Press Releases from Agora Gallery (144 total)
The 28th Chelsea International Fine Art Competition
The 28th Chelsea International Fine Art Competition – Begins on February 12, 2013!
Here’s what several of the 2012 selected competition artists raved about:
“As a New Yorker I was impressed by the truly international nature of the show, and by the quality of the art.” ~ Meredith Rose
"To see my work displayed on the walls of your gallery was validating on so many levels. I have been doing art for more…
Tina Wendon’s Impressions of the Inner Psyche at Agora Gallery
In her ethereal and finely detailed style of portraiture, Tina Wendon develops an expressive realism of air and mood, bringing to light a faithful interpretation and a sense not just of the subjects’ physical characteristics but of their innermost life and emotions. As she creates her works in oil paint on canvas or linen with occasional elements of mixed media, Wendon creates an illusion of reality, applying thin layers of…
Isabelle Gardelle Explores the Spirituality and Purpose in Color and Form of Rea …
French artist Isabelle Gardelle creates highly emotive paintings which are detailed and meticulous yet entirely free. Imbued with a sense of spirituality and purpose, each image is vast in scope, defined by a masterful use of line and form. Colors are bold or muted, depending on the mood the artist is trying to convey. Compositions create a sense of drama and interest, drawing the viewer in beyond the recognizable forms…
Therese Obergottsberger: Elements of Nature at Agora Gallery
Her soul stirred by the sparkling wonder of wildlife, American artist Therese Obergottsberger translates her emotive responses to nature into illuminated, invigorating paintings. Working from her meticulously sharp photographs of lush, vivacious flora and fauna, the artist creates sumptuous, thorough and profoundly sculptural forms on her canvases. Through this scrupulous process, the viewer feels Obergottsberger’s deep sensitivity towards nature, which in turn leads to a renewed kinship for the mysterious,…
Mariana Acuña’s Ancient Landscapes at Agora Gallery
Mariana Acuña’s oil and mixed media paintings on wood or board are an appeal to dream dimensions, playful sensibilities, divine feminine energies and the flame of consciousness. The paintings depict the ecstatic dance of body, mind and spirit, reaching out to and reflecting the consciousness of both the viewer and the wider universe. These jewel-toned ethereal landscapes harbor human and animal archetypes nestled in the fold of flowing streams of…
Mark Tomcazk: A Free-Flowing Style at Agora Gallery
“In my art,” says Mark Tomczak, “I always try to leave room for the viewer’s imagination to run free,” and certainly his paintings vividly embody that freedom. The artist says that he enjoys being unrestricted with his color palette, textures and blend methods, and the results are paintings that always carry an element of surprise, whether in the form of an unexpected color or a texture that gives a canvas…
Chanon Lauffer’s High-Energy Art at Agora Gallery
Dutch artist Chanon Lauffer interacts with the world through joyful, colorful, exuberant art. Her high energy abstract paintings sweep viewers into a whirling scene of color, at once a celebration and a challenge. “In our modern fast society, a lot of adults aren’t even able to enjoy the magic of nature, the magnificent mixture of people surrounding us, and the power of emotions that bring us closer together,” she says.…
Strikingly Sparse Images of Jane Richardson at Agora Gallery
For the painter Jane Richardson, color and texture conjure evocative images of landscapes, city streets and human figures. Applied with palette knives and trowels, her paints meld sharp, straight edges and rounded lines to create movement and stillness in her generally abstract compositions. Many of her large paintings evoke landscapes, whether verdant natural vistas or fragmented urban scenes. Her bold expressionist aesthetic begins from a foundation of scraped, quasi-geometric forms,…
Cloudscapes of Jacques Descoteaux at Agora Gallery
