Jerry Sawitz continues to explore the limitless possibilities of glazing in his three-dimensional works and masterfully brings species to life through his oil paintings. Currently, Sawitz has been working with the   Los Angeles animal sanctuary, Wildlife Waystation, where he donates his works and portions of his sales to help fundraise for their cause in animal preservation.

Sawitz has worked with many companies including the Discovery Channel, The Nature Company, and Natural Wonders. The fine art portion of his paintings has been shown in over 15 states including California, New York, Colorado and Hawaii.

Jerry Sawitz has taught art at the high school level for 33 years and has exhibited his own artwork professionally for 29. In the early 1980’s, Sawitz’s three-dimensional work began debuting in galleries located in California, New Orleans, and New Mexico.

It was in 1987 when this Conejo Valley artist struck the opportunity to exchange ceramic lessons for watercolor lessons with the nationally renowned artist Catherine Liu. It was during this period when Sawitz began his passion for wildlife art. Shortly after, this devoted artist ventured in this subject matter when the Monterey Bay Aquarium selected him as the artist to be featured in posters, in which multiple pieces of his artwork was used.

In 1999, Sawitz was given the honor to paint the commemorative poster used in the opening of the Sea Otter Exhibit located at the Aquarium of the Americas in New Orleans. Since then, Sawitz’s artwork has been used to reflect wildlife species in zoos and aquariums throughout the country.

Jerry Sawitz has had the privilege to work under several mentors including the late Otto and Vivka Heino, Leon Fields, and Sir Bernardus Weber. Amongst his circle of inspiration, John Solem inspired him as a great friend, professor, and creative guide in Sawitz’s artistic journey. Sawitz has been married to successful jewelry business owner, Becky, of 31 years and is a father to a budding writer, Tanner, who has just had his first work published. With great colleagues and family by his side, Jerry Sawitz feels as though his journey has just begun.

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“The crowded and busy world gives little time to appreciate thought through the revelation of images” Kristi Colell

The work of Kristi Colell is an extension of the “Decode” series. This series reveals a connection between sight and the enigmas that are transformed by providing compositional interest in the decoding and diverging art surfaces through varieties of color application, line, and forms.

Colell has pioneered within the art culture with forty-six years of teaching the arts in the CVUSD, California Lutheran University, and Santa Reparata school of fine art in Firenze Italia. Colell had the honor of serving as an International Baccalaureate examiner and was an award recipient and judge for Los Angeles Music Center’s Bravo.

Colell’s art experience includes earning a BA of Arts from Loyola Marymount University with a double major in Fine Arts and Theatre Arts.Colell received her art MA from Pius XII, School of Arts Villa Schifanoia, Firenze Italia.

Colell’s work has been inspired by her husband’s music and her travels throughout the United States, Mexico, China, and Europe. Her travels have brought her in contact with much of the world’s natural beauty and diverse humanity. Originally a watercolorist and sculptor, Colell recently began exploring the vast innovative processes of printmaking.

In 2012, Colell brought the International creator of solar plate printmaking, Dan Welden, to the California Lutheran University as the Artist in Residency for the month of February. Over the years her art has been shown in galleries in Italy, Austria, Colorado, Las Vegas, Washington, Kentucky and Southern California.

Kristi’s art can be found in many private Collections and as illustrations for two children’s books.

Colell’s works are marvels of color, line and form that are begging to be decoded.

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Conjuring the Marvelous Element: Atom, Archetype and Infinite Bliss

For Taxia Nova, creating Art has always been a means of working out a formula, exploring the possible solutions to a problem and most importantly, is driven by the simple motivation of getting closer to the “hidden truth”.

During her studies at UC Irvine, Nova spent a considerable amount of time researching quantum mechanics, the nature of holograms, unified field theory and the developing area of nonlinear dynamics. The canvas and computer became her lab environment and her challenge was to accurately depict what she was learning into tangible, visual forms.

Nova will soon be working with her fiancé, Chris Cibelli on location on a feature film. Chris Cibelli is currently an editor on “The Mentalist” that airs on CBS. Nova has learned much about filmmaking because of him and has also begun to see how the medium of motion picture falls into place with the other ideas and concepts that she has been returning to with respect to Art, Psychology and Spirituality.

“We are now at the point where we are not just contemplating but developing the process of using atoms and molecules themselves to perform memory and processing tasks inside a quantum computer. For me this brought the inevitable question of aren’t we in fact moving toward what atoms and molecules perform for us in our own bodies, minds and even possibly how they might play a role in the functioning of our spirit? So much of our world is now based on that which we cannot see without the aid of technology and computers. The consensus is that we must rely on them to move forward but perhaps this process is part of the design to continually bring us back to ourselves? Are we getting any closer to really knowing ourselves? Of course, I am an optimist at heart. Charles Bennett, an American physicist and founding father of Quantum Information Theory states “the information in real microscopic physical systems is more like the information in a dream. It’s certainly there in some sense, but if you try to tell someone about the dream you won’t remember it the same way it was before you told them.” – Taxia Nova

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is wing’d Cupid painted blind. -Midsummer Night’s Dream

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The works of Rob Impellizzeri have cultivated a style much like that of Clyde Aspivig, a contemporary giant, who has inspired him to display deeply textured, layered landscapes of incredible depth, perspective, and grandeur.

