My artistic vision is influenced by Yoga and Asian art that combines the present with the past in new ways. My images propel me into the spiritual depths and evoke feelings  of timelessness and community that I wish to convey to others so that they achieve an appreciation for both. In a sense the message is we are all united together through beauty and in beauty is spirituality that transcends all time. 

I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to travel extensively and have always been inspired by the mystical shores of Ireland, the moodiness of Maine, and the age-old architecture of Europe. These beautiful places have captured my imagination and inspire me to depict, through my artwork, the essence of these locations.

The ever-changing and magical qualities of light, the delicate hues of the sea, the remoteness of a windswept seashore, and faraway medieval villages and cloisters fascinate me. My palette is filled with the subtle blues, violets and greens of the ocean and its surrounding light. The air around us is always changing, and the transparency of watercolors and the texture of oils allow me to layer color and shapes to reflect the soft changes in the air. The elements and atmosphere which are expressed in my artwork are constant and timeless, offering a connection between the present and the past. It is my hope that my paintings will invite the viewer to be surrounded by ancient hills, to listen to the soothing sounds of the sea, to feel the mist of a rocky coastline, and to enter into a peaceful retreat - and be briefly transported to the places of my inspiration.

Born in Poland, Agnieszka Golasik is a visual artist, who works in variety of mediums. She characterizes herself as a conceptual artist interested in the abstraction of nature's formations. Agnieszka's monotypes, photos, and paintings reflect her deep admiration of nature, her quest for source of life, and her passion for uncovering the secrets of concealed macro and micro worlds. She studied fine arts with number of professional artists including Archie Rand, William T Williams, Patricia Cronin, David Lantow, Arnold Brooks, Georgeen Comerford, and been inspired by Georgia O'Keeffe's artistic vision, Pierre Bonnard's way of mastering color, and Karl Blossfeld's fascination with nature's ability to attain highest artistic forms. Agnieszka has exhibited at CAA & NYCAMS, BWAC Art Gallery, Junto Art Gallery among others.

Alice Jacoby
www.alicejacoby.com

After having defined myself as a writer for so many years, I am ready to devote myself to painting again. In resurrecting my painter self, I am connecting to the dance of life I see in nature.This picture, One Rose, is part of a series of mixed media paintings that arose out of this past summer on the Hudson. My immersion in nature stimulated all my senses.

In addition to studying the basics of painting and drawing at the School of Industrial Art, I've studied with James Rosenquist, Avron Soyer, and Melissa Wolf. Through James Rosenquist my painting, Bird of Prey was included in a group show at the Guggenheim Museum, Sackler Center.My work has also been exhibited at the Women's Studio Center, Crystal Quilt, Education Alliance, and the Pen and Brush Club.

The feeling of a figure still in movement and alive is the embodiment of my work. The most basic of colors; black and white symbolize the simple yet complex forms we as people can embody. Being spontaneous and calculated are both virtues we all can relate to and comprise how the actual art work is constructed; some strokes are calculated and designed to work with the space, others are what flows from my brain to my hand. These forms are my way of perceiving the world abstractly, with the extremities always there, but ever changing with each day; each stroke of the brush; each thought and breath till it no longer can exist.

The children in my images are beautiful and well dressed, and inhabit a storybook landscape somewhere between a Henry Darger fantasy and a Grimm\'s fairytale. They occupy the insular dream-state that we recognize as childhood, or a certain idea of what it means to be a child. Though one might initially view their outer beauty as a reflection of an untainted mind, their surroundings tell a different story. I intend these images to demonstrate the push and pull between children's mental and physical purity with the looming danger and corruption of the outside world.

I have created a series of montages, entitled Past Tense, by combining early Twentieth Century portraits with contemporary photographs.  Old photographs can inspire real or imagined recollections of the past. Each picture of a person may suggest a story, but I choose to reinvent another context for each senario by integrating the early pictures with modern images, revealing possible histories influencing their descendants.

Our memories accumulate until they blend reminiscenes with imagination. My own recollections from the past have influenced my creativity, but the viewers of my Past Tense series are free to blend their own rememberances with the illusions I have presented to them.

One of my favorite children books was Jonathan Livingston Seagull, an adventurous spiritual journey. To me, that;s painting! Painting offers me that journey, a chance to depart from the real world and let my imagination run free. To me, it feels like mediation in motion. It asks me to suspend judgment, encourages me to see what emerges, to listen to my gut instincts, and to find beauty in everyday moments. Prior to picking up a brush, I mediate in order to get in touch with my unconsciousness. Throughout the process, there is a silent dialogue between my unconsciousness and consciousness which directs my artistic decisions. It challenges me to see in a new way. I am fascinated with the movement and flow of light whether it’s natural or artificial. In my paintings, I use different light angles. This challenges me to make the lighting work and flow easily.
Once this happens, the painting takes on its own life.

Rooted in simplicity that has evolved from renewal and rebirth, my sculpture varies from the realistic to the abstract. Some pieces have a dream-like ethereal quality; others are expressively life-like. My greatest influences are the forces of nature and my travels.

I make art because I must. My work is an intimate interaction between memory and desire, time and movement. The pieces have a narrative quality, and come from visual investigations collected in my handmade journals. They are a record of remembering, as well as an illustration of the process of visually retrieving events or images. These visual obsessions haunt me as I illustrate not only my life and experiences, but my dreams.

These paintings “Abandoned Urban Landscapes” are based on the times I’ve encountered vacant places in an otherwise overpopulated city. The solitude enabled me to quiet my mind truly taking in the beauty of my surroundings. All of the paintings in this series are excerpts from my life where I have felt connected to my environment in such a way that I was compelled to recreate it.

The portraits are of myself, but I am trying to look at my body from the distance, as if I was a stranger. That is why the images are not entitled "self portrait". I am trying to be honest and look at myself objectively,without artistic hubris, with a clear mind. I have reached mid-life, and that\'s how I feel at this point in my journey. I am just like everybody else, with faults, sparkles, sins and virtues.

My paintings often tell a bizarre story. I like that art can make our inmost imaginings visible to others. My work erases the line between humans and other creatures.  Using Photoshop, I start with a blank screen and with computer paint tools generate images which I later manually translate into oil on canvas; the photoshop effects push me to invent new painting techniques.