. (cool right?) What are its attributes - Super-smooth, durable, wipes clean, waterproof, and it will not tear. Which mediums can use Yupo - You can paint on it with watercolour, colored pencils, water soluble crayon, inks or acrylics. As you can see, this is a somewhat new material for artists to create on, yet still unfamiliar to most. Laura's paintings may be created differently being that they are on board, canvas or yupo. It does not go without saying they are all equally impressive. If you have not yet been to, The Cooley Gallery, to view Laura's works; she is here through the end on November. You can view all of Laura's available work here: the-cooley-gallery.myshopify.com/collections/laura-edwards-abstract-artist |