Annette Adrian Hanna is a portrait and landscape painter working in oil, pastel, charcoal and graphite. She has won numerous awards in pastel and oil, including five Gold Medals in Painting. She was a Finalist in Artist Magazine's National Competition for Portrait and Figure, for a portrait in oil, received Honorable Mention in Pastel Journal's National Competition for 100 Best Pastels of 2006, and also received an Award of Merit at the Northwest Pastel Society exhibition in Washington State. She has studied with John Howard Sanden, Daniel Greene, and Burt Silverman, and teaches oil and pastel, figure and landscape, for several different art associations in New Jersey. She has been a life-long member of the Kosciuszko Foundation and her Mother, Kazimiera Adrianowska was a Trustee of the Foundation and a supporter for many years.
Annette Hanna is the author of a book on "How to Paint Portraits in Oil", and was featured in American Artist magazine, Portrait Highlights, the Best of Pastels II, International Pastel Artist magazine, and in 2010 in the Best of America Pastel Artists. She is a Master Pastelist at Pastel Society of America, Signature member of the Pastel Society of New Jersey, and the Northwest Pastel Society, Fellow of American Artist Professional League, member of Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, and the Portrait Society of America. Hanna is listed in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in American Art.
In 2013 she was chosen to exhibit in a "Paint the Parks" exhibition at the Coutts Museum in El Dorado, Kansas. The exhibit embarked on a multi-city tour in 2014. She has also been selected to exhibit at the Butler Institute of American Art Gallery of American Pastels in 2015-16, in Youngstown, Ohio.
She spends summers in Washington State, on Whidbey Island with her husband, and enjoys painting landscape and portraits in the Northwest as well as the East Coast.
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Arie Galles was born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. In 1946 he returned with his parents to Poland where he spent his childhood. Arie also lived in Israel, before coming to the US. He studied in Rome, Italy, in 1966-7. Galles received a BFA in 1968 from the Tyler School of Fine Arts of Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, and his MFA in 1971 from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has taught at the University of Wisconsin, Southern Methodist University, School of Visual Arts, University of California at San Diego and Fairleigh Dickinson University. Currently Galles is Professor of Art at Soka University of America, Aliso Viejo, CA. Galles is known for his "HEARTLAND" series of Reflected-Light Paintings. He works with light, radiation of color reflected onto a white surface. His works have been widely exhibited, including multiple solo shows at the O.K. Harris Gallery, NYC, and the Zolla/Lieberman Gallery, Chicago. Galles' works are in public and private collections in the US and abroad. He is also known for his widely exhibited suite of large format charcoal drawings, "Fourteen Stations/Hey Yud Dalet," based on World War II aerial reconnaissance photographs from Luftwaffe and Allied sources. The suite's latest exhibition was held in March 2014, at Northern Arizona University Museum, Flagstaff, AZ. Galles is currently working on "Drawing With Ashes," a book based on 10 years of journal entries during the creation of this suite. Galles has just completed a suite of drawings, "Return/Powrót," inspired by his return, after a 58 year absence, to Poland, the country of his early childhood.
http://www.ariegalles.com/return-powrot.html
Arie A. Galles
Return/Powrót
A suite of 12 drawings
Artist's Statement
On July 3, 2014, after a fifty-eight year absence from Poland, I landed at the Warsaw Okęcie Airport and was greeted by my friends and hosts, Paula and Mirosław Sawicki. I was encouraged to return to Poland by my friend, artist Wojciech Fangor, who, along with Stefan Szydlowski welcomed me to deliver a lecture/slide presentation on my drawings, "Fourteen Stations/Hey Yud Dalet" at the Stefan Szydlowski Gallery. Now a gray-haired man of sixty-nine, I returned to the place I left as a boy.
I was fortunate to see much of Warsaw and met many wonderful people. In addition to new and old Warsaw, Mirek and Paula took me to Treblinka. I walked on the place that was so familiar to me from my drawings. It was a heart-wrenching full circle between memories and experience. I was surprised to find raspberries growing on the pine-forested periphery of the memorial-boulder- filled site. I tasted some, and they were sweet.
