This checkpoint installation was done as part of the Peace Now! exhibition at the Warehouse Gallery commemorating the 5th anniversary of the Iraq conflict.

The wall is meant to divide common space as an arbitrary impediment to normal human flow. I have been pondering "walls" for a long time now -- and there didn't seem to be any other way for me to express my feelings that we make peace now by throwing up walls without building a barricade and experiencing the disruption.

I've invited some graffiti buddies to do their thing on the walls -- and we'll be smashing it down and selling off pieces at the end of Artomatic. Special thanks to Kelly Towles, Tim Conlon, Jazirock, Rei21, Rezist, Amen, RDawg, Queen B. Email me if you want to reserve a piece of the wall.

Emil Bekavac’s Croatian-American background has had a strong influence on his work. Growing up in a small town outside Pittsburgh during the decline of the U.S. steel industry, and hearing his grandparents tell stories about the conditions they fled in Eastern Europe, gave Emil a personal understanding of the effects of depression and oppression. These influences, combined with Emil’s spirituality, led him to his unique artistic style, which calms chaos with the healing flow of chi (energy, or life force). His paintings and sculptures express the soul’s desire to break free from oppression in all its forms. They stir consciousness into action and stimulate evolution toward a better world.

"Heart"

This series of sculptures is an attempt to integrate the East and West.

At the heart of creation dances the Lord of the Dance, who directs and undergoes the integration of all opposites, male and female, creation and destruction, crucifixion and resurrection. Out of this beating center, the material world takes birth. The central sculpture in the exhibition is called "The Nataraja," or "Lord of the Dance.” The dancing figure inside this sculpture is crucified and resurrected, male and female.

The four sculptures surrounding "The Nataraja" represent creation’s four-fold nature: the four directions, and the four seasons. Each is a human figure dancing inside a musical instrument. The dancers are inspired by the choreography of the Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre. The sculptures of the four seasons are made of mixed media, but primarily one of four metals: gold, silver, bronze and steel. These four metals are associated with the Hindu understanding of time, which is divided into four ages, or yugas. There is the Golden Age, Silver Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. Each age is a necessary season of growth for creation and for human beings striving towards their goal of union with God through love.

The creation of sculpture and installation work is largely driven by my response to the environment in which it comes to exist -- whether that be through the integration of materials that are locally collected and can serve as representations of the site itself, or, through the creation of synthetic landscapes that are inspired by the site and are more conceptual in nature.

In the summer of 2007 I began work on this project by altering hundreds of handmade ceramic shapes. Conceptually this project is an exploration of the need for nourishment, both physical and psychological. It is largely a response to the past ten years of my life, which have primarily been spent seeking to improve the welfare of underprivileged communities, both here in this country and abroad. These experiences have brought me both great joys on the one hand, and profound sadness on the other, and in an effort to convey these experiences I have been driven to undertake this project. The installation of this work serves as a personal meditation and response to both the challenges intrinsic to the economic disparities I have encountered, layered alongside the beauty and fragility of the human experience more generally.

"Norwegian Nights" is the first of a projected series of installation pieces entitled “Outside Inn”. This series of environmental art pieces brings the vastness, greatness and beauty of the outdoors indoors. It brings the mountains, ocean and woods to the viewer in the urban and suburban areas. It reconnects the viewers with the natural world, with the grand open spaces which she might not have had the opportunity to experience. The pieces are meant to remind the viewers of the amazing world of which we are a part, by putting them in the middle of it. They are what I dub “green art” - their purpose to remind the onlooker in a way that is neither preachy nor overbearing, but experiential and meditative, of the world we share and are the stewards of.

The Mobile is a unique blend of engineering and artistry. I believe that a mobile should be more than just a series of repetitive shapes balanced at the end of wires. The structure should be a cohesive composition of form, color, and motion. Each part is essential to the whole, every connection carefully chosen to choreograph the interaction of the various elements, designing by intent instead of necessity. I strive to give each of my sculptures a life of their own, a poetry of motion in space. Sophisticated yet playful, whimsical yet meditative – a tangible expression of infinite possibility.

Andrew Cronan is a 38 year old native of Silver Spring, Maryland. He spent the earlier part of his life as a closet art fanatic, building small mobiles to liven up his cubicle. For the last eight years he has been seriously studying and producing mobiles and other metal sculptures. His current series of figurative animal mobiles is breaking new ground in the genre of mobile sculptures. He has been working as an artist full time for the last four years.

What a ride!

Just like me, my works are ever changing, from face cast masks to glass masks. I find we all wear masks, at one time or another, so buy the mask...the party will come...

I make narrative glass and mixed-media sculptures focused on contemporary issues and politics. Lately, we have been besieged with news detailing the mortgage market crisis—a sharp contrast to three years ago when housing prices were at an all-time high. My Artomatic 2008 exhibit presents our complex relationship to housing in the 21st century in cast glass and astro-turf.

My work is all about form and color. I concentrate on abstracting the human figure and letting each sculpture take shape and develop on its own. For this exhibit I am showing terra cotta sculptures; raku-fired clay forms and cold castings. At this point the process of discovery and learning is my focus.

I have a BFA from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. My experience there was memorable -- excellent faculty and facilities -- a great way to start my journey into art. I live in Northern Virginia with my husband, Bill Firestone who is a fine art painter and illustrator.

This is my first time at Artomatic and I am looking forward to it. I'm on the sixth floor (I'm not in the published catalog) 6 SE C7

stained glass

Wonder at the beauty, mystery, and exuberance of living things inspires my art. Years of study and hours spent outdoors have deepened my appreciation of the natural world and intensified my concern about its disappearance. Loss and rebirth, the passage of time, tides, and seasons, the lives of other species on this earth, which parallel our own lives - these are things I think about and try to share in my work.

working in an abstract/organic style, i attempt to create a heightened reality where everything is brighter, bolder, and more aggressive in order to lure the viewer in and alter their perception of their own surroundings