At first glance, Canadian artist Jacques Descoteaux’s canvases resemble abstract color field paintings, but as the eye adjusts and subtle variations in tone and texture emerge, they turn out to be landscapes. Originally inspired by the flat topography and vast skies of the region surrounding James Bay, where he spent time years ago, and the urban environment of Toronto, where the artist is now based, Descoteaux paints what would almost…
Gladys Gonzalez’s Abstract Acrylics at Agora Gallery
Gladys Gonzalez paints large-format abstracts with acrylics on canvas, evoking the grandeur and mysticism of stained glass. Intense colors and heavy black lines form a body of work that is fragmented yet tight-knit; her style is immediately recognizable and has a great impact. “It is vibrant, colorful and… define[s] a particular scene or daily event,” she explains. Gonzalez is focused on capturing ordinary moments and making them something more. A…
Lee Savages Fury of Exponential Energy
Drips, splatters, riptides, chain reactions and other energetic kinds of visual matter charge the works of artist Lee Savage, giving her mixed media on paper creations a sense of barely contained motion. ‘My work revolves around freedom to create,’ says Savage, an artist whose half-organic, half-geometric shapes give form to what she describes as ‘the fury of exponential energy.’ Layering, texture and relentless experimentation with a wide variety of media…
Katrina Howarth's Grand Interiors and Intimate Landscapes
British artist Katrina Howarth, who is now based in Galveston, TX, having lived in New Mexico for a decade, paints dazzling still lifes, landscapes and domestic scenes, combining the charm of remote Britain and the Southwest’s grandiosity. Working with a palette always based on the same seven oil pigments, against a backdrop of burnt sienna that provides thick, dark outlines, her works evoke Post-Impressionism, with lines and perspectives gently distorted,…
Iva Milanova Bridges Figuration and Abstraction at Agora Gallery
Bulgarian, Berlin-based painter Iva Milanova moves effortlessly between figurative portraits and abstract patterns which emphasize geometric forms, recurring shapes and shifting surfaces. Her portraits, which portray archetypal social types or religious subjects like the Madonna, have a discernible Cubist quality to their facial features, while also evoking the Expressionist paintings of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. A few of Milanova’s female figures approach a level of near-abstract deconstruction, providing strong visual connections…
Urban Reality of Rubén Gómez Masip’s Art at Agora Gallery
Rubén Gómez Masip focuses in his work on exploration and self-study, striking a balance between photographic, illustrative and painterly elements within his crisp depictions of seemingly routine urban scenes. With his combination of realistic inspirations and unexpected colors and forms, Rubén’s work encourages the viewer to examine the underlying beauty and emotions present in everyday life. The painter explores materials such as plaster, cardboard, wood etc., but his favored oil…
Color and Contrast Reflecting Emotions: Art of Bibi Davidson at Agora Gallery
In the dreamlike world of Bibi Davidson’s paintings one discovers a vision inhabited by intriguing figures who seem to link aspects of shared childhood experience with the knowledge and humor of an adult. Davidson’s realm is joyfully whimsical as the mysterious and compelling story of her characters develops across her creations. “What I really want is to amuse people, so they would know that we can all look at our…
Malcolm Baroway: Post-Impressionist Visions at Agora Gallery
The singular oils of Malcolm Baroway are indicative of an artist both skilled and learned, who uses both his abilities and life experiences to shape his wonderful work. Baroway has a broad education in the arts, and the depth of his understanding is evident in what he presents. His canvases are reminiscent of the turn of the century Post-Impressionists, and evoke a joy in the painting process as well as…
Lou Lihou Brings Universality to his Maritime Experience
Lou Lihou's paintings reflect the vibrant energy of the sea. A professional diver, Lihou brings an impressionistic brushstroke to his largely romantic subjects. His part oil, part acrylic canvases reveal a love of the maritime world, displaying the lifestyle, vigor and hues which invite the viewer into the artist's own experience.
