Beyond The Trail

NEW JERSEY (Passaic County)

 Jesse Clemente

Jesse Clemente is a 33-year-old abstract/neo expressionist from the tri-state area of New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania while currently being based out of Passaic County, NJ. As a child and a young teenager growing up in North Jersey, Clemente discovered graffiti and the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat at the age of 13 and started doing his own graffiti by the age of 14. When his mother moved him to Milford, PA at the age of 15, he continued to draw in his sketchbooks and, moving to Scranton on and off from the ages of 19 to 24 gave him the opportunity to practice his craft from the streets to the Greenridge train yards.

 He was living with a friend in Port Jervis, NY during the summer of 2013 when a person noticed his artistic talents within his drawings and random paintings on cardboard and slate rock and suggested he turn to painting on canvas instead of worrying about getting in trouble with the law with his illegal works. Clemente soon after took that idea in great stride considering he had failed art classes in elementary to high school and never went to an art college despite having a major interest in it.

Within the next two years, he started exhibiting in the Port Jervis-Milford area and making a big splash in an area known for its oil landscapes and calm settings (which Clemente’s paintings are far from). Into present day, Clemente has exhibited from Soho/Lower East Side in NYC to Stroudsburg and the Scranton, PA area to Sussex County, NJ with a mural he completed in winter 2014. His work is now in private collections ranging from San Francisco, California to Chicago, Illinois; all up and down the East Coast (including Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont); and one or two in London, England as well. 

He lists Harmony Korine, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Franz Kline, Jack Kerouac, Jim Carroll, Matthew Wong, Jim Morrison, and Jackson Pollock as his main artistic influences and, when asked about what his art means, he simply responds, “All you have to do is look at it and you’ll get it. Art isn’t about fully grasping the visual image but the emotional passion and connection behind it.”

Contact Jesse:

Email: jesseclemente27@gmail.com

PENNSYLVANIA (Lehigh County)

Jean Maslany

Modern abstract artist, Jean Maslany, is a self-taught Lehigh Valley expressionist. Her artwork has been featured at The Alternative Gallery, Schomburg Center in New York City, and Gallery 415. Jean also showcases her work to the elderly at Whitehall Manor.

Jean’s career began when she found herself living in an empty nest. After raising three children, her home and heart felt an overabundance of sadness. In an attempt to patch her spirit, Jean picked up a paint brush and let her own emotions wander the canvas.

At an early age, Jean was introduced to painting by her mother. An extraordinary artist, Jean’s mother quickly became her mentor and is often credited with being her inspiration. Unsurprisingly, painting became natural to Jean later in life and a therapy for previous childhood trauma.

Jean’s artwork is characterized by bright colors to add visual sensations. Her compositions illustrate the independence and freedom of each brush stroke. Her work regularly includes energizing textures, engaging shapes, and sharp & rhythmic lines. Her canvas size tends to range from sizable to compact.

Jean resides in Catasauqua, PA with her husband Joe and their dog, Joey.

Contact Jean:

Email: jeanmaslany@gmail.com

TEXAS (Plano)

Kristen Penrod

“Mixed Media Funhouse” is the art studio of Kristen Penrod. Her escape is not one of travel, but a journey of the mind. She creates one-of-a-kind assemblages that can be described as somewhere between whimsical and peculiar. Her followers describe her works as “sheer artistic brilliance,” “magical with merriment,” and “upfront with style and deep meaning.”

Kristen’s favorite medium is her imagination. She practices stretching her imagination by selecting random vintage objects that evolve into body parts, enclosures, and amusing characters with deeply meaningful backstories. These assemblage creations are a mix of a fictional characters and non-fictional stories that connect with the viewer.

“The Revolver” is a whimsical Mary Poppins-type figure with wings and revolving doors on each side of her dress. Her story is about the various people that come and go in life. She decides who comes, who goes, and when.

“The Vicious Cycle” is a mischievous juggling puppet riding a bike. He himself is the vicious cycle in our lives that can be repeated with or without our permission. He asks the observer to ponder the importance of stopping the negative cycle.

