Manifestations of Reality The artist’s interpretation of reality is an intrinsic part of the creation process. Agora Gallery’s Manifestations of Reality takes audiences on an amazing and diverse tour around the world as seen through the eyes of nine talented artists. Each intriguing work is a unique expression of the creative individual as they cultivate their disparate viewpoints and varied interests.
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Naveed Wazir Ali
 
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The realist paintings of Pakistani artist Naveed Wazir Ali are overflowing with the bustle of a world on the cusp of tradition and modernity. Portraits of physical labor pervade Naveed's work, whether his subjects are rural workers in paintings rich with the palpable heat of sand, livestock and bare feet on rock, or studies of the ornate urban architecture looming over workers dressed in traditional robes, who ride on scooters and load trucks, or haggle in traditional markets. Naveed's commitment to sensory details brings forth the real-life, existential implications of the lives he portrays. Yet despite these unflinching portraits of labor and its burdens, there is joy in these works.
Where the senses and our humanity are alive, Naveed is saying, there is always the potential for happiness. As a committed realist painter, Naveed Wazir Ali's artistic strength lies in capturing the immediate sensory experience, and thereby portraying the humanity of existence, in all its contradictions.
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"The Sheep Breeder, Punjab, Pakistan"
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"The Bazar of Wazir Khan's Mosque, Lahore, Pakistan"
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Miriam Edelweiss
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The sculptures of Edelweiss are a tribute to the force of nature in connection with Mother Earth. The sculptor’s love of art is rooted in her home, Valencia, but also incorporates the Castilian influence of Toledo, from her mother, and Basque elements contributed by her father. Readings, particularly in history, also inform Edelweiss’ work, as do her travels to Oriental, Celtic, and Egyptian cultures—to name a few. Her sculptures draw from pagan, Classical, Egyptian, and mythological traditions to create women who exemplify the majestic, powerful, and dignified aspects of the feminine. Reminiscent of women-centered Minoan art, Edelweiss does not shy away from the intimacy of the female form, but revels in its beauty. At the same time, she incorporates images from nature, such as a cascade of flowers representing hair.
Edelweiss is inspired by the eternal cycle of life, so often associated with women because of their ability to produce life, and the triskelion symbol, representing energy and the evocation of fire, water, and nature.
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"The Dream of Gaia"
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"The Guardian of the Woodland"
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Frieda Isbell
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Resonant lines of color burn and bend within Frieda Isbell's deep, choreographed medleys of movement and emotion. Her long, compressed bundles of expressive brushstrokes mold human figures into scenes stripped out of elapsed performances, capturing the energy and drama of motion, direction and human interaction. Frieda tackles these elements of dance and evokes poses frozen in time, yet richly suspended in demonstrative swirls of light and momentum. The partnered dancers who inhabit her works float gracefully and aggressively into each other while seamlessly harmonizing with each painting's larger compositions through harmonized mosaics of lines and shapes. Frieda's unified constructions maintain focused attention on each curve and reflection, but command the forces of movement and light that they signify with masterful discipline, wrapping them together into climactic statements of gravitas and passion.
Frieda lives and works in Texas, where she has studied and showcased her work in exhibitions including spotlight showings in her former home of San Antonio.
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"Tomorrow Morning"
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"Devine Expectations"
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Åke Johansson
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Swedish artist Åke Johansson creates magnificent graphite portraits that feature the classic and modern day titans of Hollywood, rendered with a great sensitivity and in striking detail. His pencil work nimbly captures the dramatic proceedings and larger-than-life personas radiated by such stars as Marlon Brando, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe and Jack Nicholson. Johansson’s work highlights a rhythmic construction of forms and beautiful modulation between shadow and light, while concentrating on intensity found in the eyes and facial posturing. Other works feature costars posed together in dynamic compositions replete with a sensual tension and polished charisma found only in Hollywood’s elite.
This has been a busy year for Johansson, as his work becomes increasingly more visible within the arts communities in both Europe and the United States. He has exhibited in the U.S. three times thus far in 2008: in Miami, in New York City’s Tribeca and Chelsea art districts.
