Buon 2014.. Felice Anno Nuovo !!

Libera in cielo i tuoi desideri
perché ad ogni ventata improvvisa tu te ne posa ricordare.
Libera in cielo le tue paure
perché con la sua profondità le mischi con le stelle
e le trasformi in nuovi punti di riferimento per crescere.

Elli Michler | I wish you time / Ti auguro tempo

Non ti auguro un dono qualsiasi,
ti auguro soltanto quello che i più non hanno:

I don't wish you all sorts of gifts.

I just wish you, what most people don't have:

Carl Payne, 1969 ~ Figurative sculptor

British sculptor Carl Payne was born in Staffordshire. During his education he studied Figurative Sculpture and began on his first commission in 2000. Since then, Payne has compiled an extensive ensemble of commissions including 'Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross' and 'King George and Queen Mary' which were unveiled by George Best, Bobby Moore and Pele and by Princess Anne at Banbury respectively. Today he has a wide variety of collectors throughout the world.

Payne's works are incredibly lifelike, portraying their subjects flawlessly, the pieces look like they might spring to life at any given moment. Despite a lack of use of colour, the pieces convey a dynamic sense of weight and movement, capturing the viewer in the freeze-frame that his sculptures are trapped in.

Leonardo Bistolfi | Symbolist sculptor

Leonardo Bistolfi (1859-1933) was an Italian sculptor, an important exponent of Italian Symbolism. Bistolfi was born in Casale Monferrato in Piedmont, north-west Italy, to Giovanni Bistolfi, a sculptor in wood and to Angela Amisano.
In 1876 he enrolled in the Brera Art Academy in Milan, where his teacher was Giosuè Argenti. In 1880 he studied under Odoardo Tabacchi at the Accademia Albertina in Turin.

His first works Le lavandaie "The Washerwomen", Tramonto ‘Sunset’, Vespero ‘Evening’, Boaro ‘Cattle-hand’, Gli amanti ‘The Lovers’, executed between 1880 and 1885, show the influence of the Milanese Scapigliatura. In 1882 he sculpted L'Angelo della morte ‘The Angel of Death’ for the Brayda tomb in the Turin cemetery known as the Cimitero Monumentale, and in 1883 he produced a bust of the painter Antonio Fontanesi for the Accademia Albertina: these works show a turn towards Symbolism which the artist was never to abandon.

From this time until 1914 Bistolfi produced many busts, medals and portraits of prominent figures including the Piedmontese painter Lorenzo Delleani, the kings of Italy Vittorio Emanuele II and Umberto I, the criminologist Cesare Lombroso, the writer Edmondo De Amicis, and the publisher and journalist Emilio Treves.
In the early 1890s he was made an honorary member of the Accademia Albertina and became secretary of the Circolo degli Artisti ‘Artists’ Circle’.
In 1892 he began a two-year task of decorating Chapel XVI of the Sacro Monte di Crea, one of the Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy which are recognised as UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In 1893 he married Maria Gusberti.

Michel Rauscher, 1957 | Abstract Figurative painter

Michel Rauscher painter and photographer, born in Alsace is a passionate autodidact. Great traveler, he takes his endless curiosity in regions, on land that fascinated him in search of color, light and authenticity, with a predilection for the African continent.
His need for discovery and the interpretation of dreams become sources of inspiration for his painting. It evokes the beauty of the everyday magic of ordinary, the emotion of the moment. He expresses his artistic sensibility with timeless themes, stylized characters in cracked places, evocative and poetic silhouettes causing emotion and enthusiasm.

Jacqueline Osborn | Stories on canvas

British painter* Jacqueline Osborn captures strong, graphic and compelling images in her present series of paintings entitled Moments in Time.
Although Jacqueline has lived in California for half of her life she admits that England will always be home to her and that she is fortunate that she can return fairly often.
Her work communicates precious every-day moments that tell a story of another era, place and generation. Her warm and restrained palette suggests a mood of times gone by - out of reach, elusive moments that are captured on her canvases.

Mary Jane Cross, 1951 | Figurative painter

Born in 1951, American painter* Mary Jane Q. Cross received her formal training at the Worcester Art Museum, in 1970-1973 in a time of Expressionism.

Followed by workshops with Daniel Green and mentoring with Fran Hoyt (student of Vincent Dumond), Mary Jane designed her own curriculum based on the Atelier System, to gain the tools necessary to make her art speak with historic purity, and her own unique voice.

Amy Brown, 1972 | Forest Spirit

Amy Brown is the first Fairy Artist in America. Amy Brown was born in Bellingham, Washington.

As a child she spent countless hours drawing fairy princesses at an old, dark wood table in the living room of the beach cabin her parents rented.

The doodling continued throughout her adolescence and at the age of 21 she began to take her art seriously, specializing in painting the fairy realm.

Amy started working with water-colors and found a deep love for the translucent qualities of the paint.