After many years of working in mezzotint, an engraving technique that requires precision and forethought, I am now exploring the realms of wax painting and abstract imagery.  Each image starts as a simple shape, assuming different permutations until the final image is achieved.  The encaustic process introduces me to a spontaneity that does not exist in my mezzotints.  The new work represents a passage both toward a new way of working, and perhaps more importantly, toward a new way of seeing.

Narrative storytelling and mythology inform my work. I am so grateful to my teachers who gave me the skills to communicate in this way. Making art is the birthright of all humans.

My recent series of works on paper combines several different ingredients:  the leaves and flowers in my garden and nearby, abstract compositions which sometimes  incorporate objects lying around the house, and monotype prints.  I use a mixed-media and layered technique starting with a background wash of acrylics, followed by a stenciled layer, then a final layer of color pencils and/or Prismacolor art stix to render the leaves and other motifs.  

Aaron Vonk is a Canadian-American who lives and works in San Francisco. Aaron's art reflects his current outlook on life--sometimes it's dark and sometimes it's joyful and full of light. Aaron sees art as a way of life and has been drawing and sculpting since he was a child. He thinks in terms of images: Whenever he wants to describe or explain something, he grabs a pen and starts drawing to illustrate his meaning.

I am most drawn to narrative painting that looks at fact, fiction and fable to explore the parallel realms of reality in our everyday lives.

In my series, "Рудий ліс" (Red Forest in Ukranian), I explore a nuclear accident 25 years after the fact, looking at the fate of the flora and fauna surrounding it. In essence, I paint a contemporary Fairy Tale lived out loud of an ancient Forest. One day a happy forest blossoming into spring, the next, a dead forest turned ginger red from radiation poisoning.

Рудий ліс is my visual tale of a woods (the size of Yosemite) that was once buried alive in fact, fiction and fable, by a frightened government. It's a tale of how Рудий ліс has rallied into a new forest. A radiated Russian Eden, filled with an astonishing array of trees, flowers, birds, wolves, deer, insects, wild boar and more. All radiated! So radiated that no humans dare to disturb them...

My work focuses on bringing forth experiences of the inner world of dreams, symbols, archetypes:

the interpenetration of ordinary and non-ordinary reality.

 Beryl Landau calls her work “symbolic landscape”. The acrylic paintings depict geographical locations but evoke inner feelings. Each landscape draws the viewer into a particular space and mood. Landau’s clear colors range from high contrasts to subtle gradations. The subjects vary from familiar California scenes and cityscapes to more exotic settings from her travels. Some of the images are close-ups while others show more farsighted views.                                   Beryl Landau lives in San Francisco and teaches art at Holy Names University in Oakland. She received BFA and MFA degrees from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her teachers included Richard Diebenkorn, Elmer Bischoff and Joan Brown.

Formed from hundreds of individual pieces of wire, Kristine Mays has developed a way of expressing the human form through wire. 

"My artwork is about time, memory, and the emotions that are stirred when we pause and reflect. The work points to the soul and spirit, transporting the viewer into another place. It's about reconnecting to a deeper purpose - seeing beyond the stuff of the moment, beyond the superficial and into the being -- the soul and spirit of our lives. There are many dichotomies in my work. I transform hard rigid wire into soft flowing movement. I create the outer shell, the exterior of a human being, but provoke you to see what's within. With metal wire I have timelessly captured a fleeting moment that I hope will last for decades. As an artist I am very aware of the impermanence of life. Memories and the way we have loved one another far outweigh our status or possessions -- and yet sometimes a simple dress might trigger a memory from the past, allowing us to visit that which has imprinted our lives."

Kristine Mays has been an exhibiting artist since 1993. She has raised thousands of dollars for AIDS research through the sale of her work. Collectors of her work include an eclectic mix of people, with her work displayed in many Bay Area homes and private collections throughout the USA.