In a more whimsical scene, “Sailing on a Starry Night,” Vincent van Gogh sails a magical boat with stars shooting up all around him.

Humor is a key element in “Life is Like Riding a Bicycle,” which has Einstein wearing a physics suit sitting on a penny farthing. Next to Einstein, Sigmund Freud is kicking back in his vintage recliner surrounded by brains, meds, and a vintage “jiffy” notepad.

Kristen believes that creating these assemblage characters may have something to do with her past. She portrayed various characters while touring with “Walt Disney’s Magic Kingdom on Ice” immediately following high school. She traveled the globe for years, including several Asian and US tours. When she donned different costumes, something magical happened. She would transform into other personalities, which would take over. She was delighted when the audience erupted in laughter.

Upon entering the funhouse today, Kristen turns on her music, dons her goggles, and her imagination ignites! She swings into action, deconstructing toys (after she plays with them of course!). Then she decapitates dolls, adds vintage objects, restructures, rearranges, adds texture, and finally paints them all to look like one “being” from a faraway land. When you look at Kristen’s art, you are immediately invited to escape, wonder, be surprised, or laugh… so submit your ADMIT ONE ticket and enjoy the ride!

Contact Kristen:

Email: kristenpenrodart@gmail.com

BULGARIA

Nikoley Armeykov

My name is Nikolay Armeykov. I’m 37 and was born in a small town in Bulgaria, Europe. I work in the field of sculpture, and I like to mix different techniques. I constantly try to develop my style and discover new ways of self-expression. My favorite materials are white clay and wood; I also use glass and metal. I like to experiment with different techniques, many of which I have invented myself.

Art has always been a part of my life. My teacher, mentor, and the person who has had the most impact on my professional development is my father, who works in ceramics. From an early age, I spent a lot of time in his studio as an apprentice, helping him with his work. He taught me many things and always gave me the freedom to create without following the generally-accepted rules and norms. My education is not related to art, I graduated in marketing and worked for several years as a graphic designer in a small advertising agency. My dream was to have my own studio in which to create and do what I love. One day this dream of mine came true; I quit my job and started creating. My studio was originally at home; over time I made my own studio on the outskirts of the city, where for more than 7 years I have devoted myself completely to creative work.

The freedom I have is irreplaceable. This is evident in my works, which embody creative freedom. Abstract shapes and asymmetry, bright colors and whimsical shapes can best describe my sculptures. I have many favorite artists who have influenced me, such as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. I also like the works of Jean Michel Basquiat. The scope and freedom of these artists really inspire me. 

For me, art is a way of life that really makes me happy. I am glad to be able to share my art with people from all over the world. I have participated in several exhibitions, and my works are in collections all around the globe.

 Contact Nikoley:

Shop: https://99heads.etsy.com

Website: www.99heads.com

Instagram: @99heads

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/99heads

Email: n_armeykov@abv.bg

CANADA

Linda Foley

Humour, celebration, consciousness, or compassion, I strive to awaken emotion and provoke thought. 

The greatest gift I can receive through my creations is the exhilaration of receiving an emotional response in a viewer. Art is my form of communication. It’s how I share my observations, my loves, my interests, and my thoughts. Like most creatives, I have an innate need to bring to life that which I’m imagining. 

Humour is often at the heart of what I do, and frankly, it’s how I live most of the time! Looking for the funny in something difficult is a survival response that lightens the load and puts things into perspective. The adage that “laughter is the best medicine” is indeed my motto! Pop a couple of doses of laughter and drink plenty of fluids, and you should be good to go! Perhaps this explains the love affair I have with Charlie Chaplin’s Tramp character. I’m enamoured by his ability to use humour and show love and compassion with no words, only gestures and expressions!  I can never go too long before creating a Charlie piece. I was thrilled to receive permission from the Chaplin Office to use his image in my original creations.

