Suzanne, oil panel, 32 ⅝ x 42 ½,” a National Portrait Gallery finalist, 2009 Whether nature, still lifes, intimate interiors or portraits, John Randall Younger aims for the sense of reality rather than an exact, perfect replica. “I paint more illusion of reality,” says Younger, two-time finalist of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. “If you saw me paint you’d think ‘what’s he doing.’ I use palette knives and old cheap brushes. I scratch the canvas. I don’t fuss.” Younger is the son of eminent wild … Continue reading John Younger: The Illusion of Reality→
Freedom. Freedom to explore. Freedom to express one’s self. Freedom to communicate your conscience. Artist Robert Strini has been answering the call for over 40 years. “The biggest key in my life was when my father said to me, ‘I don’t care what you do or how much money you make, as long as you love what you do,’” says the son of a country Italian butcher who loved his trade. Strini’s father also took his young son to lectures on the power of positive thinking. His mother was a generous-hearted, hands-on homemaker. … Continue reading Freedom Works for Robert Strini→
Stephanie Gross was intrigued early by pictures and their stories. “I spent a lot of time as a kid looking at pictures,” she says. ”My mom was a docent at the National Gallery and she used to walk me through the West Wing. We’d look at paintings and she’d talk about their composition, how your eye moves around the frame, and about the stories they were telling. For me, it was like this giant picture book that we could walk through. I think a lot of that has stuck with me.” While first fascinated … Continue reading Telling the Story: Photos by Stephanie Gross→
The human figure—mothering, meditating, slinging a spear or dancing the salsa—step center stage in Lawrence Anthony’s inventive imagination. He depicts his original cast of characters in various guises and mediums—from stone, bronze, wood, to plastics, polychromed or natural. “My life’s work in drawing, painting and sculpture has drawn from the human figure as its main source and has dealt with the relationship between figures through the physical, spiritual, and emotional ties that bind us together,” says Anthony, a resident of Summerland, Florida. “Using the figure, I was always interested in the relationship between the … Continue reading In Our Various Guises: The Art of Lawrence Anthony→
Dimithry Victor, a self-taught 16-year-old artist from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, admits to having “many aspirations and goals, the most important ones to make people think and change the world through art.” No small ambition. “I know art can be used to express emotion, and get people to pay attention to a certain topic or even make them feel emotions. That is what I plan to do with my art.” Dimithry’s interest in art came by way of comics and cartoons. “When I was a kid I used to copy and learn from comic book … Continue reading Angel Wings & Other Aspirations: The Art of Dimithry Victor→
“I’m not a high summer, beach-going dweller,” says artist Annie Wildey, a native of Britain who grew up far from the sea. “But I love the beach on the quieter days, the days when people wouldn’t think of going to the beach – when it’s foggy, just before or after a storm or when it’s snowing, “I identify with the ocean when a storm is brewing or passing, when the surf is up, when flurries form, when the fog looms or is lifting, when the horizon is obscured or the sky begins to clear. There’s a … Continue reading Ebb and Flow: Paintings by Annie Wildey→
By Fax Ayres My mother gave me her old Nikkormat camera when I was 13 years old. She’d spotted my interest in books of photographs by Ansel Adams and Edward Weston and set me on an evolving path. I used the Nikkormat as a photographer and Editor-in-Chief of our weekly paper at the Taft School and again at Northwestern University’s newspaper. My Nikkormat was in hand during six years in Alaska, including three years in Gustavus at the mouth of Glacier Bay National Park where I basked in views of icy straits and was lucky … Continue reading Looking for the Light: Fax Ayres’s Photographs→
Geoffrey Stein, intrigued with “the seen and unseen,” employs paint and collage to reveal portraits of power and vulnerability. “I paint to find out what I think about the world; to discover the things I do not have words for. I savor the slips of the hand that express one’s unconscious feelings about the person being painted. I am interested in the conversation between abstraction and realism,” says New York artist Stein. “I do not want to make an academic copy of the model or a photo realistic illustration. My paintings explore the … Continue reading Geoffrey Stein: Revealing The Seen and Unseen→
Connecticut artist Suzanne Heilmann explores the color white with her art installations. “I think of babies being born, all new and pristine clean. Purity and innocence are represented in a conscious and simplistic way. White is cold too, and the whole death thing. I have to be very careful to give it balance so it won’t be a negative. Or sad.”
For photographer Andrew Shurtleff, the goal in covering sports and political events is “to report the story — whether winning or losing — through photographs. I look for moments that reveal what’s really going on.” Shurtleff, as director of photography for the Charlottesville Daily Progress, has photographed the competitors — UVA sports teams as well as visiting titans of politics — from President Barack Obama, to Justice Anthony Scalia, Republican contenders Paul Ryan, Ted Cruz, and front runner Donald … Continue reading Winning and Losing: Andrew Shurtleff Photographs→
Streetlight Magazine is the non-profit home for unpublished fiction, poetry, essays, and art that inspires. Submit your work today!
