YASMINE PEKONEN
I came to Elsewhere from Helsinki, Finland where I work as an artist and illustrator. During my stay at Elsewhere, I'll be writing and illustrating small stories about small creatures. Needless to say, I consider myself lucky to be doing so here, in the small town of Paonia.
With my stories I want to tell all those who feel small that they are wonderful! Our society can sometimes favor the big, strong and confident ones. That’s why I’d like to show the world all the beauty that the small and timid creatures are hiding: their delicacy, their authenticity, their child-mindedness and their consideration for others.
You can see more of my work on my website: yasminepekonen.wordpress.com.
Roya Amigh
My work is grounded in a collage of pieces that are collected from very different tales and
legends depicted in Persian miniature. I am experimenting with tracing paper, pieces of
fabric, and thread, and have recently started to incorporate wood in my installations. I start
by recreating pieces of miniature with gluing thread on paper. Then, I collages the pieces
adapted from various miniature works into one large picture. Then, layers of paper, threads,
and pieces of fabric; they collectively give rise to their own story – my story.
I am intrigued by the thought of using the same basic principle of joining stories to form a
new work that resembles the set of a play. I am uniting/connecting different stories to
create a new installation, which also borrows some visual and conceptual elements from the
theater stage.
Tama Capellini
One of my favorite lands of enchantment is being immersed in mountains of wool! I am a wool gatherer, felter & maker in the realm of reusing~revamping~releasing.
I found feltmaking over 20 years ago when I lived in New Mexico and came home from the state fair with a pet sheep named Babette. I spun, wove and then found felting! Through my creative waxing and waning, I never really did let go of the process for too long. I went to Asheville NC last year on a whim and stayed 10 months. During that time I re_discovered my passion for fiber arts and believe that was my purpose for going there. I had been a traditional felt maker before I arrived in Asheville. Through a variety of encounters, I became intrigued by incorporating salvaged textiles into my work and that sent me on a path & style that I couldn’t have planned or anticipated. Don’t ya love serendipity? I am now back at making wearable art full steam since June of 2013. I intend on making my living through creative culture & commerce by primarily vending at shows and festivals. I live in Tucson most of the time, but I would say I am loosely fastened geographically:) I lived in Paonia for 5 years and am very happy to return for a while as a Resident Artist. I look forward to having this time for more creative conjuring & cooking in a supportive community of other artists!
Jude Harzer
Jude is a New Jersey based artist whose figurative paintings are inspired by childhood, memories and the power of thought to define lives and overcome circumstances. Using oil paint as her preferred medium, she creates psychologically provocative visual narratives featuring adolescents as observers and guardians of inter generational mythologies. Jude received her Bachelors degree in 1987 from Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley , MA . and completed her Masters of Fine Art in Painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2013. The artist has participated in solo and group exhibitions that include venues such as The Misciagna Family Center Gallery, Penn State , The George Segal Gallery, NJ, Pen and Brush, Salamagundi Art Center , ACA Gallery and Prince Street Gallery, NYC. Jude’s paintings belong to both national and international private collections.
Alex Oslance
My work characterizes male aggression through cutting and humorous critiques of arrogant and brash behavior. I depict iconic elements of contemporary stud culture that represent and exaggerate masculinity. My large scale sculptures depict transformative states, cataclysmic eruptions of form crystallizing a shattering of components. I create monuments based on events or individuals I have known personally, to ridicule their desires to dominate and conquest while simultaneously implicating myself in this behavior through stunning and confident feats of sculptural physicality.
The work I have done at Elsewhere evolves around joining two conflicting themes; sculptures that depict climactic moments of aggressive action that embody power and virility while simultaneously in states of rot and decay. This pairing expresses the naturally destructive force of human history. Natural phenomenon and bodily forms integrate into my narratives and lend formally energized characteristics and sensuality.