I work primarily with encaustic medium, a composition of beeswax and dammar resin (tree sap). I am completely in love with this ancient organic material. I love its unpredictability and the challenges it poses! Each thin layer of molten medium is applied using a brush. As is the case with wax, almost as soon as it is removed from the heat, it cools and hardens. To manipulate it on the surface of my canvas (wooden substrate), I use a hot torch to melt and fuse it to the preceding layer. My pieces are usually comprised of many layers, each carefully applied over the last. This may sound ridiculous, but after all these years of working daily for hours on end, I still get excited by the sound of the flame lighting at the end of my torch, and am still completely mesmerized as I watch the medium melt and disperse under its flame. Clearly, I am very easily entertained!

My deeply creative spirit fueled my desire to also work in sculpture a few years ago. Sculpting is completely different from painting. It’s always a feat of engineering! Before manipulating the clay, I need to think about building an armature, the framework that supports the outer layers of clay. Before building the armature, I need to consider balance, gravity, and space. So far, my pieces have all stood on 4” wide x 4” deep wood cylinders covered with encaustic medium. And so, designing a sculpture that balances on a narrow platform often means several trips back to the drawing board throughout the process of sculpting! Life isn’t hard enough; I need the extra challenge!

My life experiences and observations of the people and world around me, heavily influence and inform my work. As a human “sense making machine,” I’m driven by curiosity and a need to understand.  Painting and sculpting doesn’t provide the answers necessarily, but it’s an avenue to conjure, capture and express my thoughts and feelings into a different form.  I am deeply grateful for the international support I receive!

Contact Linda:

Website: www.lindafoleyart.com

Facebook: Linda Foley Art

Email: lfoley0706@gmail.com

FRANCE

Cecile Perra

I know my creative fiber since my earliest childhood. Without really knowing how to put a name to this sensitivity, this daily need to create quite naturally led me to study at the school of fine arts in Epinal to learn and live, for three years, a collective artistic experience, generating of a profound development, definitively affirming an artistic vocation. Wishing to continue after obtaining my national diploma of visual artist, I then spontaneously presented myself at the art school of Aix-en-Provence to obtain, two years later, a higher national diploma of plastic studies.

Guided by the chance of artistic encounters, I had the chance to animate for two consecutive years, a plastic arts workshop for an adult audience with mental disabilities. Better than a second school, and possessing an extraordinary artistic and human richness, they then revealed to me, without knowing it, how essential simplicity and spontaneity in the act of creating were to me. This wonderful experience profoundly influenced my artistic approach. Since that day, I have been unlearning, eternally happy with the portrait   grasping the format of the snapshot with my sole sensitivity, freeing myself from academicism, learning to free myself from the constraints and rules of technique and aesthetics so as not to seek only substance and emotion.

Sitting in the moment, armed with old papers, precious fabrics carrying stories, intimate portraits that I transform, mixing families and strangers, I assemble, I sew, I paint, I scratch, I grab the face for the integrate into a new narrative. I spin a mouth, eyes that speak volumes, a figure that suggests a character, an identity, a character. I play with life and memory like a child playing with dolls. I become the prompter of a story.

The forms are purified, the standards disappear, the representation sometimes becomes coarse and clumsy, but seems fair to me. I recount with nostalgia the transition from child to adult, often confused, prematurely, sometimes. I approach the transmission and the inheritance or the absence of lightness of childhood. I create mixed identities, deep and complex, but laid bare. I pick up the wounds and give these characters a second chance  I give them life, so to speak. But who are they? I don’t know, but I like them.

Contact Cecile:

Facebook: Cecile Perra artist
Instagram: Cecileperra
Email: cecile.perra@wanadoo.fr

UKRAINE

Inna Savenko

The uniqueness of Inna Savenko’s works lies in the energy which is felt next to them. They bring pleasure both to the eyes and the soul. “I have two passions: painting and spiritual development. I have been painting since childhood, and I’ve been doing it professionally since my youth.

I studied decorative art at university. I was fortunate enough to study a course which included not only the classical drawing and painting classes, but also many decorative techniques. This is how I became a truly versatile artist who masters a variety of materials and can combine them.

