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Tim Brinton  was raised in Salt Lake City, Utah and currently resides in Carlsbad, California.  Tim was born to be an artist. He has been drawing and painting ever since childhood. This passion led to his enrollment in the University of Utah where he studied fine arts and the Utah Technical College where he focused on commercial art.  As a staff artist for The Salt lake Tribune for seven years, Tim had the opportunity to fully develop his skills for editorial illustration. Since leaving the newspaper in 1983, Tim has earned his living through the syndication of his work.  His drawings and illustrations have appeared in hundreds of newspapers and magazines around the globe, from San Diego to Boston, from China to England.  Tim's gift of capturing American political sentiment in pictures makes him a favorite with many notable magazine and book publishers. Originals of Tim's work grace the offices of well-known state and national politicians.  In keeping with Tim's typical tongue-in-cheek humor, he realizes that it is also likely to grace "the bottom of birdcages ".  Modest about his gift, Tim credits others with his success. "Due to the warm hearts of opinion page and editorial editors I've been able to do what I truly love." He adds "I am truly grateful and indebted to all those who find value in what I do . . . except for maybe the birds!"

Nancy Calef was born in Bronx, New York. She completed Bronx High School of Science at age 15 and received a scholarship from the College of New Rochelle to study painting and sculpture. In 1977 she moved to San Francisco, where she has since continued to paint and exhibit in national and international solo and group shows. Calef lived in Europe and Thailand, traveled throughout the U.S., Mexico, Central America, Southeast Asia, India and Nepal, all of which served to develop her painting style and shape her understanding of the cultural and spiritual diversity of the world landscape.  Capturing the changing light and rich colors of many unique tropical surroundings, Nancy’s work illustrates her fascination with the complications inherent to beautiful vistas. “Art is a universal language, as I've carried my paints around the world working in plein air to capture its wonders. This is a meditative and instructional process forcing me to observe with a sharper eye in preparation for my peoplescapes, which, paradoxically, are created from my imagination.”

Emily Chaison was born in 1952 in New York City, the artist lived the first half of her childhood in the Hudson River Valley, and the second half in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where she began a lifelong relationship with the expansiveness of water and sky. In 1974 she studied in Hawaii for the most of 28 years from 1976 to 2004, and raised two daughters. She studied painting, gender studies, and education at the University of Hawaii. She was again instrumental in the inclusion of a women’s studies program being added to the curriculum at Kapiolani Community College. She taught art classes to homeless families, and exhibited paintings and mixed media installations that combined painting and living nature. The artist is now living, traveling, and painting on the Northwest coast. These things are reflected in my work. My paintings translate inner mythic direction into colors and resonant forms of nature. I have resided in many places near the ocean, both cold and tropical. My attention has been captured by the waves of the sky and ocean, and has joined with the colors of the moon in a bright affinity of belonging. These things are reflected in my work.

Komi Chen was born in Taipei, Taiwan into an artistic family. Her father, Kuo Hsueh-Hu, is one of Taiwan’s premier visual artists and considered one of its national treasures. Her father trained her on the fundamentals of classical Chinese painting and calligraphy. Komi currently lives in San Jose, CA. Komi learned formal artistic techniques at the College of Fine Arts, part of Taiwan’s prestigious training ground for teachers, the Taiwan National Normal University. Today, she works mostly with Eastern gouache painted on silk. Komi Chen's unique visual style blends Western realism with a modern Chinese sensibility. As a woman who has spent time in both the East and West, it seems natural that her works would reflect the visual styles of both traditions. Komi has won numerous awards including the Best in Show at the Murrysville, PA Art Festival (1981) and the Collector’s Award from the Murrysville Women’s Club Show (1981). She has exhibited at various venues including Pittsburgh Three Rivers Art Festival, Taipei Art Museum, the Taipei Oil Painting Society Annual Art Show, the East Gallery, the Howard Gallery, and the Chi-Hwa Art Center. Her work has been published and syndicated online, as well as licensed internationally for use in puzzles, annual reports, and other print publications.

Victor Coffield grew up and currently still lives in Berkeley even after trying NYC and Europe! Then, retiring from being a mail carrier in Oakland and raising four daughters he took up an old interest in painting and soon added sculpture. He has since "studied" at Laney College for a number of years. Vic loves dance and is attracted to the truths reveled in body language. He grew up on Disney, is enchanted by Daumier, awed by Beckman and loves the physical comedy of Jeoff Hoyle. He works to get that sense of rhythm in his paintings. He enjoys playing with shifting shades of color within a composition. Vic began work with sculpture in order to become more familiar with anatomy. It didn’t take long before he was in love with the way clay suggests, on its own, forms that are wonderfully suited for the body language that his figures desire. Since he worked most of his life, he has a strong desire to use his art to assail some of the political and social issues that corrupt our culture. Thus, much of his work is narrative. His works of social criticism are flavored with a healthy sense of the comic to aid digestion. Vic has had work included in juried shows at Berkeley Art Center and Pro Arts Gallery. He has had his paintings published in several magazines, and participated in a group show at Berkeley’s Fig Tree Gallery.

