Archives: Artists

Janet Treby was born in 1955 and grew up in a small village in Bedfordshire, England, surrounded by wildlife that sparked her innate passion for nature and the ethereal. By age eleven, she knew with unwavering certainty that she wanted to become an artist. She pursued her calling at the West Surrey College of Art and the Slade College of Art, where she developed the foundation for her distinctive artistic voice.

Treby specializes in mezzotint, etching, and serigraphy, using these techniques to illustrate the human form with grace and tenderness. Her work is characterized by muted colors that create a dreamlike, peaceful quality, while her meticulous drawing skills and atmospheric sensibility have made her a favorite among collectors internationally for many years. She is represented by Park West Gallery.

Beyond her studio practice, Janet has enjoyed a distinguished teaching career at West Surrey College of Art and Design, and has lectured at the Ruskin School of Drawing in Oxford, Barnfield College in Luton, and on mezzotint at Southill Park College at Bracknell. Today, Treby resides in rural Cornwall with her family and pets, continuing to draw inspiration from the natural beauty that surrounds her.

Donna Summer was a celebrated singer, songwriter, and visual artist whose creative talents flourished across multiple artistic disciplines. Born LaDonna Adrian Gaines on December 31, 1948 in Boston, Massachusetts, she grew up in a conservative Christian home with six siblings, singing in church choirs and listening to Motown. After leaving school to pursue music, she toured with the band Crow, performed on Broadway, and eventually moved to Germany, where she toured with musicals and pop groups while becoming fluent in German.

Summer found her calling in the 1970s, releasing her first album “Lady of the Night” in 1974. Her breakthrough hit “Love to Love You, Baby” reached number two on Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1975, followed by gold albums “Love Trilogy” and “Four Seasons of Love.” Her remarkable achievements include five Grammy Awards, three consecutive double albums reaching number one on the U.S. Billboard chart, and four number one singles within thirteen months. Overall, she earned three Multi-Platinum albums, eleven Gold albums, twelve Gold singles, and seventeen Grammy nominations.

A self-trained painter for more than fifteen years, Summer created dramatic visual art radiating the same energy as her music. Her work incorporated European naïve and expressionistic elements, using vibrant colors to convey emotion and frequently drawing themes from her own songs. Summer is represented by Park West Gallery.

Nicole Suzanne Stahl creates art that celebrates the intricate beauty of living creation, hoping to inspire wonder and reverence for the natural world. Her artistic journey began in childhood with watercolor painting and pencil drawings, revealing an early gift for expressing her heart through her hands.

After earning her associate degree in applied arts and science in 1989, Stahl married and launched Fox Den Studio, a home-based graphic design business specializing in business logos. While successful, she felt something was missing until 1993, when a commission to paint a wall mural in a child’s playroom changed everything. Working on a large scale and creating textures with her hands and brushes brought her pure joy, and she knew she had found her passion.

For more than four years, Stahl painted exquisitely detailed wall murals in private residences, hospitals, city offices and shopping malls. In 1998, at her husband’s encouragement, she retired from murals to focus on her own canvas collection. Today, represented by Park West Gallery, she specializes exclusively in large-scale canvas work, often depicting ocean scenes and living creatures. She works surrounded by dripping brushes and paint cans, using her hands to move paint and create textures—a technique that brings her deep satisfaction and joy.

Hazel Soan was born in 1954 and studied Fine Art at Camberwell and Leicester, England, earning her degree in 1977 and the Holbrook Trust Prize in 1976. She launched straight into her artistic career, painting mainly in watercolor and oils but also in other media. Since 1993 she has run her own studio and gallery in Fulham, while also lecturing on her art, writing for numerous journals, and giving talks on the BBC.

Her vibrant lifestyle deeply influences her work. She lives part of the year on her own yacht in the Mediterranean and spends a month each year on safari in Africa. “I love the contrasts of light and shade,” she says. “The beauty of painting is that moment when I get carried away and paint without dictating the terms.” Her palette is rich in color, and her serigraphs are vivid and lush, incorporating a contemporary style and a highly developed sense of light that radiates throughout her compositions.

Soan has exhibited widely with more than 25 one woman shows to her credit and is the author of eleven books and sixteen DVDs of mostly watercolors. Her work is represented in private, corporate, and public collections including The National Portrait Gallery London, Trowbridge Museum & Art Gallery, Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, BBC, BP, British Lung Foundation, and the collection of HRH Prince of Wales. She became well known to UK television audiences through her painting series “Splash of Colour” and role as art expert on Channel 4’s “Watercolour Challenge.” Hazel Soan is represented by Park West Gallery.

Brazilian artist Otto de Souza Aguiar created richly colored works that beautifully paired the fertile, sultry atmosphere of the tropics with regal colonial elegance. After earning a Master’s degree from the University of Fine Arts in Rio de Janeiro, Aguiar blended his extensive formal training with his experience in fashion and theater to develop a unique signature style.

Aguiar artfully mastered the technique of trompe l’oeil, which translates to trick the eye in French. This technique creates images so naturalistic they appear to truly exist, almost as though captured in a photograph rather than a painting. The combination of his technical skill and artful use of color appealed to individuals and organizations around the world, and his paintings and murals have decorated residential homes, public buildings, and corporate offices for years.