This emergent artist has grown upon the two careers that he has spent helping to defend the freedoms of America as an army officer and one in an engineering industry developing the systems to help war fighters in the battlefield.

Rob Impellizzeri’s plein air landscapes have been catapulted by his values in American freedom and finds gratitude in those freedoms that allow him to create works that preserve natural surroundings.

His works transport viewers throughout California and other western landscapes that are often overlooked and undervalued by the busy masses of Los Angeles. From the Moab cliffs of southern Utah to Agua Dulce desert in California, his oil paintings are reminders that Earth is a masterpiece in itself.

This emergent artist has found a way to project, document, and protect our precious resources for future generations as his works emit the Earth’s solitude that many of us sometimes forget.

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Eliseo Art Silva is a weaver of history and heritage. Silva was internationally recognized at the age of 22 for creating the largest street art (his first ever public art) of Filipino heritage in the United States; a 150 foot masterpiece which was featured by the Smithsonian Institute, LA County Museum of Art and BEP’s MTV “Where is the Love ?” Fifteen years later, he has painted over a hundred urban cultural landscapes in both the east and west coast, creating sites of public memory for almost every ethnic community in the United States. His body of work ranges from a hundred foot US war veterans memorial near Vandenburg Air Base in Lompoc, CA, a local memorial honoring Oxnard native Juan Lagunas Soria, onto the Jewish mural in Los Angeles, CA.

Silva’s work tells stories that are grounded upon layers of culture creating a kind of contemporary folk art that attempts to find the border between mass culture and contemporary realism. His paintings have been described as “magical realism and surrealism powering the imagery in the painting.” According to the Philadelphia Inquirer: “probing the American influence over Filipino identity, his work makes you think seriously about the implications of imperialism.”

In a review by NY art critic and president of National Academy of Design, Gregory Amenoff: “ Silva offers us a panorama that directly and indirectly references both the original Filipino culture and the colonial history layered over it. Silva explores the complex layers of that world by employing a dreamlike atmosphere through which images of historical artifact float. This is not a representation of a single ‘mind’ but rather the ‘mind’ of an entire people- a collective memory. Within his paintings a voice is clearly heard and it is a voice that is hard to forget.”

In ‘Spectacle and Surveilance,’ the artist explores the possibilities of contextualizing his heritage as a jester and not a curator of images through paintings and sculpture, by adopting the ‘panopticon’ designed by Jeremy Bentham and articulated by Michel Foucault in his seminal work entitled ‘Discipline and Punish’(1975), serving as a model of power relationships and hierarchal social systems. In essence the Spanish colonial period of the Philippines is perceived as Monarchical Punishment (spectacle) and the subsequent US occupation categorized as Disciplinary Punishment (surveillance) which embodies self-policing defining modern methods of power, knowledge and control as opposed to brutal displays of authority from the Monarchical period.

In nihilistic fashion, Eliseo Art Silva has taken the subconscious to inform the production of the works-bringing together all perspectives with no hope of redemption as argued by Foucault himself- that “visibility is a trap.”

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Jim Hayek paints with acrylic and music. His work is loose, vibrant and conceptual with an explosion of pop culture. Hayek discovered a hybrid of art and music since owning his first KISS album at the age of 6. Since then, Hayek has mastered a style that he can call his own by translating songs into the forms of paintings. The process of his artwork is soulful, where every brushstroke carefully encapsulates the music. His work is a true experience, which is no surprise Hayek has had live performances at the House of Blues and the Hard Rock Cafés throughout Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

Hayek hasn’t stopped turning heads by turning music notes into brushstrokes. Hayek’s work has been sought after by a huge fan base and can be seen in the homes of the Dixie Chicks, Bon Jovi, Gwen Stefani, David Arquette, Courtney Cox, Barry Manilow, the Marley family and many more. Hayek has also been featured at various charity events and red carpet premiers such as the American Music Awards, Image Awards and the Grammy’s. Jim Hayek has fused his talent within the arts with his passion of music, earning him the right to becoming the renaissance man of the music industry.

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Eddy Dietz started drawing in 2006 after seeing work done by art collective “The London Police”. Their complex yet simple characters sparked his surge of creativity that hasn’t lost momentum.

Since then, Dietz has been enveloping an interesting style. His subjects remain dark, ironic and morbid but his use of vibrant color schemes welcome the mind beyond the idea of death.

Dietz’s work is emerging within Ventura County, where the local art and skate scene play an integral part of his work. The works of local artists and friends, Shaun Berke, Spencer Caliguiri, Daniel Bojorquez, Ian Dietz, Jim Hayek, Andrew Conte, Dawn Corriea, Tyler Johnson and Luc Doucedame have all played roles in influencing Dietz into becoming one of the most respected contemporary artists in Ventura County.

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