Nathalie Collins
Nathalie is an artist currently living and working in Brooklyn. Originally from Anchorage, Alaska she has a MFA from Pratt Institute, 2009 and a BFA from The school of the Art Institute of Chicago 2007. Her work is a play between chance, intuition, and compulsion. Through the act of mark making using drawn, painted, digging/ ripping paper Collins creates a world in which the viewer gets lost trying to make sense out of it but never allowing the viewer to fully grasp what is happening.
Ava P. Christl
Ava P. Christl grew up in northern British Columbia and lived most of her adult life in Canada’s far north. Her love of the north and the northern land has shaped, inspired and informed her perspectives and art practice. Ava’s work has been shown across northern and western Canada and is held in public and private collections nationwide.
Ava makes large scale oil paintings using colour, texture and form to evoke a sense of place. She uses square canvases to symbolize balance, integrity and equality. Her work addresses issues and ideas about the land; about nature and place, about wilderness, about nature as healer, about the historical and social value of land, and about our human relationship to the living land.
http://avapchristl.com
Daniel Fonken
Daniel Fonken came, with camera in hand, from Fort Collins/Denver to Elsewhere Studios with plans to discover the agricultural bounty & cultural energy of the region. “Photography is often the foundation of my work yet, I enjoy creating work that exists in more than one form; be it an animation derived from a series of photographs, or an interactive web piece that is also a video. My work has explored such issues as cultural definition, society in transition, human behavior, sexuality, discrimination, loneliness, perception and design from nature.” For Paonia, Daniel’s work will tell a story using photographs of a variety of local fresh food products mixed (in Photoshop) with images of technology. The main topic is the impact of digital devices on our lives investigated via peaches, goat cheese & beets. Daniel Fonken loves mixing mediums (photography, video, sound) and degrees (BA Theater - Whitman, BA Studio Art/Film - Evergreen, MFA Video - School of the Art Institute of Chicago). The Colorado native’s career highlights include: Audio Visual (Denver Art Museum), Adjunct Instructor (Front Range Community College), Artist-in-Residence (Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Kala Art Institute, Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts), and Juried Exhibitor (Rocky Mountain Biennial, SFMoMA Artist Gallery, Center for Fine Art Photography), and Video Screenings at film festivals around the planet.
www.danielfonken.com
Henrik Haaland
In what was supposed to be a short "three month working vacation", my current Paonia stay in Colorado makes this state visit continuing on to a third year. This type of "extended visit" Colorado story usually involves mention of someone having a craving for skiing or something involving mountain or river thrills or an unexpected on the scene romantic pairing. I am an isolated and small variance off of this well trod story - woodblocks and oil paints substituted for climbing/rafting/skiing gear. However, I am also outdoors and Colorado happy. On winter days I drive out to a site of interest, park, fix a panel with a clamp to the steering wheel -my easel, tape a preliminary sketch to my turned down sun visor, my paints and palette in the passenger seat, brushes held in the air vents, coffee thermos in designated car cup holder . . . I'm set to begin work. My nature-inspired work aims are always changing in accord of my abilities. "Music" has become the current guiding - time post - password. The Elsewhere Studios and personnel have been a supportive stop on this journey.
Heidl Hasenauer
Heidl Hasenauer is a trained 3D artist, although she seeks freedom from the constraints of her teachings. She draws strength from the journey. With the use of mixed media, she feels out her composition by way of catharsis. It is difficult to say what will spawn from the cluttered mind of this Maryland born artist, but whatever it is be assured that each work, aside from correlating styles, will be different from any other in her portfolio erstwhile and henceforth!
Katy Huckson
A Canadian, from Sault Ste. Marie Ontario. I received an BFA with honours from Algoma University in 2013. I've lived in my hometown my entire life, and want to explore new places as I develop new processes in film and mixed media / intermedia work. Much of my art making experience centred around painting, drawing, collage and assemblage, and I have slowly begun adding new forms of media, photo transfer/manipulation, and digital film into my vocabulary where it is conceptually relevant. My work is often derived from very personal experiences or thoughts, however I really aim to make the work accessible and open-ended. Infact, more than anything I'm interested in what viewers interpret from the narratives I loosely assemble.