Aguiar created numerous commissions for many prestigious organizations, including Graycliff Inn in Nassau, Bahamas, City Hall of Miami Beach, Florida, Fedora Restaurants in Kansas City, organizations in Washington, DC, Lee Memorial Health Park in Fort Myers, Florida, and Aquarius International in Boca Raton, Florida. His work is represented by Park West Gallery, where collectors continue to appreciate his masterful blending of tropical vibrancy and classical technique.

Calman Shemi was born in Argentina in 1939 and graduated from the School of Sculpture and Ceramics in Mendoza, where he studied with Italian-Argentine sculptor Libero Badii and German Israeli sculptor Rudi Lehman. In 1961, he settled in Israel and became a member of Kibbutz Carmia for twenty years.

Comparing his work to poetry, Shemi creates art that expresses basic human experience and explores the relationship between individuals and the natural environment. While living in Israel, he developed a distinctive medium called soft painting, using a thread-less 9,000 needle sewing machine to fuse vibrant fabrics together. The result is dynamic compositions that capture the color, light, and movement of the natural world, with motifs representing land, water, sky, vegetation, and sunlight. He has extended this expressive approach across multiple media, including sculpture, graphics, and paintings on paper and canvas.

Over the past eighteen years, Shemi has held more than 70 one-man shows in the United States, France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Japan, and Israel. His work is represented by Park West Gallery and can be found in public spaces and private collections worldwide.

Kenneth Shotwell was born in Pennsylvania in 1950 and graduated from the University of Pittsburg in 1972 with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. Before dedicating himself to art, he worked on space system designs for NASA that were used in the manned Skylab mission, in astronauts’ backpacks for the Apollo Lunar missions, and in land-based nuclear reactor internal components. In the early 1980s, he taught courses in architectural rendering, drawing, and solar energy fundamentals at the Rhode Island School of Design.

Shotwell’s quarter-century art career has produced over 2000 original paintings that engage viewers with dreamlike surreal images and elemental designs, showcasing his combined talents as artist and engineer. He developed “Luminart,” a style using exclusive paints, and holds a US patent for an innovative ultraviolet lighting system that allows his paintings to physically transform from brilliant day to luminous evening before viewers’ eyes. This innovation helped generate more than $17 million in retail sales in Japan.

His work has been internationally exhibited at Artexpo in New York, the Machef Show in Milan, Italy, the Japan Gallery in Nagoya, Japan, various events in London and Germany, and through Park West Gallery, which represents him today. The New York Times recognized him as the “leading seller of art prints” in the mid-1980s, and he is listed in “Who’s Who in American Art.” His published book “Mindscapes” won the Bronze Medal from Asian Print Awards in Shanghai, China.

Tina Smith paints the natural world she knows intimately. Her passion for capturing nature’s tones and forms was sparked during her time working with Betsy Whitney, wife of philanthropist and art collector Jock Whitney. From her desk on the second floor of the Whitney’s grand Manhattan townhouse, Smith observed magnificent bouquets delivered every other day from the family’s hothouses on their 500-acre Manhasset estate. She was first dazzled by the stunning array of orchids, flowering plants, and leafy boughs, then inspired to recreate them with her watercolor brush.

Smith refined those early efforts through intensive instruction from Xavier Barille, Shannon Kelly, and Bridget Loritz, artists whose teaching skills were shared by many successful contemporary artists. Her distinctive watercolor technique flows from her deep appreciation for transparency and layers. Surrounded by Whitney floral arrangements displayed on antique European tables, flowers and Tuscan villas have remained her focus ever since.

Her eclectic style features backgrounds depicting petals shyly hiding behind leaves with a naturalism born from her intimate contact with the armfuls of flowers that filled the Whitney home. Smith’s work, represented by Park West Gallery, has attracted nationwide attention. Her aspiration is to share nature’s beauty as she discovers it.

Jeffery M. Rivers has established himself as one of South Florida’s premier surrealist painters and a dynamic force in American contemporary art. His work captivates viewers with curious intrigue and the humorous presence of tropical sea life, rendered in a crisp, accurate style that offers a refreshing perspective on our world.

Rivers’ paintings can be found in important collections across the country and have been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout New York, Florida and beyond. He was twice selected for the prestigious Hortt invitational juried exhibit at the Museum of Art in Fort Lauderdale. The cruise line industry commissioned him to create a series of limited edition serigraphs, bringing his distinctive vision to an even wider audience.

As a native resident of Miami, Rivers draws deeply from his Caribbean surroundings. His images reflect the magic of the region, depicting the natural interaction between sea life and human experience. This tropical Caribbean influence is clearly evident in both his choice of subject matter and his distinctive compositions. Rivers is represented by Park West Gallery, where collectors continue to discover his unique blend of surrealism and coastal charm.

Helen Rundell is considered one of the world’s premier golf artists, known for recreating some of the most beautiful and memorable scenes in golf history. Her works have been featured in more than 300 galleries across the United States, Japan, and Australia, along with 22 American embassies, including Cairo, Helsinki, Paris, and Geneva.

About painting golf scenes, Helen remarks that her greatest desire is to capture the passion of the game and give viewers a glimpse into the past, holding it there for all eternity. She feels a deep emotional connection to her art and focuses intensely on details, reveling in their complexity.

Helen’s works have been acquired by prestigious institutions including the Smithsonian Institution, the Nelson Rockefeller Collection, the National Museum of American Art in Washington, D.C., and the National Military Academy at West Point. Her ability to blend technical precision with emotional depth has made her a sought-after artist among collectors who appreciate both the sport of golf and fine art. Helen Rundell is represented by Park West Gallery.