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"Mel Gibson"
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"Marlon Brando"
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Steven Krueger
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Upon hinges of raw emotion is where Steven Krueger hangs his creative spirit. With aggressive strokes of paint and intense stylization of figures, Krueger’s mixed media works are an all out assault upon the senses. Words, bright patterns and superfluous drips exist within an unruly picture plane. His characteristic motifs exude strong expressionist sensibilities, reflecting times of confusion or despair and yet wonder and emotional innocence also appear as underlying currents. “To me,” Krueger explains, “art is the skill to be able to document one's emotions.” The paintings are created with spontaneity as well as chance; layer upon layer of paint, pencil, oil pastel or emulsion is applied, sometimes covering over previous ones until the image is finally complete. The results are expressive, raw and magnificent to behold and have been exhibited to audiences around the globe.
World travel has only increased Krueger’s fervor for the arts. As an American who has experienced the diverse cultures of the world firsthand, he has lived in Austria, Guatemala, Finland and currently India.
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"Pain"
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"Scratch My Back-Triptych"
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David Morgan
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Artist David m Morgan finds beauty in both likely and unlikely places. A sculptor at heart, Morgan has recently confined his work to the two-dimensional realm—with amazing results. His collages on paper are combinations of popular images of models as well as intricately woven paper. The placement of glossy image against tangible texture grants the pieces a sense of depth and piques the viewer’s imagination. Morgan’s eye for placement and spatial relationship contributes to the feeling of sublime balance and harmony in each of his works, there is no detail left unexamined. As he states, “it is the details in my work that differentiates my art…Details are seen everywhere…”
David m Morgan born in Colorado, came of age as an artist in Montana, where the dramatic landscape and native tribes inspired his work. He has exhibited his work throughout Montana and, most recently, in Columbus Ohio where he currently lives and works.
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"Little Red Dress"
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"Walking Straight Curve Cut Cane"
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T.R. Ranga Ramanujam
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For Indian painter T.R. Ranga Ramanujam, art has always been a way of life. His father was an artist, and at an early age Ramanujam traded his artwork for sustenance. Self-taught and unwavering in his devotion, he is so skillful that he was once disqualified from an art contest because his black and white pencil sketch was mistaken for a photo. Ramanujam works mainly with oil paints now, after the advice of his mentor, the painter S.M. Pandit, and how fortunate for us that he does. He has a rich and earthy palette. The rhythm of the composition often moves the eye into the center of the painting, a scene that is not as unassuming as it appears.
While an understated spirituality, a sense of community, nature, and tradition pervades each piece, an intriguing tension arises the longer one studies his work. Ramanujam has been painting for 66 years and has been exhibiting and selling his work since 1997.
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"Trees Mourning"
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"Collapsed House & Smiling Nature"
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Sara Scribner
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The intriguing and thought-provoking works of Sara Scribner present a basic truth of human existence—everything is always in flux. As a child, Scribner learned that “nothing is ever set in stone . . . and the course of your life can change at any moment.” She portrays this sentiment masterfully in her portraits rendered in oil paint on canvas. Simultaneously haunting and engrossing, Scribner’s creations superimpose layers of movement; normally crisp features such as an eye or a chin trail across the composition imparting a sense of constant motion. Warm flesh tones blur into each other, heightening the impression of the subject’s activity. Through these works, Scribner conveys a potent and paradoxically affirming message to the viewer: “life,” she declares, “is unstable and unpredictable; change, movement, and loss are necessary and integral parts of the human experience.”
Sara Scribner’s paintings have been exhibited throughout the United States. Born and raised in California, Scribner currently works and resides in Oklahoma.
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"Pause"
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"A Temporary Failure of Memory"
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Kirstie Tuffs
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Using adaptable artistic methods that range from mixed media and collage to drawing and painting, Kirstie Tuffs draws inspiration from an eventful and exhilarating life. Tuffs personal style is driven by her desire to come to grips with the issues raised by cultural integration and divide, from the perspective of a mixed background with her Colombian mother and Scottish father. "My work is inspired by identity yet what is identity these days," she questions, "since we live in an integrated world, where globalization brings us all together and yet divides remain." The work reveals its dichotomous roots, remaining graceful while including unchained explosions of line and color; Tuffs varies her methods to convey principal themes.
She holds a MFA from Winchester School of Art in London, with her work shown in solo exhibitions in the UK (Southampton, Hampshire) and the US (Cambridge, MA). Tuffs is currently teaching art classes to inmates in Boston, where she lives and works, and this experience has made palpable the role of art as a powerful medium of expression
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"Not Today"
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"Devil Dance"
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