I like to move from one technique to another, compare their expressive abilities and sometimes synthesize them into something new. Today I master the techniques of drawing, oil painting, acrylic, watercolors, dry pastel, batik, resin art and some types of sculpture. I also tried myself in jewelry and decoration, and I’m not going to stop there. I am inspired by the image of Dali, who did not put himself in the framework of one technique, because learning the world through different faces of art is much more interesting.

Speaking of self-development, I stepped on this path consciously when I turned 29, although I have been looking for it intuitively all my life”.
In 2016 the young artist takes the path of exploring the needs of the human soul and the secret of a happy life.

Having studied the practical experience of many cultures, for example, yoga, meditation, Taoist practices, qigong, Slavic practices, cosmoenergetics and much more, Inna brought this philosophy into her works.

“I have always felt I can bring happiness to people through my creativity.
I have always tried to work in a good mood. And now I know how it works.
I realize the state I have while creating my works is imprinted in my paintings forever and they radiate it into the world.

Every time while working at my painting, I dream it will become a talisman for the house, which will bring peace and love to the owner.
Before work I always immerse myself in a state of goodness and love.
Harmonizing music helps me in my work.
And people feel it. They spend hours in my gallery and say they don’t want to leave. One day I decided to conduct a survey among gallery visitors to find out how my works make them feel. The most popular answers were “happiness” and “serenity”. I find the meaning of my work in the opportunity to convey the state of love and joy to the viewer.

If God gave my eyes the opportunity to notice beauty where someone would pass by, if He gifted my hands the ability to transfer it to the canvas, then perhaps I can shift people’s attention to the beauty around us.
After all, it is known that where there is attention, there is energy, and therefore there is development.
I want to multiply the beauty and harmony in the world”.

Education
Kyiv National University of Arts & Culture

Exhibitions
• All-Ukrainian art exhibition in gallery of National Union of Artists of Ukraine, Dnipro, Oct.2021
• International online art exhibition “Under the sign of creation” Odessa Regional Peace Council, January 2021
• “Melody of the soul -2020 “(group) Art gallery of M.R.I.P.P.E., Desember 2020
• Personal “Harmony of color”, Art gallery of modern fine arts (F.U.G. named after Mykola Arkas of the Mykolaiv city council) November 2020
• Personal “Taste of Life”, Art Space Gallery (Riviera), August 2020
• “State”, Mykolaiv Municipal Exhibition Hall, February 2018
• Collective Charitable Exhibition “Give Life”, Mykolaiv Municipal Exhibition Hall , November 2017
• All-Ukrainian exibition “Picturesque Ukraine” National Union of Artists of Ukraine, May 2017
• “Novel on a Palette” collective art exhibition within the framework of the charity art festival “Ukrainian Seasons of Peace”, Odessa Museum of History and Local Lore “, January 2017
• Collective “Kinburn – my love”, Mykolaiv regional museum named after Vereshchagin, November 2017
• Collective youth exhibition in the gallery of the Mykolaiv Union of Artists, May 2017
• Collective exhibition at the Odessa Literary Museum organized by the Queen’s Katharine Academy of Arts, November 2016
• All-Ukrainian art exhibition dedicated to the 25th anniversary of Independence of Ukraine, National Union of Artists of Ukraine, August 2016
• Collective exhibition for Valentine’s Day, Mykolaiv Municipal Exhibition Hall, February 2016
• “Melody of the Soul -2015” (group) Art gallery of M.R.I.P.P.E., December 2015
• Collective exhibition dedicated to the Mykolayiv City Day , Mykolaiv Municipal Exhibition Hall, September 2013
• Collective exhibition dedicated to the Mykolayiv City Day , Mykolaiv Municipal Exhibition Hall, September 2012
• Collective exhibition dedicated to the Mykolayiv City Day , Mykolaiv Municipal Exhibition Hall, September 2011
• Collective exhibition of student works of Kyiv National University of Culture and Arts, May 2008