Erika b Hess is known for her distinctive use and interest in color. She creates abstract forms and movements with oil that represents figurative and symbolic viewpoints. The tiger depicted in Searching, 2020  takes us to another world with its bold color, surrounded by luscious greens and hazy violet sky. The large scale lends to the dreamlike quality and instantly engages the viewer’s imagination.

Hess’ bright and exuberant paintings interpret Greek mythologies with a modern, feminist perspective. While she finds inspiration in the natural world, the resulting paintings depict a more mysterious, lush, otherworldly place with flower-figures, imagined and real flora and fauna.

Daina Higgins paints in a photo-realist style that showcases the American landscape as told by every day scenes such as a parked car and the emptiness of parking at night. So often these forgotten parts of our everyday vernacular hold much of our identity. Ivy Ridge at Night, 2020 gives us a glimpse into the most mundane aspects of life with such careful attention to our own reality that stops us in our tracks.

Previously working out of a small studio in her Brooklyn apartment, she began her career making small paintings using a spray paint and stencil technique she dreamt up while looking at Georges Seurat’s drawings. Currently Higgins explores urban landscapes and is interested in sharing the history of the Philadelphia neighborhood where she resides.

Dion Johnson is an LA based abstract painter who focuses on color, line and shape. He deeply identifies with the Southern California landscape and is environmentally influenced. In this series, Johnson created an intense sense of movement with color veils that transition into a vivid glow that immediately confronts the viewer.

Intersect, 2019 is a study of movement, time and space. The softness and blending of bright colors come together for a quiet moment amidst the strong movement of sharp lines in this painting. Johnson depicts the intersection of landscape and architecture in this work.

In the summer of 2020 Jignesh Panchal created a series titled Summer 2019, inspired by his time in Italy the previous year. He spent two months in Northern Italy, drinking in the culture and collecting materials that he uses in this body of work. He collects hand-crafted papers during his travels as they are beautiful objects that reflect the style of the places. In his studio, he works off of these papers with collage, building up layers and off the flat surface while incorporating miniatures of icons representing the East and West.

Nikos Rutkowski’s body of work featured in End of Summer reflects his response to the Covid pandemic and the political and racial strife of this critical election year. The title of Comments Section refers to the combative rhetoric on social media, which is even more prominent during an election year.

Rutkowski uses sewing patterns as a guide and method for investigating the relationship between color and shape. His practice has always been about discovering and exploring layers of color. Works such as Missed Connections, Roll the Dice and Lost and Found  bounce back and forth from abstraction to representational. He connects to ideas and styles from early Modernism to Tribal art, creating his own bold language.