Lihou has lived most of his adult life in the Caribbean, but his early years were spent in the Channel…
Mixed Media Storytelling in Liesel Beukes's Artwork at Agora Gallery
South African, Munich-based artist Liesel Beukes embeds narratives into each of her bright, richly textured and surreal mixed media paintings. Her bold compositions foreground one or two vibrant colors, often a deep blue or warm orange, whose evocative power she attributes to the time she spent growing up in South Africa amidst bright landscapes and strong sunlight. She melds figurative images like portraits and plants with collaged patterns, flowing abstract…
J. Solà Puig: Poetic Landscapes at Agora Gallery
Influenced by artistic traditions such as Baroque and Impressionism, Spanish artist J. Solà Puig breathes exotically fascinating freshness into the oil painting medium. Richly thick planes of color are confronted with deftly articulated shapes, abstracting familiar yet fanciful landscapes with a subtle flourish. Fiery sensations of blazing light are palpable in Puig’s painting, evoking sublime passion in each of his smoothly tactile brushstrokes. Interested in the relationship between meaning and…
Grace Arledge’s Art Conveys Joy, Humor, Nature, Beauty, and a Glimpse of the S …
Grace Arledge is an interpretive realist who works with recognizable subjects and a wide variety of media. She approaches each piece with a fresh eye, unafraid to use new techniques if that is what fits the subject best. Arledge employs a method of expressionism that stays true to her subject while still leaving room for artistic interpretation. "I use representational art so that the subject is 'in your face,'" she…
The Pefection of Colors and Forms in Tanya Marie Reeves' Art at Agora Gallery
Tanya Marie Reeves' acrylic paintings utilize geometric forms and striking color combinations to create vivid and kaleidoscopic imagery. Often chimerical, her abstractions conceal naturalistic forms such as a flower blossom, a human hand, or most notably, the female form. Her meticulous technique results in strict yet fluid lines that draw viewers’ eyes across the canvas, enticing them to enter the unique world conjured by Tanya’s paintbrush. A self-taught artist, Tanya's…
Nicolette Benjamin Black: Intricate Renderings of Our Natural World
Australian artist Nicolette Benjamin Black uses little strokes of pen and ink on canvas to create compelling works with a weighty message. For the artist, the patterns, swirls and dots within her drawings are an ancient cross-cultural activity able to speak to a diversity of cultures. In fact, much of Black’s influence comes from her Australian roots, both “the indigenous artists and their techniques and connectedness to their land, and…
Natasha Parenta’s Original Artwork Explores the Universal Spirit
Abandoning any trace of realism or representation in favor of beautiful, profound abstractions, Natasha Parenta’s fluidly stylistic approach to abstract symbolism is deeply rooted in both her personal identity as an artist and in a powerful bond with the spirituality of nature. An emotional energy surges through her art, with a passion and spontaneity that touches upon a transcendent universal connection and awareness. As Parenta creates her mixed media paintings…
Monia Tartarini: Visions of Place at Agora Gallery
As one looks upon the works of Italian photographer Monia Tartarini one senses an understated elegance within the perfection of her carefully poised imagery. A delicate intuition for color and light is revealed through these compositions as the artist captures her large scale digital photographs. Specializing in environmental and studio portraiture, Tartarini chooses subjects which range from classically inspired imagery to visions with a broad worldview drawn from such disparate…
Ramón A. Olivares Explores the Mystery of Vectors at Agora Gallery
Digital artist Ramón A. Olivares uses line and pattern to explore the visual impact of rhythm, symmetry, and declarative contrast on his audience. Working from a mathematical base, Olivares begins with a black canvas and digitally draws a matrix of vivid curves and ghostly geometric figures. The result is at once traditional and completely new: familiar, organic paisleys and rosettes, but tinted in otherworldly neon. “From the beginning of my…
Julio Lugo Rivas’ Organic Visions at Agora Gallery