Marsha Dalmas, a lifelong resident of the Bay Area, followed her degree in art from the University of California at Berkeley with service in the Peace Corps in Africa. She then taught for thirty years at the French-American International School in San Francisco. Throughout these years, art was always her great love. Her current work finds its roots in her travel to dozens of countries on six continents. Her landscapes avoid a naturalistic palate and demonstrate an interest in unusual perspective and in the nuances of light and shadow. The artist says, “When traveling, I find myself captivated by a simple element in a new place, and I focus on its beauty as light and shadow play tricks with what stands before me. The thrill of a new culture, a new landscape and fresh color can’t be beat. Given what humanity is doing to the world, I feel compelled to capture moments and places that may be forever lost.” Dalmas has shown her work at the annual show of The Pastel Society of the West, at the Greenlining Institute and at East Bay Pro Arts” This Fall her work will be shown by the Pastel Society of America in their annual show at the National Arts Club in New York City.

Elizabeth Dante is a master artisan highly skilled in all aspects of casting and carving, Elizabeth works in numerous media such as bronze, aluminum, acrylics and other gypsum products: resins concrete, marble and various products.  While a gemologist living and traveling in Brazil, Panama and Southeast Asia, Ms. Dante attained an affinity for the Third World.  This ever-present influence has provided Dante with stylistic inspiration for works ranging from classic naturalism to stylistic narration.  Much of her work explores the dynamics between round organic forms and hard rigid angles.  By exaggerating this inter- play, her work creates a sense of tension that is both lively and sensual. Ms.Dante has said that her work combined ancient and modern rituals, extracting stylized motifs and archetypes. ”I pay homage to the many facets of the human sprit, characterized by warmth, humor and sometimes political commentary.” Although she possesses an academic background that includes the Gemological Institute of America, the San Francisco Art Institute, and the College of Marin, Ms. Dante remains essentially self-taught.  She has honed her craft by working for established sculptors most notably Ellio Benvenuto.  While an artist assistant to German artist Toni Bruchert in Pietra,Italy, Ms. Dante learned traditional techniques and methods for chasing bronze, patinas, casting methods, and marble carving.  Most recently as a patina artisan, Ms. Dante has  worked with Bay Area Artists Steven De Stabebler, Bruce Beasley, and Ruth Asawa.  Ms. Dante has exhibited in numerous shows in United States and Italy.  Her outstanding works have been showcased in collaborative efforts such as “Art on the Rock at Alcatraz”, and “The Day of the Dead” Exhibition at The Museum of Mexican Art.  In 1990, she received the prestigious Art of Peace Award from the Artist Embassy International for her sculpture “Woman's Liberation”, which was chosen by the Oakland Art Commission as a gift to Nelson Mandela and the people of South Africa.

Barbara de Groot started her artistic interests when she was in grade school. By the time she was a teenager and had devoured the book Lust For Life, a biography about Vincent van Gogh given to her by her nanny the dye was cast. She was drawing whenever the opportunity arose. In her early High school years she drew and painted from live models at the Brooklyn Museum Art School with Isaac Soyer, one of three brothers who worked with figurative imagery. She also was fortunate to study in High school with very talented and comprehensive artist/instructors. Much later in Berkeley, CA she joined a group of artists and drew weekly from live models for about 12 years. Barbara de Groot  is a local Berkeley Artist and teacher of art who works in various types of media such as monotypes;  Chine Colle with other media; Wood Block prints; Linoleum Block prints; Mixed Media Collage, as shown here;  Drypoint ;Transfer Methods; painting and drawing.  She was an Art Major in Hunter College in New York, where she learned basic printmaking under noted printmaker, Gabor Peterdi and later attended Academie Goetz in Paris, France where she learned many of her specialized printmaking skills. She also takes photos to capture inspirations for future paintings and prints and has developed her photographic skills as well and enters some of  her photographs in Around the Globe.  Her work is in many private collections and has appeared in many exhibits in various galleries here and abroad and is archived in the Women’s Museum in Washington, DC and in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Pam Fingado was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she continues to live and work today. Raised by parents who had both attended the San Francisco Art Institute, Pam developed an interest in art at an early age and by age ten had already won her first award in art. She attended the California College of Arts and Crafts on the 1980s where she began to focus on graphic arts and silkscreen. In 1984 she earned an art degree in printmaking from California State University at Hayward. She has exhibited for twenty years and in 2003 participated in the Biennale Internazionale Dell’ARTE Contemporanea in Florence, Italy. Over the last three years Pam has constructed over 150 paper figures.  This body of work follows a series of oil paintings in which she had reconstructed the figures of her ancestors by studying faded, torn and aged photographs. Among the figures Pam constructed is a group dressed in traditional folk garb representing a variety of different cultures.  Their poses, either in dance or repose is one way in which she learned about these cultures as a child. Like paper cuts they are decorative and superficial but significant in their relevance to how perception of a culture is developed. Dress, dance, craft and decoration can determine an initial perception of a single person or group.

