Archives: Artists

Jana Lee was born in Seoul, Korea, and moved to Florida with her family when she was eleven years old. As the daughter of artist Charles Lee, she grew up watching her father paint nearly every day. From the age of seven, Jana was drawing and painting naturally, and there was never any doubt she would follow in her father’s footsteps to become an artist herself. Throughout her youth, she received numerous awards from her high school and various art competitions.

When it came time to consider university studies, her father encouraged her to study with him instead. Charles Lee had taught university art classes in Korea and owned an art school, bringing extensive teaching experience to their private lessons. Both father and daughter agreed that this personalized instruction advanced Jana’s career and skills beyond what traditional university classes could offer. She studied diverse art techniques including sketching, oil and acrylic painting, and experimented with texture. Her father always encouraged her to use her imagination and view art as a talent rather than a formula.

Today, Jana Lee is represented by Park West Gallery, where collectors appreciate her artistic vision and technical mastery developed through years of dedicated study and practice.

Heddy Kun was born Heddy Davidowitz in Elok, a small town near Zagreb, Yugoslavia. After her parents and one of her brothers perished at Auschwitz during the Holocaust, she and her brother Shalom were smuggled to Budapest in 1941, where they lived in the Jewish Ghetto. Eventually, she, her brother, and her grandparents moved to Peks, where she was able to recover from the war’s horrors. She graduated from the Budapest Academy of Fine Arts in 1956 and left for Israel, settling in Tel Aviv, where she married Zeev Kun. They have two children, one of whom is also a painter.

For the past 60 years, Heddy has been painting with strong, bright colors. Her work bridges naturalistic and impressionistic styles, focusing on changing light and the way the sun affects the painted object. Whether depicting mountainscapes, stormy seas, or a simple door, her effects are achieved through short and strong brush strokes. She has an extraordinary sense of color, evident in her still life work with flowers and her landscapes. She has had one-man shows in galleries throughout Israel—the Rosenfeld Gallery in Tel Aviv, the Feferberg Gallery in Jerusalem, and the Weizman Gallery in Beer Sheva—as well as in Europe, America, and Australia. In March 2010, she was granted a Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Association for Civil Rights. Heddy Kun is represented by Park West Gallery.

Mikulas Kravjansky was born in Czechoslovakia in 1928 and studied at the Prague Academy of Muse Arts, where he focused on art and scenography. His talents earned him recognition as an internationally acclaimed artist, and he served as chairman of the art department of Czechoslovakia’s State Television. During his time there, he created numerous designs for operas, ballets, and theatrical productions, bringing his artistic vision to the stage.

Kravjansky’s journey eventually led him from his homeland to California, then Florida, and finally to Canada, where he settled on the shores of Georgian Bay. There he established his own production company to publish his work, creating limited edition graphic works that showcase his distinctive artistic style. He is represented by Park West Gallery.

Today, Kravjansky continues to paint while also pursuing his passion for writing, authoring both poetry and cookbooks. His multifaceted creative talents reflect a lifetime dedicated to the arts, from his early days designing for the stage to his current work as a painter and writer in his Georgian Bay studio.

Mark Kanovich was born on May 1, 1970, in Tbilisi, Georgia, and now lives and works in Tel-Aviv. His fantastic realism focuses on dimension, movement and form, staging figures through unique and sharp perspectives and unusual techniques that fuse sculpture and painting. While clearly inspired by Chagall, Kanovich’s romantic images often invoke a poignant sense of longing as his subjects constantly seek love, beauty, warmth, humor and generosity.

Kanovich studied architecture at university before mandatory military service at age 18, where he designed information centers. After spending a few days in military jail over a misunderstood Lenin poster, he vowed never to draw anything political again. He immigrated to Israel in 1992 and studied art at the Avni institute in Tel-Aviv, working three jobs while painting at night in his tiny, cold studio apartment.

Today his studio resides in a former Kibbutz and British Military office, where he works alongside friends including Yaacov Agam, David Najar and Yuval Wolfson. He was particularly close to Itzchak Tarkay, who mentored him until Tarkay’s passing in 2012. Kanovich’s work, represented by Park West Gallery, has been exhibited at numerous venues including the History Museum in Tbilisi (1991), the Art Center in Rishon Le-Zion (1995), Ribak’s House Museum in Bat-Jam (2003), and the Bible Museum in Tel-Aviv (2005).

Michael Kachan was born in the Armenian countryside, where he excelled as an art student before graduating with honors from the Kiev Institute of Arts in 1985. Before immigrating to Israel in 1992, he was selected to represent the Ukrainian Painters League in a group exhibition that toured major cities throughout the former Soviet Union and abroad. During that period, he also created several monumental installations for various institutions.

A playful and festive atmosphere characterizes Kachan’s work, with vibrant, celebratory colors and subjects centered on musicians, lovers, and dreamers. His style suggests influences from twentieth-century master Marc Chagall and Bolivian naïve artist Rodo Graciela Boulanger. Working mostly in acrylic on canvas, he builds up surfaces with deep sculpted textures and overlays of pigments. He interprets his paintings into original serigraphs and hand-embellished serigraphs on canvas, achieving similar textural effects and luminosity of color through a combination of varnished inks and glazes.