A harmonic sense of balance and motion rests at the heart of all the works of Puerto Rican artist Julio Lugo Rivas, as he seeks to express the stability between disease and wellness. Capturing the microscopic universe of cells and their environment in acrylic and mixed media on canvas, Lugo paints an ethereal and energetic vision, creating an organic abstraction in his mix of atmospheric brushstrokes,…
Nadine Y. Jeners: Matches Color to Words at Agora Gallery
German painter Nadine Y. Jeners creates bold compositions that simultaneously assert themselves — the words “made by me” often appear in their lower halves — and let viewers determine meaning. These visually arresting works evoke fusions of color field paintings and text-based conceptual art, the two-toned canvases divided horizontally with text in both sections. One is invariably tempted to draw meaning from the combinations of words like “luck” or “energy”…
Fin de Ciel: Fred Friedrich / a Solo Exhibition
Fred Friedrich displays in his work a characteristic bold, abstract style which immediately captures the attention, and which owes some of its tremendous power to the artist’s experience as an architect. His powerful paintings bear the traces of acrylic paints pooling and running off the canvas in thick streaks, the result of his controlled but emphatic movements as he works, and very thin, delicate lines that evoke illustration. By allowing…
Noriko Kinouchi: Eye-Catching Digital Artworks at Agora Gallery
Japanese artist Noriko Kinouchi has developed an innovative approach that transforms her original delicate representations of the natural world into something decidedly more powerful. Through digital print media, Kinouchi has found a way to create an entirely new visual representation, freeing her from the expressive limits of more traditional art forms. The computer enables her to create much bolder images than she could by using paint on canvas. As Kinouchi…
Nicholas Vitale: Nature Itself at Agora Gallery
Nicholas Vitale charts new ground where the like-minded Fauvists and psychedelic artists of the 1960s left off. Using gouache or oil paint, he paints still lifes and landscapes of the rugged natural regions of the western United States. The surface of each canvas is active with texture, while the images themselves exude energy through the artist's intense use of unadulterated complementary colors. If a faraway mountain range seems to have…
The Art of Ballet by Nataixa Ros at Agora Gallery
Franco-Spanish artist Nataixa Ros worked in Paris and Madrid fashion houses for years before moving to Barcelona and devoting her life to painting. The acute sensitivity of the designer to the shape and proportions of the female form continue to serve her well, particularly in a recent series of ballerina portraits. She eschews the unspecific and stylized imagery of fashion illustrations for an arresting aesthetic that, as she acknowledges, draws…
Experience Rhythm, Color and Movement in Sieglinde Wagner’s Art at Agora galle …
Sieglinde Wagner's mixed media work runs the gamut from full abstraction to figurative paintings. Her careful, focused attention to her subjects and themes is surpassed only by her fine-tuned sense of rhythm, color, and movement. Wagner's lines have a pulsing, vibrating quality. Her abstracts on daringly thin vertical canvases leap from the surface with jittery, frenetic, yet somehow graceful movement, charged with electric emotion. Even when her work is…
Rusiko Plaksina’s Brings a Piece of Georgian Culture to the New York Art Scene
Georgian artist Rusiko Plaksina combines abstract elements with image-based art both to highlight the beauty of art as its own entity and explore the progressive development of modernity as it continues to unfold. In fantastical images defined by a confluence of colors and a wide range of emotions, she brings balance and harmony to our modern consciousness by providing a visual counterpoint to the chaos that inevitably surrounds us. Profoundly…
Janice Sobel: Contours of the Mind at Agora Gallery
A pyrotechnic orientation and a keen interest in figuration forge the core of Janice Sobel’s thickly layered acrylic on canvas compositions. Her bold abstractions in scintillating jewel tones follow elemental themes – fire, water, earth and ether. Expanding and contracting across the foreground, her painterly gestures evoke the sweet rhythm of a lilting ballad or glacial spring. Sobel identifies painting as a ‘pure’ source of joy, enabling new ways of…
Painter and Art Restorer Sevega Adriano Featured in NYC Exhibition