Marin Fischer was born in New York City, attended City University and Brooklyn College in New York, and received her Bachelor and Master of Fine Arts degrees from Arizona State University. She now lives in Berkeley, California. Ms. Fischer is a nationally known painter and muralist. Her drawings and paintings have been shown at U.C. Berkeley, the Phoenix Art Museum, and galleries throughout the United States. Her murals can be seen on the Claremont Avenue underpass in Oakland, California, the O’Farrell Theatre in San Francisco, the Center for Independent Living in Berkeley, and various locations in Phoenix, Arizona. She has also been a teacher of art, murals, and theatre; a scenic artist--painting sets for the Lyric Opera Theatre at Arizona State University; and designed, built, and painted sets for a local theatre production of the rock musical “Hair.” Marin states: “ My watercolor paintings and colored pencil drawings of water/landscapes deal with the effects of light and shadow on smooth and textured planes, lines, and surfaces. These images are figurative reflections of the physical and emotional impact of light and color reflected onto the eye, and of the impact of civilization on our wild and beautiful earth; inspired by my impressions during the years I spent dazzled by the light of the American Southwest”. “Art is the creation of forms symbolic of human feeling.”—Suzanne Langer, Feeling and Form, 1952.

Susan Hall was born in Florida but has resided in the East Bay since age 5 and currently lives in Albany.  She earned a BA and MSW at UC Berkeley.  After 21 years as a juvenile probation officer, she retired in 1994 to pursue her life-long interest in art.  Her journey into painting began with watercolors in sunny Puerto Vallarta, Mexico where she hangs out for a month every winter.  More recently she has turned to oil painting and has taken art classes at Laney College.  She is a frequent world traveler.  During her travels to third world countries, she takes photos that are later used for inspiration in painting.  She searches out vibrant scenes when traveling and tries to translate the mystery and sparkle of the scene into a painting. She looks for a strong composition that captures an interesting pattern of light and dark or a pleasing combination of bright colors. When painting, she simplifies the shapes and eliminates distracting details while pushing the colors to intensify the impact of the scene. In the past she has focused on vistas and landscape.  More recently she includes people of the local culture into the scenes, engaged in their everyday activities. Her work has been shown in many restaurants, several galleries in the Bay Area and is on display year-round in a gallery in Puerto Vallarta.

Tsuneko Harashima lives in Japan but visits the Bay Area regularly to see her children who came here to study more than 13 years ago. She is an origami artist and a member of the Origami Association. There are many great origami artists in the United States. However, most do not have a full comprehension of the true nature of traditional Japanese origami. The crane is the most representative example of traditional origami.  Once or twice a month, Tsuneko continues to attend an origami class in Tokyo and she says that “all we learn is how to make cranes. Even with cranes, there are many variations such as crane boxes, crane decorations, crane flowers, and so on. The crane is called “kotobuki” which indicates happiness and longevity.  Two cranes attached at their wings indicate that they will be together forever, and it celebrates marriage. Thirteen years ago, in Japan, my town started an international exchange program.  We began receiving guests from San Francisco and Canada, and it made me so happy to give each guest a kusudama (an origami ball) and a crane to take back home with them. “  Tsuneko teaches origami when she is in the Bay Area and also teaches in Japan. In the USA, She participated in the Origami Exhibit at the Cherry Blossom Festival in Japan Town in San Francisco in 2005 and took third place at he El Cerrito Art Association’s Art show in 2006 and participated in the Berkeley Takarasake Craft Exhibition. In 2007, the Japanese Embassy in San Francisco, recently honored Tsuneko by presenting a show of Tsuneko’s works. Expressions Gallery is proud to present these same works as part of its current “Around the Globe Show”.

Denise Hart began painting the large flat rocks in front of her beached house at the lapping edge of British Columbia's rainforest when she was a young girl. The desire to make, create, and connect has never left her. Although the majority of her schooling has been focused on gaining a scientific understanding of the natural world and on a political understanding of how we manage and interact in it, and includes degrees in resource management and environmental planning, she has taken many classes in watercolors, drawing, painting, landscape architecture and design. Denise began to paint full-time in 2004, first in acrylics and more recently in oils. Her art is her response to her travels in the deserts, mountains and ocean environments of California and beyond. Painting is the means she uses to convey her strong connection to the wild places she loves  to visit. Denise particularly enjoys exploring color as a means to express her understanding and love of remote places. In 2006, Denise received an Honorable Mention for her painting “North of Saddlebag” in the Yosemite Renaissance XXI juried exhibition. She has also shown work in juried shows at the Sacramento Fine Arts Center, the Coastal Arts League Museum in Halfmoon Bay, the Alameda Arts Center and the Laredo Center for the Arts in Laredo, Texas. Denise has had work in Expressions Gallery's  holiday season Abundance and Joy show last year and in this spring's Amazing Bloom show. The paintings included in this show, “PNW Sea Cabins” and “On the West Coast of the Island” are homages to her British Columbian roots.

Melanie Hofmann graduated with a BFA in Textiles from the California College of the Arts in 1996. Her home and studio are located in Berkeley.  She first explored the joy of creating art in pre-school and she has not stopped since.  As a teenager Melanie fell in love with fiber art, specifically with weaving and dyeing fabrics. Melanie has received awards from the Taegu International Textile Design competition and from Manhattan Arts International.  Limited edition prints of her digital art are in the corporate collection of Lifescan, Inc. in Milpitas. Last year, Melanie had a solo exhibition of textiles in the corporate lobby of 255 California Street in San Francisco. Melanie works with both textile and digital media.  For this show, she is featuring her artwork on tile. Her work has been inspired by a number of artists including, Jean Miro, Rene Magritte and Magdalena Abakanowicz. She was also influenced by the artwork of her maternal grandmother, Zura Young, an abstract painter. Melanie seeks to convey through her work the interactive process with her media and a visual representation of her inner world.  In addition to her work in other mediums, she offers custom designed Italian charm bracelets with digital images of photos or art transferred to the charms using the same process that she uses to transfer images to tiles.

Roz Joseph's photographs have been exhibited and published since l978.  Her work has appeared in calendars, note cards, magazines and on the Web.  Her photographic book, 'DETAILS: The Architect's Art" with text by Sally B. Woodbridge, was published by Chronicle Books.  Her photos are in the corporate collections of IBM, Security Pacific Bank and Transamerica Corporation.  Roz’s work captures things we see everyday but often do not notice -- found art. She captures the image with her creative skill, with an eye for the richness of color and presents it in a way we can’t help but notice it. Her subject matter has varied over the years from natural subjects, to architecture, to festivals and celebrations and to detailing city scenes. She turns these images of everyday encounters with our world into modern abstractions.  Color is definitely a driving force in her photography. She says that she used to work primarily in Black and White when she lived in New York, but since having moved to bright and colorful California, color photography has become her prime medium.

Elizabeth Kavaler graduated from California College of Arts (CCAC) in Oakland, CA. with a Certificate of Applied Arts. She worked as an advertising artist and packaging designer in San Francisco and New York. After her three children started school, she took an evening class at CCAC in etching.  After only a few months, Elizabeth entered her first etching in a juried show with San Francisco Women Aritists  Her work was accepted and she won an award which encouraged her to continue with etching. In the ensuing years, she entered many juried shows throughout the United States.  Her technique of color landscape etchings is done on two etching plates in order to include many colors.  The etchings are inspired by her many travels to Europe and throughout California.  "There are too many negative and depressing happenings on Earth, and I feel that my artwork should rather express the pleasant and beautiful things in life and nature."

Joanna Katz is a long time resident of Berkeley.  She was born in Princeton, New Jersey, the daughter of a college professor and a poetess.  She spent her in teens in Ann Arbor, Michigan.  She has a B.A. in fine arts from the State University of Iowa, Iowa City where she became convinced of the importance of learning the techniques of realistic representation as a foundation on which to build.  She has used that foundation for interpreting many different subjects in many media.  She says, "My paintings and collages are of  things I love to look at and subjects that disturb me.  Recently my pleasure has been painting watercolor landscapes.  On the darker  side are my representations of litter and greenery in water based media."  Her work has been shown at many local venues including Levi Plaza, SOMAR both in San Francisco; ProArts Gallery, Oakland; Giorgi Gallery, Berkeley;  Richmond Art Center.  Also, she has shown at many venues outside the Bay Area.  An acrylic portrait by Joanna  was purchased by Washtenaw Community College, Ann Arbor, Michigan, another, including a panel of test she wrote were purchased by Chaparral House here in Berkeley.  For the past ten years, Joanna's sister and brother-in-law have been living in south eastern France near the small town of Lodeve.  Joanna enjoys visiting them.  The paintings in this show were done on her 2005 visit to France.

Jennifer Wallace Mack has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute.   She works in various media: painting, photography, mixed media, and jewelry. Her work is consistent in the quality and detail in each medium she applies.  She has exhibited at a number of solo,  and group shows, many of which were juried.  Shown at Expressions Gallery are her mixed media paintings and her magnificent jewelry.  Jennifer has served on various Board of Directors for long standing Artist Organizations such as the San Francisco Women Artists where she was a past President and continues n the current Board as Vice Treasurer and The San Francisco Gem and Mineral organization where she is currently Treasurer.

Leon McNeely, lives in El Cerrito, CA and grew up in Oakland, CA. He  purchased his first 35mm camera while stationed in Japan in 1954 and began taking pictures of his buddies and Japanese landscapes all in “Black& White”.On his return to the United States, he became his family’s photographer and started taking a few classes in Black &White photographer at Laney Jr. College. Sometime in the late 80’s he met a great photographer named Peter Pfersick, fell in love with his work and wanted to learn more about the art of photography. Peter owned the “Looking Glass” a well-equipped photo shop staffed by some very knowledgeable young people. The shop had a” Dark Room” that could be rented and Leon spent many hours there as well at U C Berkeley Extension where Peter taught classes. In October 1996, Leon had the good fortune to be in Washington D. C. for the Million Man March. He states “I shot many rolls of film that day and several were pretty good. I sold more than 200 copies of some them.” He work has been published in AARP publications and recently he had a “One Man Show” at EL Cerrito Public Library.

Dawn Ming lives in San Francisco. She was born and grew up in New York City. Her parents emigrated from China. A High School art teacher, Will Barnet influenced her most with his emphasis on design and the flat surfaces. She went to a junior college in N.Y. and also took classes at the Art Students League and afterwards went to Parsons School of Design where she studied Flat Design. For a short time she worked as a Colorist. She married and returned to college for a degree in Fine Arts at Ohio State University. While at Ohio State she won numerous competitions in painting. She continued to paint while bringing up a family in Long Island. Her paintings were exhibited at Avnet Galleries in Great Neck. She did semi abstract garden scenes, which I still do and abstracts. It was in San Francisco that she took up Printmaking a medium of which she is very fond. Her prints have won numerous awards. At the 4th World conference on Woman in Beijing, China, two of her etchings were selected and exhibited in Moscow and then traveled around the United States and are now in The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington DC. At the same time one of her prints was exhibited in the State Department.  Her monotype of Old San Francisco was selected for exhibition at the Yerba Buena Center for the Art’s in San Francisco. Her work can be seen at the San Francisco Women Artists Gallery, Oakland Museum Collector’s Gallery and currently at Expressions Gallery “Around the World” show. She states “My prints and paintings have found homes all over the world. My subject matter is things from nature or reflections of my Chinese heritage. I believe in bringing pleasure to the viewer. I admire the beautiful paper and the inks in printmaking and in my oil s there is the richness of the texture of the paint and colors.”

Maj-Britt Mobrand lives in Berkeley, CA but was born and grew up in Stockholm, Sweden.  As a little girl, she saw her grandmother’s loom in the attic and was very intrigued by it and knew she wanted to master one of those.  She has taken weaving classes both in Sweden and the U.S., but is for the most part self-taught.  She has been teaching weaving here in Berkeley since 1968 and has only sporadically been showing her art work. Some of the juried shows she has participated in are U.C. Berkeley and Live Oak Art Galleries in Berkeley (1969); Artist League of Vallejo Gallery (1975); Olive Hyde Art Gallery in Fremont (1988); and Pro Arts Gallery in Oakland (2006).  She has also participated in many Open Studios and has shown her work at various local venues and as a result has weavings in many private collections. Artist states:  “I enjoy using traditional weaves and patterns in a non-traditional manner and am striving to find a harmonious balance between the natural and the artificial or planned.  My inspiration is derived from music, nature, travels, and from my students.  It’s wonderful to see the enthusiasm of my students as they develop their projects on their looms after I’ve given them the ‘know how’.”

Julia L. Montrond lives in Berkeley. She grew up in New York City and was involved in all the arts: painting, acting, dancing & singing. She majored in Theatre arts at Hunter College and studied art at U.C. Berkeley, CCAC Extension, a studio in Florence, Italy & another in Guanajuato, Mexico, as well as numerous workshops in the Bay Area.  Painters she most admires: Turner, Sargeant, and most of the Impressionists.  About what inspires her, she says:  "I'm intrigued by the challenge of trying to capture the effect a scene or other subject has on me--of creating different moods; and of course the joy of working with color."   She works primarily in watercolor & has begun painting with oil.  Awards won in Art Shows include: Napa County Fair 2x.; El Cerrito Art show 3x, and being exhibited in numerous juried shows of: Marin County Art Fair; The Giorgi Gallery, Berkeley;  Shadelands Gallery, Walnut Creek; and the MTC Gallery, Oakland.

Tanja Nixx was born and raised in Hanover Germany. She made an apprenticeship in Graphic-design. In 1988 Tanja left Germany, to go to the Republic of the Congo, ended up living there for a while and then crossed Africa on the Congo-River, traveled through South East Asia and finally settled down in San Francisco. She started painting and drawing again, while making a living bartending. In 1993 she started to learn tattooing on her friends and bar patrons. In 1995 she was hired as an apprentice at the famous "Lyle Tuttle Tattoo" and promoted a year later as the manager and bought the shop in 2001. The same year (1995) she started to co-produce and act as one of the main characters, in the independent road movie called "Love Will Travel."  The film was featured in numerous film festivals in the US and Europe. In 2006 she finished a book about her travels to Africa called SLEEPING MY WAY THROUGH THE CONGO. Traveling to different countries in search for desolation and abandonment, she takes photos, which she uses as references for her paintings: “When I see old abandoned houses, they give me a sense of beauty, trust and warmth. Barrenness makes me wonder, where did the people go and why did they leave? They are unnoticed by most, but next to the monumental beauty, they give them character and making them shine.  This series is all about Mexico and Cuba and is done in oil on canvas.

Fletcher Oakes lives in the Bay Area and has always had an interest in social change and political movements. He states: “I was influenced in the late 50’s by the bleak portrait of this country presented in The Americans by Robert Frank.  In the 60’s, I studied photography at San Francisco State University with Jack Welpott, who referred to photography as a “personal quest”. This has informed my own work and has led me to explore many different aspects of the photographic realm. I have found some of my inspiration in nature, but have more often been inclined to make images that reflect the starkness and harsh realities of the urban environment. “ He began to explore the digital realm in 1995, when he entered the electronic art program at Cal State University, in Hayward, and started working with Adobe Photoshop. Since that time he has been using his photographs as a jumping off point to develop composite images that capture the essence of the 21st century. His images are very fluid, with many layers of meaning.

Udi Peled is a local artist whose work has been purchased for exhibit at the Berkeley Jazz School. In addition, his work adorns many a catalogue cover for UC Berkeley.  He has shown his art at various select galleries. Udi was born in Israel, and is now living permanently in the United States. Udi’s versatile works are a favorite amongst local art collectors. He is available for commissioned art works as well as the artworks that are displayed at Expressions Gallery as part of the current show.

Diego Marcial Rios lives in the Bay Area and paints in acrylics. He graduated with honors with an M.A. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Department of Fine Arts Graduate School and a B.F.A. from University of California at Berkeley. He received a number of honors scholarships for Academic study. His artwork illustrates many complex social-economic issues faced by contemporary society.  About his work he states: “I create art that is visually stimulating to gain initial viewer acceptance.  Once this is achieved, the viewer is confronted with ancient symbols of life and death.”  The figures and landscapes in the art are inspired by what I have experienced and later dreamed about. Diego’s work has been widely shown throughout the United States and Mexico and he is in a number of Museum Collections: The Auchenbach Foundation Collection at the Palace of the Legion of Honor Museum in San Francisco, Coos Art Museum, Coos Bay, Oregon; Laguna Beach Museum, Laguna Beach, Ca.; Museo National De La Estampa, Mexico City, Mexico, etc.. He has also illustrated a number of books and his work is part of a number of Public Collections: Harriet Taubman Gallery, MD; Mission Cultural Center, SF; The Collector Gallery of the Oakland Museum, Oakland, Ca.; Irish Arts Council, Belfast, Ireland and many more.  He has appeared as a speaker on Art and been interviewed on Television. His artwork has been included in many magazines.

Linda Mori-Roberts grew up in Los Angeles and now resides in Pinole. Since childhood, she has loved making things. She took art classes in college, then while working in management. During completion of her Graphic Design Certificate at UC Berkeley Extension, she studied watercolor with Glenn Hirsch. Initially she was interested in illustrating children’s books in watercolor. Later she studied with Annette Goldberg at the Richmond Art Center. Her passion for watercolor now keeps her learning on her own. She loves the transparency and fluidity that watercolor can yield and experiments with different degrees of wet into wet. “I strive to attain rich, intense colors while maintaining transparency. Watercolor painting keeps me in the present moment. I feel freer painting loosely and creating impressions. It's a challenge for me to have a planned outcome while keeping things spontaneous and fresh.” Linda has shown her paintings at the Richmond Art Center, Rendezvous Café, Rosa Maria Café and Bucci’s Restaurant. She has exhibited with the Pinole Artisans at the Garden Of Gems, the Pinole Marketplace and the Pinole Public Library.

Zona Sage is a prize-winning, globe-trotting photographer who lives in Oakland.  In her extensive travels she focuses her photography on the people and cultural expressions of the places she visits. Photographers she admires include Tina Moldatti, Diane Arbus and Phil Borges. This series of  beauty salons (and one barber shop) are in rural Dominican Republic.

Susana Scarborough has always loved the land and the outdoors. Painting landscapes and still life is one of her primary joys. Expressing the essence of the landscape and interpreting the light, the color and the emotional content of her subject is that for which she strives.  Scarborough says, "I enjoy experiencing the warmth or the coolness of the California landscape.  There is a sense of the heat in the dry grassy hillsides while wondering how the cattle tolerate the heat. Then there is the coolness and color of the bay waters. It's exciting and fascinating. In my paintings, I try to capture all of this."  Born and raised in Yorkshire, England and a resident of Montclair, in Oakland, for over 20 years, Scarborough is equally at home painting the Yorkshire Dales or local Bay Area scenes. Scarborough was formerly in nursing including hospice work. This made her appreciate how precious live is and what beautiful surroundings we live in. She has studied with several artists including Anthony Holdsworth, and Ning Hou; and has attended workshops of William Scott Jennings and Ian Roberts.

Helene Sobol was drawn to photography at an early age and developed a special interest in travel photography. She studied at the University of Oslo, Norway, the University of  Hawaii and received her B.A. in Art history from U. C. Berkeley.  She also took photography classes and studied darkroom techniques.  She established Images of the North, a gallery in San Francisco specializing in Inuit Art and retired in 2004 to pursue her longtime interest in photography and to develop collections for future exhibitions. Helene’s photography is versatile and includes people, animals, architecture, landscapes and close-ups of nature. Inspired by the beauty of nature and flowers in particular, her images often reveal details that make for compelling and painterly compositions, some naturalistic, some abstract.  In 2004, she introduced “The Bark Series”, a collection of close-up images of tree bark, at the Botanical Garden Library in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. In the spring of 2006, she presented “Memories and Moods – Norway Revisited “ at the Nordid Heritage Museum in Seattle, Washington. http://www.HeleneSobol.com.

Chaya Spector was born in The Bronx, New York in 1950. She is a self taught Photographer and mixed media artist living in Oakland. She began shooting in the early 70’s with an Olympus OM1 but has more recently been shooting with Canon SLR digital equipment using natural light. Nature has been a primary source for her images, being drawn in by the many colors and textures. She fills her frame with both lushness and simplicity. Chaya has shown her work in Ithaca New York, SF and Oakland having had pieces at the California Modern Gallery in SF, State of The Art Gallery in Ithaca, NY, The Napa Library, Go West, Richmond Art Center and SomArts, as well as various cafes in the bay area. Her images add a depth of color and vision to this show highlighting Around the Globe. You can see more of her work at : www.redeyephotos.com and www.cittiproject.org

Denise D. Stansfield is a native of Santa Cruz, California has been devoted to the creation of fine art since childhood with her first show at age 9. She was an Art Major at Humboldt State College and continued through the Graphic Design Program at UCSC. Denise has traveled around the Globe Painting & Illustrating colorful images capturing moments in life while on assignment as Contributing Editor, Travel Photographer & Graphic Designer. Her articles feature sustainable practices in tourism that raise the consciousness of how we live and travel. Her work has been presented before the Presidential Cabinet of the White House and she has received outstanding recognition for her designs and illustrations including a series of wine labels for the former Beatles member, Sir Paul McCartney. Her canvases have no limit when designing stage sets and illustrating back drops for National TV and Broadway Shows. Denise continues to be instrumental in creating award winning concepts, designs and images that have grown to international status.  Oil Pastel Series: Santa Cruz, Nayarit, Mexico. “D.Stansfield's talent is unmatched but it is her dedication and heart that makes her work truly priceless”

Jeff Tarbell currently lives in Berkeley, CA., after surviving more than a decade of Midwestern summers and winters. Born in Washington, D.C., Mr.Tarbell's artistic career began modestly enough with an "honorable mention" in a Washington Evening Star cartoon contest. Although Mr. Tarbell went on to create artwork throughout his life, he took up oil painting rather recently, after a multi-year hiatus. He is largely self-taught, although he did once receive a lesson on how to draw a truck from a Sunday school teacher who drove a tank during World War II, a fact that seemed much more interesting to Mr. Tarbell than anything they were talking about in Sunday school. The artist prefers working in oils as opposed to working in acrylics or watercolors, as watercolors require an almost iron resolve which the artist finds completely lacking in his character. Plus, let's face it, oil paint smells great. Seriously, when the artist returns to his studio after stepping out for a coffee or something, he really enjoys being greeted by the smell of oils and turpentine, which seem to call out to him with an almost siren-like insistence. As far as subject material goes, Mr.Tarbell enjoys creating compositions which appeal to his sense of deep perspective, as well as to color and form. The two paintings of the buildings are from Commerford Lane, a delightful little back alley located in San Francisco. The paintings of the trucks were inspired by real Internet ads; the composition and perspective being happy accidents. Mr.Tarbell is a left-handed water dragon and is currently employed in the Bay Area as a graphic artist.

Tom Tuthill was born in Middleton, N.Y., 1942. He attended Orange Community College in Middleton, N.Y., where he received an A.A.S degree in1963. He was strongly influenced by Dadaism and Surrealism. He was included in the following shows in the Bay Area: “Inherited Image: Variations in Collage,” Allrich Gallery, S.F. 1991; “Testing the Market,” a juried exhibition, Untitled Gallery, S.F. 1992; “What’s in a Word,” Gallery Concord, Concord, CA 1995; one-man show “Fin de Siecle Postcards,” A Selected Retrospective, 2C Arts, S.F. 1999; “Art & Poetry at the Lake,” Lakeview Branch Library, Oakland, CA 2007. He states: “My work is the pure product of intuitive juxtaposition. I choose to work on postcards first of all because of the scale. I like an intimate miniature art that the viewer must approach and contemplate and because postcards are one of the great visual clichés of the print era. I recompose the iconography of art, science, history, literature, etc., intuitively juxtaposed to punch holes in time/space and cause the viewer to see anew all the old hats on the hat racks of image.”

Lawanda Ultran lives in Berkeley California.  She was born Oklahoma, and grew up in California. She became interested in art to express herself. Her brother was the natural artist in the family, and it was his influence that gave her the courage to pursue artistic interests, which ranged from music, to clay, to painting. She traveled in Europe and states: “I saw at first hand the magnificence of Rembrandt, Picasso, and all the painters that touched me, making me hope that I could speak the same language”. She graduated in art from Berkeley, and has taken many workshops and courses. She sas: “My statement is stolen from a great poet.  ‘This shaking keeps me steady this I know. I go by going where I have to go.’ "

André S. Wagner was born in 1980 in Burgstädt, Germany. Trained as a photographer, he creates unique photographs of landscapes of his travels around the world. The photographs in this show are taken in India, Spain, Eastern Europe and New Zealand. The pictures are composed by means of long-term exposure and in some cases, the help of a fire-artist. His fascination is with light and the landscape. He photographs the natural movement of light and also creates light with fire kept under control. The fire artist wanders through riverbanks spinning a fireball at the end of a long baton. With long-term exposure, the fire appears to be dancing in circular patterns through the landscape producing a surrealistic effect of energy that when combined with the rotation of the earth as Andre puts it “leads man to delve into the mystic knowledge down deep in his soul.” Andre has entered prestigious competitions and has won several distinguished prizes. Perhaps the one of which he is most proud is the International contest 13 Hasselblad Austrian Super Circuit where he won a gold medal and thirteen recognitions. His work has been published in a book, in many magazine and other publications and in art catalogues. His unique gift is the sensual way of perceiving the surroundings. With his photographs he shares theses with us. As David Hernández de la Fuente, Author and Poet, Spain states, “The real journey is that of a man who is thirsty to travel towards his own center who leaves an unforgettable impression on the retina of a new view of the world and its elements."

Sarah Whitecotton's interest in Art began in her formative years. She went to private schools and immersed herself in fine arts and theater. Her formal training began at the University of Miami, where she was nurtured under the wing of Eugene Masson an influential teacher who encouraged her to pursue a career in painting.  In her sophomore year she spent the summer in Oaxaca, and Mexico City where she became familiar with the Mexican muralists and most significantly Rufino Tamayo.  She continued her training at the University of Oklahoma, where she completed her B.F.A and later moved to California in the late 70's and took additional classes at San Francisco Art Institute and CCAC. In the late 70's and 80's she worked in casein and acrylic. Her paintings are large color fields basically abstract. She was also taking classes in printing in San Francisco and learning various techniques in different workshops around the Bay Area.  In the late 80's she developed Epstein Barr and had to give up working with chemicals. She switched to working with Monotypes and eventually stopped printing altogether to concentrate on her painting and in mid 90's started working with Collage. She states: "In all my art, especially from the 90's on I am expressing my life and communicating how I see and feel about the world around me."  She has received various awards and recognitions at the University Of Oklahoma, Sebastopol Center for the Arts, Art Exchange (national juried exhibition), Art in the Redwoods(Gualala), Arts Benicia, U.C.S.F.(extension).

Elizabeth Williams is a Connecticut native and Berkeley resident who is passionate about the arts and humanities.  A published author in several anthologies (Alyson Books’ Heatwave, Skin Deep, and Electric), she holds a B.S. in Mass Communication, magna cum laude, from Boston University and an M.B.A. Certificate, awarded with distinction, from the University of California, Berkeley. Elizabeth’s career in marketing and fund raising spans the arts and higher education, including positions with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Ansel Adams Center for Photography, the American Conservatory Theater, the Bay Area Women’s Philharmonic, the University of California (Berkeley and Davis campuses), and Stanford University. Her artistic inspirations derive primarily from artists associated with Minimalism and Conceptualism.  Elizabeth currently works in digital color photography.  Her photographic works have been featured in group shows at the Ft. Mason Art Center, the Herbst Pavilion, and the Southern Exposure Gallery, all located in San Francisco, and at the Berkeley Art Center and Expressions Gallery in Berkeley.  About her photography, she states, “I use the medium to re-appropriate and re-contextualize images in our material world, throwing into question habitual points of reference.  I explore the subjectivity of perception, and thus reality, and leave interpretations of meaning to the viewer.

Leslie Winokur began her art career in the 1970s as a ceramic artist working in porcelain and sold and exhibited nationally, appearing in venues such as the Hartford Art School, Hartford, CT, and the Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY.  Later, while pursuing a career in education and raising a family, Winokur studied botanical drawing and watercolor painting. Gardens and travel sparked her interest in photography, which led to the production of a body of work manipulated in Photoshop. In addition to photographic work, Winokur paints. Her work has been exhibited in many juried shows. Two paintings were purchased by Alameda County for its permanent collection, and in April she was awarded second place in the abstract painting category in a juried show at the Art Museum of Los Gatos.
Winokur says the following regarding her pieces in the current Expressions Gallery show. “The work presented here was inspired by a recent trip to Italy. While visiting the 1900-year-old ruins of Pompeii and the Villa Oplontis, I was struck by the beauty and familiarity of the flora and fauna images on their frescoed walls. I photographed images that appealed to me, unsure of how I would incorporate them into my work.  When I returned from Italy, the news was filled with stories about the shrinking number of birds in our environment.  In response, I began working on bird portraits, most of them based on local California species. Ultimately, I began a series of collages combining the bird portraits with imagery from the ancient frescoes I photographed.”

Jessica Wishard grew up in Santa Cruz California where she found a passion for the arts at a young age. After attending a high school program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she went on to pursue art more seriously. Jessica attended Mills College where she emphasized in oil painting and photography and had the opportunity to work under artists Hung Liu and Catherine Wagner. She holds a B.A. in Fine Arts and a double minor in Art History and Cultural Anthropology.  Jessica is “endlessly inspired by cultures from around the world,” and draws ideas from her travels to Mexico, Central America, Asia, and Europe. Jessica currently lives and works in the Bay Area and continues to create in mainly oil paint and photography.