Derek Gores, 1971

Derek has gained national attention for his collage portrait series, recycling magazines, labels, and found materials to create the works on canvas. The series showcases Gores' contrasting interests in the natural beauty of the figure, the angular design aesthetics of fashion (and machinery), and a fearless sense of play. A successful commercial designer and illustrator for 15 years, clients include ESPN, Lenny Kravitz, Lucasfilm, Kings of Leon, U2, NASCAR, Adidas, Madonna, Harley Davidson, 321 Agency, Van Halen, the National Football League, LiveNation, SEIU, Love Haight Apparel, and JCPenney. Derek lives and works in Melbourne, Florida, surrounded by the intellect and culture of the Space Coast.

Bob Barker, 1954

Bob Barker is a UK based artist, born and bred in Yorkshire. It’s taken Bob Barker twenty years for his long time love of painting to evolve from a hobby to the point where interest in his work has taken on worldwide awareness. As a gift one Christmas he received an oil painting set. Bob Barker was immediately struck by what he could create with basic tools and he has been painting ever since, “I eat, breathe and sleep painting”, he says “I love every minute of it”. Bob Barker was born and brought up within the textile industry of Yorkshire; he reflects, “the subjects I paint, most people would just see soot-blackened stone and polluted skies - I see colour”.

Michael Maczuga, 1957

Michael Maczuga considers himself a native Arizonan. Although born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1957, he and his family moved here in 1964. Michael paints daily wherever and whenever time allows. He became a member of the Oil Painters of America in 2004. He is also the founding director of the one and only major plein aire painters show in Scottsdale, “The Wild Wild West Show,” an invitational and juried show. The plein aire show is extremely important to Michael because it allowed him to incorporate a mentorship initiative for local high school art students.

Rita Kirkman | Pastel painter

Rita Kirkman was born an artist. She has been using pastel since she was 11 years old and had her first paid portrait commission at 17. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1988. Meanwhile, in 1986 she began a 12 year career sketching quick portraits at amusement parks.

Dmitry Patrushev / Дмитрий Патрушев, 1969

Dmitry Patrushev / Дмитрий Патрушев was born in city Glazov. Has graduated Glazov's Art School in 1982. Was engaged in sculptor, painter, watercolourist and teacher Leonid Mordvin and prepared to act in V. Surikov's Institute, and has acted in the Institute of Physical Culture in Moscow, parallelly visited S. Andriyaka's School of Watercolor, and also N.Smirnov's workshop.

Jeff Faust, 1952 | Surrealist painter

Jeff Faust, American painter, has fond memories of spending hours getting lost in art books that his parents kept round the house as a child.
Each page told a story, both about the artist themselves, and of their work and this fed his eager mind that to create art is not just an amazing ability to possess, but that it was also his calling.

Hiroko Sakai | Surrealist painter

Japanese artist Hiroko Sakai has been living and working in San Francisco California since 1998. The intense passion that she conveys in her art has inspired deep expressions of emotion in viewers over the years.

In the early 90's, her professional art career started in the graphic arts field in Japan. After graduating from Nihon interior design school with a BA degree in design and rendering, she founded "Atelier Yume-Tsumugi Ltd".

Mahira Ates, 1960 | Surrealist painter