Sevega Adriano’s colorful works in oil on canvas adopt abstract expressionistic principles to explore mark making as a form of evocative poetry. Through layers of fragmented gestures that recede and emerge to be seen at varying intervals, Adriano paints with an emotional immediacy which is instantly engaging and appears always on the edge of carrying the viewer to another world entirely. Elaborate swatches of color snake and spread across the…
Columbian Artist Eliza Gomez's Escapades into Dreams at Agora Gallery
Choosing subjects that are typically ordinary landscape or interior scenes, Elizabeth Gomez imbues her works with a palpable scene of ethereal romance. Vivaciously realistic in aesthetic, Gomez ennobles her subjects with a radiant exquisiteness that seems to sparkle from her canvases and find its way into our lives. Vivid, opulent oil paint is meticulously applied through careful, deft brushstrokes that are at once energizing and serenely tranquil. Almost dreamlike in…
Agora Gallery Artist Fausto Arrighi: Modern Renaissance Man
Fausto Arrighi’s mid-size acrylic on canvas paintings are influenced by his study of the Classics and the ornate Medieval architecture common to his region of origin. Concerned chiefly with color and form, Arrighi’s compositions feature crimson horizons, deep blue skies and scintillating grassy knolls. The artist’s figurative depiction of animals and religious iconography has a beguilingly dreamlike, illustrative quality. Being a painter, writer, songwriter, sculptor and musician, the multidisciplinary quality…
Italian Sculptor, Alessio Ranaldi Explores the Dynamics of Shape and Color at Ag …
Sculptures by Italian artist Alessio Ranaldi explore the dynamic cohesion of opposites through a staggering variety of forms. Pairing unlikely shapes and vivid, contrasting colors, he presents a type of ying and yang, offering audiences a meditative, thoughtful stillness. The sculptures almost beg to be touched, the solid forms appearing delicate and ethereal. Resin is completely solid, yet Ranaldi achieves an incredible fluidity with the material that seems incongruous and…
Russian Artist Dmitri Freund: Guided by Light
The dramatic, symbolic compositions of American painter Dmitri Freund are borne of a rich confluence of interests, experiences and traditions. His extensive musical training remains evident in the rhythmic silhouettes and patterns of his skylines and landscapes, with their melodic bursts of light. He cites the influence of Russian icon paintings on his work, though it also often evokes 19th century Symbolism and early-20th century American realism, and his palette…
Darlean Morris Translates Abstract Vision into Geometric Forms at Agora Gallery
NEW YORK, NY – Chelsea’s Agora Gallery will feature Canadian artist, Darlean Morris, in Beyond Borders: an Exhibition of Fine Art from Canada. The exhibition is scheduled to run from October 7, 2011 through October 28, 2011 (opening reception: Thursday, October 13, 2011).
About the Artist
Canadian painter Darlean Morris is a staunch advocate of abstraction, though her brightly-toned geometric forms, when applied to aluminum, often evoke landscapes and natural forms. Her…
View the Organic Surrealism in Wladimir Tasoff's Art at Agora Gallery
NEW YORK, NY – Chelsea’s Agora Gallery will feature Russian-born artist, Wladimir Tasoff, in Masters of the Imagination: The Latin American Fine Art Exhibition. The exhibition is scheduled to run from September 13, 2011 through October 4, 2011 (opening reception: Thursday, September 15, 2011).
About the Artist
Wladimir Tasoff’s massive oil and mixed media paintings offer a unique brand of organic surrealism charged with delicate intimations, traces and shadows. Overlapping, semi-translucent veils…
The 2011 Chelsea International Fine Art Competition Exhibition
For Immediate Release
August at Agora Gallery can only mean one thing – The Chelsea International Fine Art Competition Exhibition! Agora Gallery is proud to host this annual event, showcasing powerful contemporary works chosen by the competition’s juror. The 2011 Chelsea International Fine Art Competition Exhibition will take place between August 19, 2011 and September 9, 2011. The opening reception will be on August 25, 2011.
The 2011 Chelsea International Fine Art…
Younghee Hong Displays Harmony and Light at Agora Gallery
For Immediate Release
NEW YORK, NY – Chelsea’s Agora Gallery will feature Korean artist, Younghee Hong, in The Portal of Tranquility. The exhibition is scheduled to run from July 26, 2011 through August 16, 2011 (opening reception: Thursday, July 28, 2011).