His accomplishments include exhibitions at the Theresa Coshin Gallery in Paris in 1989, the Jewish Community Center in Rome in 1992, Binyanei Hauma in Jerusalem in 1992-93, group shows in Brighton, England in 1993 and Hamburg, Germany in 1994, the Avarim Art Gallery in Tel-Aviv, Israel in 1995, and Art Expo in New York in 1995. Kachan is represented by Park West Gallery.

Claude Goutin was born in 1930 in Nancy, France, where he began his artistic training at the Nancy School of Fine Arts. He continued his studies at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, working under the renowned Art Deco sculptor Alfred Janniot. In 1956, Goutin earned first place at the prestigious Grand Prize of Rome, marking a significant milestone in his career.

Whether stone cut or modeled, each of Goutin’s sculptures captivates viewers with its technical sensitivity, dynamic movement, and originality of subject matter. His work often features nudes and opera heroines, demonstrating his ability to capture both classical beauty and dramatic expression. Throughout his career, Goutin has received numerous public commissions, particularly within the city of Metz, where his sculptures have become part of the civic landscape.

Goutin’s work is represented by Park West Gallery, where collectors can appreciate his masterful approach to sculpture and his distinctive artistic vision that bridges traditional technique with imaginative subject matter.

Maya Green views her artistic talent as a gift and has made it her mission to share it with as many people as possible. Born in 1957 in Donetsk, Ukraine, she grew up surrounded by dull gray industrial architecture, which sparked her early fascination with color and light. Green studied at the School of Art in Ukraine and earned a degree in art studies from Donetsk Art College in 1978. She has traveled extensively and lived in Russia and the United States before settling in her current home.

In 1996, Green immigrated to Israel and made her home in Tiberias, a scenic city in northern Israel on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. The picturesque Galilee region, renowned for its landscapes and springtime blooms, provides endless inspiration for her work. She initially painted in a classical style but later transitioned to a more expressive approach using pure colors and a palette knife instead of brushes. Drawing inspiration from Henri Matisse and Vincent van Gogh, Green uses oil paint and an impasto technique to create textured landscapes and vibrant floral bouquets, emphasizing composition and the contrast between light and shadow. Her favorite color is ultramarine, which reminds her of sea and sky.

Green’s artwork, represented by Park West Gallery, has been exhibited internationally and is held in private collections worldwide. She maintains her studio in Tiberias, where her thick applications of oil paint can take up to seven months to dry completely.

Andrew Francis began his artistic career as an illustrator after completing formal art training. He quickly found himself captivated by a private world of beauty and fantasy that would define his distinctive style. The inspiration for his dreamlike compositions comes from his extensive travels throughout the Caribbean and South America, where he absorbed the vibrant colors and exotic landscapes that characterize his work.

His paintings soon gained recognition and were exhibited throughout America and Europe, establishing him as a significant talent in the art world. Francis is celebrated for the exquisite detail and balance evident in every piece he creates. This meticulous attention to craftsmanship has earned him a reputation as one of the most important artists working in his field today.

Andrew Francis is represented by Park West Gallery, where collectors can acquire his beautifully crafted works that transport viewers to tropical paradises filled with lush scenery and imaginative elements.

Dan Goad was born and raised in California and has made his home on St. Simon’s Island, a small island off the coast of Georgia, since 1981. A self-taught naturalist and artist, he has traveled extensively to capture wildlife in its natural habitat and express it through his art.

Goad lived on the lush tropical island of Bali, Indonesia for four years, an experience that inspired him to pursue outdoor paintings focused on flowers and wildlife. He believes the bird to be “nature’s most eloquent expression,” and it was his work with marsh birds that brought him acclaimed recognition and popularity. His focus on magnificent birds such as the osprey, pelican, heron, egret, and ibis keeps his work in demand throughout the world.

His achievements include being commissioned, alongside Jasper Johns and Andy Warhol, by President and Nancy Reagan to add to the White House art collection at the Smithsonian. Goad’s work is featured in many private and corporate collections worldwide and has appeared on the covers of national and international publications. He is represented by Park West Gallery.

Lyn Diefenbach grew up in Yeppoon, Queensland, Australia, surrounded by creativity in a family of artists and craftspeople. Her father was a wood turner, her mother a potter, and her siblings pursued crafts ranging from weaving to lead-lining. She first experimented with oils in primary school and sold her first painting at age 12. A local art society mentored the young artist, taking her on plein air painting excursions that ignited her passion for professional artistry.

While Diefenbach initially focused on landscapes, she soon returned to the portraiture and figurative work of her youth. Studying under Daniel E. Greene in America and embracing the philosophies of Richard Schmid, she developed the masterful techniques that define her photorealistic floral art today. She describes herself as a painter of reality who delights in creating the illusion of three dimensions on a flat surface, working from reference photos or on site.

Diefenbach’s exceptional skill with pastels and oils has earned prestigious recognition. She achieved membership in the International Guild of Realism in 2008, Master Circle status in the International Association of Pastel Societies in 2014, and Master Pastellist status with the Pastel Society of Australia. Her work has been featured in International Artist, Pastel Journal, and Australian Artist magazines, and she appeared on the television show Put Some Colour In Your Life in 2015. She is represented by Park West Gallery.