Artists
Ditto has been fortunate to reach the best emerging artists of
today. This month Ditto features:
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow is an American actress who has appeared in more than forty films. She has won numerous awards, including a Golden Globe, three BAFTA Film Award nominations, and a win for Best Actress at the San Sebastian International Film Festival. Farrow is well known for her extensive humanitarian work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. Her latest efforts can be found at www.miafarrow.org which includes a guide on how to get involved with Darfur activism, along with her photos and blog entries from Darfur, Chad, and the Central African Republic. In 2008, she was selected by TIME Magazine as one of the most influential people in the world.
Brian Steidle
Brian Steidle is a human rights activist, journalist, photographer, and author who has worked on publicizing the Darfur conflict in Sudan. Steidle’s book about his experiences, The Devil Came on Horseback,, was turned into a documentary film that premiered at Sundance in 2007. Steidle has shared his experiences in Darfur with heads of state in the United States and abroad, addressed the U.S. Congress and the United Nations, and serves both as lecturer and advisor to several non-governmental organizations regarding their humanitarian efforts in Darfur and other nations.
Izabela Lundberg
Izabela Lundberg, a survivor forced to seek refuge during the Balkan War in the early nineties, found her new home in Denver, Colorado. For the past fifteen years, Lundberg has been a human rights activist working with war, torture, and genocide survivors throughout the world. She has helped Darfur survivors in the Denver community through her work at the Rocky Mountain Survivor Center. Lundberg fosters a safe and healing environment for survivors going through the processes of acculturation and rehabilitation. She is recognized locally and internationally as an engaged community leader, organizer, social planner, and program presenter. A poet, photographer, and philosopher, Lundberg utilizes her various talents to educate and promote civil action.
Aaron Cohen
Aaron Cohen is a slave hunter. For years he has traveled the world retrieving those sold into slavery, including girls sold into the sex trade. He was shot and wounded while rescuing an enslaved girl from a brothel in Haiti; has lived with a fatwa or "death sentence" on his head from Osama Bin Laden and the AL Qaeda network, and is the author of The Jubilee Prophecy. He cites slave redemption missions to the Sudan, the establishment of People for Children with Ricky Martin and working with His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, on human rights as having provided the motivation to write this newly released book from the Jodere Group. Cohen is a member of an advanced slave redemption team that works in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. His philanthropic campaigns with the American Anti-Slavery Group and Christian Solidarity International have resulted in the freeing of thousands of slave-captive women and children.
Jim Beckner
Jim Beckner is a self-described urban animal who creates cityscapes of urban life. Beckner’s downtown scenes of the environment bring warmth and interesting depth not only to the subject matter but in the textural depth and shape. Beckner is a favorite among corporate art consultants and collectors. Jim produces large and small scale works.
Ken Valastro
Ken Valastro has been painting since early childhood and his prolific nature continues to evolve. This non-stop impressionist painter is a favorite among collectors nationally and internationally. Ken is well-known for his thick vibrant brush strokes depicting downtown urban life in rainy Manhattan or busy Denver. Urbanites hailing taxis under colorful umbrellas or shopping in backlit streets communicate Valastro’s impressionist images. Ken is equally skilled at demonstrating rural life on a quiet lazy country day or at a fast-paced rodeo complete with horse and rider.
Tiffany Williams
Tiffany Williams’ painterly talents clearly coincides with her streak of wanderlust. Her creative impasto style of painting makes her an extremely popular artist among her contemporaries and collectors. Tiffany depicts modern urban scenes using thick buttery strokes with impressive technical movement. Williams received a scholarship at Rocky Mountain Institute of Art and is an alumni of Quang Ho’s Professional Studies Class.
Laurie Maves
For over a decade now Laurie has been painting women: women who smile, women who frown, women who pout, and women who ponder. She was often influenced by such masters as Botticelli, Modigliani, Gauguin and Picasso. Presently and thematically, she continues to explore where her life is headed through her self-portraiture, figures and landscape painting, while always on the lookout for her own omens. Laurie constantly wonders where, how and why she exists in the world, as she does, trying to find personal stillness in a mind that constantly races. While vowing to “never conform,” as a beautiful gallerina once advised her, she will continue to explore how to recycle not only material things, but also relationships in her life, always looking for the treasure – in everything, in everyone.
Matt Clark
From an early age, it was apparent that Matthew Clark was an artist. Finding inspiration in Saturday morning cartoons, old Walt Disney classics, illustrated books, and toys, he started drawing his own characters in the books, on the walls, and of course, on paper. It has always been in his nature to draw. Matt’s current style continues to be shaped and inspired by cartoons, books, and animated films, in addition to the other forms of art he has been involved in through the years, including graffiti, graphic design, and fine art.
Sandi Calistro
Sandi was born in New Britain, Connecticut where her love for painting and art has been with her since childhood. After graduating in 1997 in Naples, Maine she made her way mid-west to Denver, Colorado. She adores being a custom tattoo artist at Twisted Sol where she can exercise her talent beyond painting on trusting individuals. As an avid animal lover Sandi incorporates them into her paintings on occasion. Women have always been the focus of most of her paintings. The beauty, flow and character of women have intrigued her for as long as she can remember.
