Artists are intrepid explorers of the Natural World, they allow the viewer to travel and explore new wildlife, habitats, and climates. Depictions of nature can also be about intellectual thought and spirituality. Art involving nature can be done simply to display the beauty of the natural world around us, to make scientific observations in an environment, or to open our minds to philosophical ideas about our own connection to nature and beyond. Each of these artists has a unique view and interpretation of the world around them.
Sally West's international journeys influenced her style, but the sailboats, brush, and other subjects of her paintings remain very close to home. Ethereal palettes are accented by brighter earthy colors for a bright day, or maybe the wash of fog on the ocean, haze of sun on the terra. Overall, West’s color palette is very uniquely her own and conveys the very specific feeling of comfort associated with vague familiarity.
Elizabeth Langreiter’s unique mixed media aerial paintings are a delightful escape from reality into a playful and joyful world. Her art often evokes the viewer to experience happy flashbacks to a favorite time or place through a sophisticated combination of pattern, color, and interesting textures. Driven by a passion to create and to spread a bit more joy in the world, Langreiter calls on her inner child to recreate happy memories of long carefree days growing up in beautiful sunny Australia swimming, sunbathing, and enjoying the outdoors with family and friends. Her most popular paintings are created with little 3d people who are hand sculpted on the canvas with many layers of fine, intrinsic detail.
Steven Nederveen's work focuses on the changeable relationship we have with nature. Loving and destroying in the same breath. The darkness of the human psyche underlies many of his overtly positive and uplifting nature scenes. Oceans and forests are idealized, radiating an inner light that burns. This heightened effect corresponds to our own yearning for more, wanting to be at one with nature, to control it, to be moved by it, to tame it.
Chris Wood studied furniture design at Middlesex University in London before switching her focus to glass at the Royal College of Art, where she worked on architectural scale projects dealing with light and space. Wood uses a range of high and low-tech optical materials to harness patterns of light that suggest ephemeral glimpses of moments in the natural world. Her sculptures are simple arrangements creating kinetic patterns in response to the environments in which they are placed.
Victoria Kovalenchikova is inspired by the connection between all humans, and in her series, “Earth,” she explores the planet as a work of art. Using Google Images to explore the Earth in its entirety, she plays with angles and textures. Kovalenchikova states, “Although we humans may feel like disconnected, independent fragments, Earth reminds us that we are all united on this place: notes within a larger symphony of life. No different from the massive whale in the ocean or the tiniest needle of a pine tree. There is no way out; to save ourselves we must save our home”
As a child, Jacob Burmood spent his free hours walking along a creek that had carved its way through a wooded area. All the forces that determine the path of the stream also govern the rocks, vegetation and creatures that surround it. Though their reactions to these forces differ, they remain related. Becoming part of these interwoven complexities gives him a sense of deep harmony and simplicity, and is the basis of his inspiration. The forms he creates are an abstraction of the fluid nature of the universe. The purpose of each work is to find an underlying order that converges elements into a unified whole that moves as one, like a school of fish or flock of birds.
Since the opening of Artplex Gallery in 2018, the gallery continues to be one of the world's leading art galleries specializing in high-quality, original contemporary art representing a broad spectrum of major international artists. Right at home in West Hollywood and within immediate proximity to its sister gallery Artspace Warehouse, Artplex Gallery is an expansive modern space that specializes in international urban, pop, graffiti, figurative, and abstract art catering to the visual impact.
