Mike Barr, 1955 | Impressionist painter

Mike is an Adelaide-based impressionist painter with a penchant for rain in the city and beaches.

He started his artistic life as a potter and participated in an exhibition with Adelaide’s best when only 19 years of age. It is just over 10 years ago since he started painting in acrylics and oils and has gained over 50 awards during this time.

The beautiful beaches of Adelaide and the state of South Australia have inspired Mike to convey their sense of wonder through his work. He believes that the sky holds the key to most paintings, particularly at the beach where the sky is uninterrupted by buildings – "it’s here that we experience a real sense of space".

Debra Houston | Abstract Palette Knife painter

Debra J. Houston - Inspired by the simplicity of every day scenes, I work to bring those items to their extreme through an expression of dramatic color and exaggerated light. Living in the Pacific Northwest, I’m surrounded by natural beauty but the depiction of landscapes and street scenes comes from an interpreted existence rather that precise physical locations.

When beginning a painting, I allow the paint and colors to move me. I don’t typically have a carefully mapped out plan for each piece, but rather just an idea or focal point that develops throughout the creation. An emotional interest is the true goal in my work. Creating a mood, reflection, wonder…. something which allows you to escape each and every time you take it in.

Pablo Picasso: "Datemi un museo e ve lo riempirò"!

• "Datemi un museo e ve lo riempirò".

• "Perché in casa mia non ci sono appesi miei dipinti? È perché non posso permettermeli".

• "Il peggior nemico della creatività è il buon gusto".

• "A quattro anni dipingevo come Raffaello, poi ho impiegato una vita per imparare a dipingere come un bambino".

Johann Berthelsen | Impressionist Cityscape painter

Johann Henrik Carl Berthelsen (July 25, 1883 - April 3, 1972) was a prominent and prolific American Impressionist painter, as well as having a career as a professional singer and voice teacher. Essentially self-taught as an artist, he is best known for his poetic paintings of New York City, often in snow.

Johann Henrik Carl Berthelsen was born in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was the seventh of seven sons born to Conrad and Dorothea Karen Berthelsen. His father was a tenor with the Royal Opera and his mother was a nurse. Following the divorce of the parents, in 1890 his mother brought the children to America, joining her sister in Manistee, Michigan. Soon they settled in Manitowoc, Wisconsin.

Lorraine Lewitzka, 1952 | Figurative Watercolour painter

Lorraine Lewitzka was born in South Australia, into a family of artists and worked as a fashion and illustrative artist in the late '60's, beginning watercolour painting in 1985. In 1988, Lorraine was accepted as a Fellow of the Royal South Australian Society of Arts and began exhibiting in private and mixed exhibitions.

A significant highlight and turning point of Lorraine's career was the inaugural study award at the Victor Harbor Rotary Art Show. As a result, she was tutored by four distinguished watercolourists in the U.S.A. being Robert Wade, Betty Lou Schlemm, Christopher Schink and Alex Powers, after which she attended a summer school at the Slade School of Art, London, discovering the new medium of oils in life painting.

Katya Gridneva, 1965 | Figurative painter

Katya Gridneva is an Ukrainian painter.

As a child she loved to draw and paint, but this talent was set aside when she was selected to be a gymnast at one of Russia’s prestigious Sports Schools.

This career came to an abrupt end when she was injured in a fall from the bar.

Her significant artistic talent was recognised by her acceptance in 1993 to the Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg, also known as the Repin Institute.

Yves Thos (1935-2020) | La Dolce Vita

Yves Thos was a French painter, leader of a poster artist trend and author of masterpieces now listed in the Cinema World Heritage.

Since the 1980’s, his paintings have created a new pictural generation which naturally originated from posters and figurative contemporary art.

Born in Paris suburbs, Yves Thos joined the School of Graphic Arts at age 16 and painted his first movie posters when he was 19.

Yves Thos began his painting career as a cinema poster artist at the age of nineteen, never to leave it again. He painted his first posters for the firm Pathé-Cinéma.

Duy Huynh, 1975 | Symbolist Surrealist painter

Duy Huynh’s poetic and contemplative acrylic paintings symbolically reflect geographical and cultural displacement.

Drawing inspiration from a variety of storytellers in formats that range from music and movies to ancient folklore and comic book adventures, Duy, Vietnamese painter, creates his own narratives of the human condition with ethereal characters maintaining a serene, precarious balance, often in a surreal or dreamlike setting.