Zannah Noe is a San Francisco based artist since 1991. Originally from Concord, Massachusetts she studied art at The University of Massachusetts at Amherst and photography under Carrie Mae Weems at Hampshire College. She continued her painting studies independently with master painter, Doug Schneider.

Currently she is working on a project called American Bones that will be a three-year endeavor exploring America’s landscape and cultural identity. Funded by the crowd-sourcing site, Kickstarter.com. Noe was able to take a 5-month road trip covering 13,000 miles around the States, photographing and interviewing people and filming events.  American Bones road trip has resulted in a large body of photographs that will be published in a book in 2013. From her photographs, the artist has created the first iteration of the American Bones painting series in 2013. Eventually the work will be show together as a multi media project in 2014.

I am most interested in color and line quality in my paintings and pen & ink drawings. The drawings and images are used to explore a different sense formed by color and not entirely by nature. The images fall into two styles: a graphic, flat painted style, and a more realistic style.
The graphic paintings begin as pen & ink drawings. I retain the original line work on the canvas and add lots of colors. It is a constant battle to balance the colors with the shapes and distances portrayed in the painting.
The realistic paintings are concerned with the quality of light & shadow: how to portray an afternoon sun or a morning sunrise in January. Snow is a favorite. Sometimes I paint very bright colors on the snow areas and glaze over with whites, letting the colors come through. I prefer oil paints for their subtle color changes.

My work is about process with an emphasis on the organic properties of the materials I use and how they mimic nature and landscape.  With my encaustic paintings I use a vocabulary of techniques to create a space.  Ink and acrylic stain and bleed on the canvas creating a sketch.  The splatters and glazes of oil fluidly represent the effects of water and reflection.  Lines and gouges in the wax form trees.  Beeswax blends and diffuses creating atmosphere.  I do not render a landscape as much as I allow the materials to naturally create one.

The aluminum series developed from the same approach.  I began to notice the buildup of residue on the inside of the buckets I use to wash my brushes.  The patinas of paint created a beautiful gradation of color and texture.  Concurrent with these observations were my walks along the inlets of San Francisco Bay.  My painting studio rests on the shores of India Basin.  The low tides create patterns of kelp, and earth that blend into the tranquil waters.
I use aluminum and steel sheets so that I can work on a smooth and consistent surface.  The sheets are sanded, sometimes primed and submerged in several gallons of mineral spirits.  I pour oil paint into the solution and mix it until it is cloudy.  Over the period of several days the particles of oil color precipitate and leave sediment on the aluminum.   After the oil has completely separated from the mineral spirits I repeat the process with another color.  I will sometimes sand or manipulate the surface after the bath.  The painting is sealed with a protective finish and mounted on a wood substrate.

       I say on canvas and paper what cannot be put into words. I paint what remains in the mind.  

I intend to provoke the viewers into contemplating the ever widening gap between our civilization and eternal world of nature through an exploration of the form ofexpansive landscapes and their juxtaposition with human-made interiors.

By placing viewers within the walls of a room,  I invite them to look at what lies beyond the open doorway and evoke a Platonic myth where dwellers, confined to their cave, yearn to know the outside world.

I think about my works both as Utopias and Dystopias. They are intended to evoke a peaceful and contemplative mood, and also instill the shadow side that  forebodes the deterioration of the land and alludes to the possible loss of the Earth as we know it.

These landscapes are void of figures, but I manifest human presence by subtle, sometimes ominous signs. I fill my compositions with biomorphic shapes that blur the boundaries between organic flesh and crystalline mass and merge life with dead matter. The multiple layers of paint correspond to the geological layers of soil.

My materials carry with them the realization of the metaphor: turpentine leaks like flowing water and the sand, that is a product of long interaction between stones and waves,  is one of the physical components of my work. My process of mixing sand with paint to create textures, becomes a symbolic gesture of reconciliation between the world of art and the world of nature.

Irena Kononova

Each of my paintings is meant to capture a feeling I have in one moment in time. My process is to work from my own photography. I deconstruct the captured image and then reconstruct it with paint. I isolate a series of individual moments. I assemble each with their own spirit and energy. They will live on, on their own.

The first time I traveled to Burma, I knew very little about the country and it’s politics. I remember being struck by the meditative beauty of the landscape, the sensory chaos of the cities, and the quiet elegance of the people. As I read and learned more about the history and political situation, it seemed as though the only news and images coming from the country were exceedingly negative and ugly. Most tourists are kept away from this reality, myself included. I wanted to photograph the people I was spending my time with and soon my days were all about making pictures. What I was drawn to were the areas outside the cities, the villages next to the river, where fishermen and their families lived and worked. In that spare and graphic river setting, I made intimate portraits, mostly of the men I encountered, in isolated and stylized poses.  My impression is that much of the country looks like early 20^th century images and I kept my version of that look in mind as I made my photographs.

I travel with my Bronica medium format camera, one lens, and a few plastic bags filled with Ilford Delta 400 film. My photographs are printed from negatives in my traditional darkroom and selenium toned. I print in editions of 25, on 16″x 20″ paper, and prices increase as the edition sells.

Monica Denevan was born in San Francisco and studied photography at San Francisco State University but it wasn’t until she started traveling extensively that she began to see differently. She has been visiting parts of Burma and China for many years, always with her Bronica, an open mind and a sense of humor. Monica’s photographs have been exhibited internationally. Her work had been published in ZYZZYVA, Black+White Photography (UK), F-Stop Magazine, Communication Arts Photo Annual, SHOTS, Black and White Magazine, The Photo Review, The Sun, and Artvas-The Photo (Korea) among others. Online, her work has been featured on LENSCRATCH, F-Stop magazine, and Le Journal de la Photographie. She is represented by Scott Nichols Gallery in San Francisco, Capital Culture Gallery in London, and Tao Evolution Gallery in Hong Kong which produced a small catalogue of her work. Monica’s photographs are in the permanent collection of UCSF Medical Center.