Doug Olson
Doug is an outstanding artist from Aspen, CO. He has exhibited at the Aspen Art Museum and galleries from California to New York. Doug brings his unique, thought provoking “psychological portraiture” to the front-range. Describing one of his series “America in Stereo”, Olson says, “These paintings express the everyday stereotypes and preconceived notions we all take for granted, since the events of September 11. The viewer is forced to question what role fear has played in the shaping of their own stereotypes, and how similar, everyday images can raise a wide range of different associations in our minds.”
David Burton
David is a Denver artist whose work is best described as abstract expressionism with strong influence of graffiti art. “It is my goal to create a style of work that is completely unique from other artists. The majority of my work is based on color, movement, and balance.” Burton says. “The process to reach my final product always varies from piece to piece. The one constant is that I trust my instincts throughout experimentation, and always follow common guidelines to result in work that is unmistakably defined by those three characteristics.”
Delton Demarest
Delton, a young artist, and native of Denver, has displayed exceptional prowess in figurative realism. Delton utilizes traditional and modern painting styles. Demarest says of his vision, “for me, painting is gratifying in many ways. Two key parts of creating art push me to continue on, the process of painting, and the reaction of the viewer.” “I feel being versatile helps me continue to grow, and allows me greater flexibility when different forms of work come to me.” This flexibility has led to work for the Winter X-Games, Vitamin Water, Th’Ink Tank Tattoo and Gallery, and the commissioned portrait of Kenyan President –elect Raila Odinga.
Amy Pochyla
Amy, originally from Michigan, now calls Denver her home. She has been an artist all of her life, and as a graduate of The Art Institute of Denver and Western Michigan University, she demonstrates the artistic refinement to match her creativity. Pochyla creates art that reflects her perception of life and situations, using traditional methods of pen/ink wash. Her work has been noted as reminiscent of Chagall with it’s dreamy quality.
Raul Hernandez Andujo
Raul is a young artist from Chihuahua, Chih., Mexico. He is bringing
his "chromatic composition of elements" to Ditto Gallery in Denver.
His work has been seen in the Biennale
International Contemporary Art Exhibition in Florence, Italy, the
XVI Premio Fierenze, "Homage to Mario Conti" Sezoni Arte Visive,
Florence Italy and the Museum of Poliforium in Mexico City.
He has also shown at the Casa Siglo XIX, Museum of Sebastian, Chihuahua,
Mexico.
"I believe in what I feel and see to create something from nothing.
I search for my perception of life and the excesses of maturity,
and believe in the divine inspiration from God for my creation"
Raul's work undergoes transformations. He challenges himself to
articulate through painting his particular visions. He distorts,
constructs and expresses as far as his mind allows.
Dr. Peter Berndt
Dr. Peter Berndt is a visual artist with classical art school training.
He completed an independent study that he believes benefitted him
more than the ridgidity of academic studies.
His primary focus is figuration, and color and shape. His delightful
and playful painting entitled "Thank you Mr. Klee" is rendered in
ink and egg tempera. His paintings and drawings are in collections
in France, Mexico, Wyoming, Colorado and Texas.
He has a private psychiatric practise in Denver. He shares a website
with his wife, Joanne Neal-Berndt who will also be exhibiting.
Joanne Neal-Berndt
Joanne Neal-Berndt grew up in San Antonio Texas with a B.S. in
Fashion Design. Her paintings reflect her experience working with
slate, marble, granite, limestone stucco and copper when she later
worked remodeling historic homes in Georgetown and Evergreen, CO,
Dallas and San Antonio, Texas.
Her paintings relfect the suface of these themes especially as
they respond to the forces of nature over time. In her paintings
we recognize the echoes of dry landscapes of the American Southwest.
She shows in Dallas, Santa Fe and Boulder.
Robert Martinez
Robert is a local artist and a humble man with a love for vibrant,
bold colors.
He graduated from Adams State with an M.A. in education. He taught
for the Adams County Public School Dist. 12 for 38 years.
"The biggest motivating factor that kept me teaching all those
years, next to providing for my family was the opportunity to teach
art to the students", he said. His afinity to Fritz Scholder, Malcom
Furlow and John Nieto is clearly seen in his Native American braves
paintings.
"I paint what I am inspired to paint. The images I paint are based
in a large part on the people I met growing up. We visited family
and friends on the Pueblos for Feast Days and ceremonies. The Penitentes,
the Church, the Valley, the whole experience of growing up in the
San Luis Valley of Colorado and New Mexico." His work can be seen
in a permanent collection at the Chicano Humanities and Arts Council.
Artist Submissions
We are constantly receiving and reviewing outstanding artist submissions.
If you would like to be considered to show in Ditto Gallery or to
reproduce your work at the highest standard, please email:
Jeff Smith, President ditto@gristudios.com
