Bob Byerley

http://www.byerleyart.com/

Michael Parkes

Michael Parkes occupies a unique niche in the fine art world. Highly respected by artists as a fine technician, and well-loved by collectors for his beautifully portrayed imaginative subjects, Parkes is an artist with an impeccable reputation

To view the work of this acclaimed painter, sculptor and stone lithographer is to enter a meditative state, not of torpor but of heightened appreciation – a state of unmistakable marvel. Although Parkes scenes play out in a fantastic universe where the laws of ordinary space and time are transcended, meticulous care is given to depicting the inhabitants, whether angels, dwarves or heraldic beasts. Even the monsters are beautiful and have dreams and disappointments of their own.

Michael Parkes was born in Missouri in 1944. He studied art at the University of Kansas at Lawrence and upon graduation was hired as a lecturer in graphic arts. His early work was primarily in the Abstract Expressionist style. Parkes taught for four years at Kent State in Ohio and the University of Florida

In 1970 he set off with his new wife, Maria, and $800 in savings. They traveled widely in Europe, then flew to India, Nepal and Pakistan. This was no sightseeing trip – the artist was educating himself in the philosophy, mythology and mystical imagery of many cultures, developing a foundation for what would later become the vocabulary of his magical style

This style has sometimes been characterized as Magic Realism, wherein a sharply etched realism of depiction combines with fantastic, dream-like subject matter. Many of Michael Parkes' works were created as original stone lithographs, a uniquely appropriate medium to set forth his ephemeral dream worlds. In this demanding medium, successive layers of the original image are drawn directly on a 100-year-old Bavarian limestone lithography slab, than printed to paper on a vintage 1906 Heidelberg press. The original is created as the printing process progresses. Uncontrollable elements, errors and ghosts are constantly arising with their own suggestions of directions the artist has never imagined before but must incorporate

Due to the retirement of Michael's long-time lithographers, he will no longer be creating stone lithographs. The few remaining works are going quickly. Browse the complete selection here.

Parkes Up ate: New Giclee Editions on Vellum! Michael has long used vellum for drawings and sketches, now he has partnered with a fine art printer to create limited editions on this lovely, translucent art paper

Dusk

Winds of Change

Winds of Change

See No Evil -Bronze

Carrie Graber

http://www.scalaeditions.com/carriehome.html

Jia Lu 1954 - China

Jia Lu

Jia Lu is an artist who feels strongly that beauty is the final measure of all things. True beauty, born of self-knowledge and self-understanding, burns in her art like a beacon. The paintings of Jia Lu seem filled with a spiritual light that announces the undeniable presence of the divine

Born in China in 1954, Jia Lu (rhymes with ya-hoo) grew up in a family of artists. Acting, poetry and art classes filled her early years and fired her restless imagination. Soon, however, the Great Cultural Revolution swept down upon Beijing with destructive violence. Many of her family members and art teachers were targeted for persecution

Jia Lu was forced to adapt to the radically changing conditions in China in order to survive. She turned her hand to many different pursuits, working as a nurse (gaining invaluable first-hand knowledge of human anatomy), a film and television actor, a naval officer, an art editor for a magazine and a professional basketball trainee. Luckily she was a couple of inches shy of making the national team, so she chose the direction of her heart and enrolled in the Central Academy of Art and Design

In 1983, already an accomplished figure painter, Jia Lu left for Canada. Plunged into a foreign culture without a word of English, Jia utilized her impressive intelligence and adaptability to find friends and collectors, learn the language and continue her education. She found work in the visual arts department at York University. Her realistic painting style made her an outsider at this bastion of contemporary art, but she never abandoned her dream-like imagery and polished style. When a rare opportunity arose to travel to Japan to work on a huge project in Tokyo reproducing ancient Buddhist cave murals, Jia seized this chance to explore her cultural roots

Then, in the summer of 1995, she and her future husband Geoffrey spent two months in the museums of Paris and London, immersed in the great works of sculpture, architecture and painting. She returned home to Canada deeply inspired, determined to capture the magnificence and universality of the human figure

Jia Lu delights in beauty wherever she finds it. Her sense of confidence and hope is contagious, both in her personality and in her art. Sharing her love of the beautiful, Jia sends her paintings out into the world to remind us that there is, in essence, no separation between the human and the divine