About the Artist
In the shifting sunlight and dappled shadows of Younghee Hong’s paintings one finds a calming respite from the noise and confusion of modern life, a harmonious vision of illumination…
Colorful Motion of Life Displayed in Tsipi Shaish's Art at Agora Gallery
For Immediate Release
NEW YORK, NY – Chelsea’s Agora Gallery will feature Israeli artist, Tsipi Shaish, in Elements of Abstraction. The exhibition is scheduled to run from June 30, 2011 through July 21, 2011 (opening reception: Thursday, July 07, 2011).
About the Artist
Tsipi Shaish’s large-scale paintings are made through an intuitive process incorporating acrylic, pastel, charcoal, as well as the occasional adoption of emulsion or collage techniques. Wielding a bold artillery of…
The Art of Olivier D at Agora Gallery
For Immediate Release
NEW YORK, NY – Chelsea’s Agora Gallery will feature French-born artist, Olivier D, in The Substance of Abstraction. The exhibition is scheduled to run from June 4, 2011 through June 25, 2011 (opening reception: Thursday, June 9, 2011).
About the Artist
With a delicacy verging on photorealism, the marks made by painter Olivier D become whirling, dripping orbs, as strokes of paint in indigo, burnt umber, crimson and teal bounce…
New South Wales Artist Alison-Jane Rice at Agora Gallery, NYC
Chelsea’s Agora Gallery will feature Australian artist, Alison-Jane Rice, in Out from Down Under & Beyond: Fine Art from Australia and New Zealand. The exhibition is scheduled to run from May 12, 2011 through June 1, 2011 (opening reception: Thursday, May 12, 2011).
About the Artist
Alison-Jane Rice’s approach to drawing and painting involves a wide array of media, including watercolor, pastel, pencil, charcoal, oil and acrylic on canvas and handmade papers.…
Capturing Impressions in Michael Katz's Artwork at Agora Gallery
Chelsea’s Agora Gallery will feature an Miami artist, Michael Katz, in Altered States of Reality: an Exhibition of Analog and Digital Fine Art Photography. The exhibition is scheduled to run from April 19, 2011 through May 10, 2011 (opening reception: Thursday, April 21, 2011).
About the Artist
Stirringly lyrical in composition, photographer Michael Katz sensitively seeks to tease an inspirational truth from the monotony of everyday life. Katz’s photographs are like a…
Tension and Diversity in Valdemaro Grifoni's Artwork at Agora Gallery
For Immediate Release
NEW YORK, NY – Chelsea’s Agora Gallery will feature Florence native, Valdemaro Grifoni, in Altered States of Reality: an Exhibition of Analog and Digital Fine Art Photography. The exhibition is scheduled to run from April 19, 2011 through May 10, 2011 (opening reception: Thursday, April 21, 2011).
About the Artist
Valdemaro Grifoni’s work, which can include such diverse subjects as fragmented and undulating landscapes of metal hills, angular plastic bodies…
Christian Gipp's Surreal World Series at Agora Gallery
Chelsea’s Agora Gallery will feature a German artist, Christian Gipp, in Contemporary German Art: The New York Experience. The exhibition is scheduled to run from March 25, 2011 through April 15, 2011 (opening reception: Thursday, March 31, 2011).
About the Artist
Christian Gipp is a painter with an imagination as vigorous as his creative energy. His extraordinary compositions unfold before our eyes, with little or no regard for the confines of reality.…
Domingo Martin's Forms of Transcendence at Agora Gallery
Chelsea’s Agora Gallery will feature a Spanish artist, Domingo Martín, in Degrees of Abstraction. The exhibition is scheduled to run from March 25, 2011 through April 15, 2011 (opening reception: Thursday, March 31, 2011).
About the Artist
Roughly luxurious textures meet rich color in Spanish painter and sculptor Domingo Martín's work. Sumptuous biomorphic shapes are juxtaposed with rigorously strict lines, creating a harmony of form that is stunning in its grace. Formally…