As Paula drove us back to Warsaw, we passed a stork nest perched atop a telephone pole. Sticking their necks up from the bramble were two adult birds and two chicks. I took this as a hopeful omen.
This was the first time I met my friend, artist Krzysztof Bojarczuk, in person. Krzysztof probed my reactions to the visit, and asked whether it might become a creative bridge between us. For weeks ideas gestated in my head, without expressing themselves through my fingers. Then, the birth of our grandson, Declan, breathed joy and renewal into our lives, allowing my hands to speak.
Memory, hate, chaos, pain, rebirth, joy, spilled out onto the sheets of paper. I let the drawings direct my hand to their ultimate realization. I returned to a place that was always within me.
Powrót/Return
Cykl 12 rysunków
Oświadczenie Artysty
3 lipca 2014 roku po 58 latach nieobecności w Polsce, wylądowałem na warszawskim lotnisku Okęcie, gdzie czekali na mnie moi przyjaciele Paula i Mirek Sawiccy. Do przyjazdu zachęcił mnie przyjaciel, artysta Wojciech Fangor. Z jego inicjatywy Stefan Szydłowski zorganizował w swojej Galerii spotkanie, na którym mogłem przedstawić rysunki z cyklu "Czternaście Stacji/Hej Yud Dalet" i opowiedzieć o swojej twórczości. Jako 69 letni siwowłosy mężczyzna, wracałem do miejsca, które opuściłem jako chłopiec.
W ciągu zaledwie kilku dni udało mi się zobaczyć dużą część starej i nowej Warszawy oraz spotkać wielu wspaniałych ludzi. Z Mirkiem i Paulą pojechaliśmy też do Treblinki. I oto znalazłem się w miejscu, które dobrze poznałem pracując nad moimi rysunkami – czułem się tam, jakbym po nich chodził. To było wstrząsające przeżycie – zatoczyłem pełne koło od pamięci o miejscach do ich fizycznego doświadczania. Zdumiały mnie maliny rosnące na skraju sosnowego lasu, który otacza wypełnioną głazami-pomnikami przestrzeń. Spróbowałem ich, były słodkie.
W drodze powrotnej do Warszawy, mijaliśmy bocianie gniazdo usadowione na szczycie słupa telefonicznego. Stały w nim dwa dorosłe ptaki, a z ponad badyli tworzących gniazdo sterczały szyje dwójki piskląt. Uznałem to za dobrą wróżbę.
Wizyta w Warszawie była też okazją do spotkania z artystą Krzysztofem Bojarczukiem, z którym przyjaźniliśmy się dotąd tylko wirtualnie. Teraz mogliśmy się poznać osobiście i badawczo sobie przyjrzeć. Próba wypadła pomyślnie - Krzysztof pierwszy zauważył, że nasze spotkanie mogłoby nas twórczo połączyć. Już od tygodni chodziły mi po głowie i dojrzewały różne pomysły, ale moje dłonie wciąż nie były gotowe, żeby je wyrazić. Dopiero narodziny naszego wnuka, Declana, które tchnęły w nasze życie radość i nadały mu nowy sens, sprawiły, że moje dłonie mogły przemówić.
Przelewały na papier pamięć, nienawiść, chaos, ból, ponowne narodziny, radość. Pozwoliłem, by obrazy prowadziły moją dłoń aż do całkowitego spełnienia w rysunkach. Powróciłem do miejsca, które zawsze było we mnie obecne.
For further details about Galles and his art, visit his website:
'With great sadness I would like to formally dedicate my upcoming exhibition, "Return/Powrót" at the Kosciuszko Foundation, to the memory of Mirosław Sawicki, Teacher, former Polish Minister of Education, a Wonderful Husband and Father, and a Dear Friend who left us January 31, 2016. '
More about Miroslaw Sawicki - From the Polish press: