Artists
Holly Jean Studios
Holly Jean Studios is a collaboration between two lovers making objects for the home. Together, they create pedestals for daily life, shrines to highlight artwork, plants, or objects- a tribute to everyday magic in the form of colors and patterns, made from American hardwoods in the Lehigh Valley, PA.
Follow Holly Jean Studios on IG @hollyjeanstudios
Al Johnson
“I have faith that my work will resonate with a viewer because what is apparent is the composition. The composition reveals a balance of forms and shapes. While it's my color choices that may also get attention or what I call "the cosmic splatter" and the indications of tribal matter appear abstract. Yet, I am pulling all this together while creating. I use my own intuition to drive me on through this method which allows the mediums and media in development from one layer to the other. Every piece of art has a story. My work is built and based on a series from no particular train of thought but a feeling from a dialog or inner messaging. Meaning my thoughts and what my heart speaks or two different codes. Each painting is measured in a process that is made a day at a time and not done overnight. I hope what is felt from those who are affected by its embodiment get a connection with the art and discover their own interpretation from owning my artwork. My connection with my Creator works the magic in and through me. I am merely a vessel with the stories that these paintings unfold."
Follow Al Johnson on IG @aljohnsonart
Michelle Neifert
“I feel it is important as a visual artist to convey that which cannot be fully expressed in words, that which is sacred to the self. Painting for me is a spiritual conversation with the canvas. The majority of my work in the last few years has been the result of an interest in color, with an eye to vibrancy and movement. I am more interested in the cataloging of my daily emotions and ideas via conversation with the blank canvas, than producing a preconceived result. In the creative process I feel it's important to value what's in front of you - to pay attention, immerse yourself and respond....and for me, it's all about color. My passion is using color, texture and light to convey emotion. The goal of my work is to portray my inner self, emotion, and soul. I create to communicate a feeling that the viewer can "live in" for a while.”
Follow Neifert on IG @zipnstein
Abigail Synnestvedt
(b. 1989, Kempton, Pennsylvania)
Synnestvedt entered Northern Vermont University’s Low Residency MFA program in the summer of 2020. She received a BFA and Certificate in painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia PA in 2015. Synnestvedt’s work was included in OHO Projects Guston Response Takeover at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts on August 20th, 2022. In 2019 she was part of the two-person exhibition In Plain Sight at Lauren Kindle Studios in Easton, PA. Her work was included in the Wet Paint Exhibition, at the Workhouse Arts Center in Virginia juried by Harry Cooper in 2017. In July of 2022, she attended the Vermont Studio Center Residency. Synnestvedt is a two-time winner of the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant.
“How are we meant to carry on living while we are simultaneously dying? When making the work included in this exhibition that question had not formed into words but the pieces of it were floating in my mind. These recent paintings are as much about life as they are about death. When I am looking at the world, trying to make some sort of artwork from it I am thinking about the cycle of life. I am mesmerized by the moment and the power of being present with the things I see. Intense looking brings thoughts about how quickly life could end, and how piercingly beautiful, sad, fragile, and funny it all can be in the same breath. I think about how any sense of control we have is false and could be disrupted at any moment.
How could a simple still life painting of fruit, everyday objects, decaying flowers, interiors, casts, or portraits impart the feeling of being alive? Maybe it is presumptuous to declare that as the experience I hope to transmit to the viewer on a two-d surface smeared with colored oily pastes, but it is my intention. The painted moments that were happened upon or set up act as conduits to the pursuit of close looking which in itself is a doorway to presence. Perhaps the drive to make artwork is tied up in trying to make impermanent things feel permanent. It gives me a false sense of control to create artworks from seemingly static objects in a fleeting life. The irony is that I am not looking to make something static but to create a timeless portal to the place of my experience.”
Follow Synnestvedt on IG @abigail_synnestvedt
Steve Wilt
Wilt initially made a name for himself as a masked wrestler in the Calgary and mid-Atlantic circuits when he was but a small child. As a self-taught artist, he regularly made local show posters, now making them on occasion. These days, he pokes piles of clay. He enjoys faces, usually of the animal variety. He has been in the air at WMUH Allentown, 91.7fm for 25 years. Catch his show, Radiowave Distortion, on Saturdays from
8pm-11pm.
Follow Wilt on IG @bonbonsparakeetfarm