At Elsewhere, and for the next while, I hope to explore the idea of home, place and context. I hope to capture what it means to call Paonia home, what parallels and differences I encounter. A progressive understanding of home and the journey.
Sibylle Irma
Artist Sibylle Irma was born in Lucerne, Switzerland. Her interest in fine art developed quickly while studying for one year in Art and Design at the University of the Arts in Camberwell, London. She has a B.A. in Art and Art Education from Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland. In her work, Sibylle Irma uses variety of mediums, such as drawing, photography, sculpture, Installation and words. Collaborating with other artists is essential part of her life as an artist, as it pushes her and connects her to the life outside her art studio. Thus she has been working with a writer, filmmaker, painter and composer etc.
Zohurul Islam is a painter from Dhaka, Bangladesh. He holds a BFA and an MFA in Fine Arts from the University of Dhaka. He describes himself as a "devotee of the arts who has chosen the heritage and culture of his country as his subject". Mr Islam looks forward to sharing through his art the "spiritual magnificence hidden in his country". He has shown his art internationally and is excited about his first visit to the US.
Anita Lee
I did my first oil painting at 9 and have been making art most of my life. I have a B.A. in Communication Design from the U.of Illinois. I taught art for 5 years at highschools in Jamaica.
I have exhibited in various countries in both solo and group shows. Over the years I have worked in different mediums, mixed media, fiber, jewelry, sculpture, pastels, oils, and acrylics. Here at Elsewhere I will be working a series of small paintings I have done into larger pieces in preparation for a show in Sacramento CA. Hopefully I will have some time left to do some paintings of the local landscape. I invite people to visit my website:anitaleeartist.wordpress.com
Michael McLaughlin
Michael escaped the US in 2005 and lives in Mexico. He is an eclectic writer and has just finished and published a book available on Amazon---Inhaling Sunbeams. He has also finished a movie script and working on his second book here at Elswhere. For over twenty years he founded and ran a small improvisational comedy theater in Sacramento California. He doesn't look it, but he is funny.
Gabriel Roberts
Gabriel Roberts was raised in Sacramento, CA. He studied ceramics at UC Davis and learned to paint at the Chautauqua School of Art.
“I aim to bring my full attention to the scene I've chosen and feel my way through the painting—the shapes and their specific colors and how they fit into the picture I'm making. I find that peace and calm are easy to lose track of, especially in the face of complexity; these small pictures give me the opportunity to reach a state of completion in a single morning, and perhaps share the experience of finding peace through steady work and feeling fully what is.”
Natalie Tottenham
Natalie Tottenham was born in 1988 and grew up in pastoral Oxford, Connecticut. In 2010 she received her Bachelor's of Art at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts of the Berkshires. She has studied painting abroad at The Marchutz School of Art in Provence, France and was the recipient of the MCLA Venice Fellowship Award to the Venice Biennale. In Winter 2011, she was an artist in residence at Vermont Studio Center. Natalie has had a lively involvement in the art communities she has lived in, having exhibited and assisted with the curation and installation of local shows with non-profit organizations.
At the end of her month long residency, Natalie exhibited 'I like to keep the windows open' , a series of new oil paintings at the Blue Sage Center for the Arts. “A recent transplant to the San Francisco Bay from upstate New York, Tottenham's series of self portraits are snapshots of life as a housecleaner in the city while pursuing art. Themes of detachment from nature, isolation, and consumerism arise as monotonous chores are juxtaposed with imaginative daydreams or fantastical objects; showcasing the creative alongside the laborer within contemporary sterile environments.”
Natalie now lives and works in Oakland, California
Additional information about Natalie Tottenham and her work can be found atnatalietottenham.wordpress.com.
Reiko Yamada
Composer and sound artist Reiko Yamada was born in Hiroshima, Japan. She holds a D.Mus in composition from McGill University. Her compositions include chamber, orchestral and electroacoustic music to sound art installations. During three-month residency at the Elsewhere studios, Reiko and her collaborator Sibylle Irma will concentrate on artistic research projects inspired by the local culture and environment, which will lead to an interactive and multimedia sound-art installation.
www.reikoyamada.com