Author: Mary W

Kerstin Roolfs doesn’t make work that fades into the background. Her paintings are bold in scale and unapologetic in content. Working primarily in oil on canvas, she leans into heavy subjects—myth, gender, politics, physical difference, and the weight of history. Her pieces aren’t meant to decorate. They’re meant to start conversations. To provoke. To hold the viewer in place and not let go. Originally from Germany, Roolfs studied fine art in Berlin before crossing the Atlantic in 1994. She landed in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, back when it was still a rough-edged hub of artists and raw possibility. In 2016, she relocated…

Emma Coyle has been immersed in the visual language of Pop for over twenty years—but she’s never just followed its rules. Originally from Ireland and living in London since 2006, her work draws energy from the bold aesthetics of 1960s American Pop Art. But she doesn’t recreate that style—she recasts it. Coyle’s paintings are anchored in the present, built from fragments of modern advertising, filtered through her practiced hand. Her 2022 solo show The Best Revenge at Helwaser Gallery in New York grabbed attention for that exact reason. The exhibition was listed 12th on GalleriesNow’s ranking of the most popular…

Stormie Steele didn’t come into art through the front door. No formal training. No academic blueprint. Her creative path is rooted in something quieter and more personal—years of inner work, reflection, and a deep connection to spirit. As a self-taught artist, writer, and healing arts guide, Steele doesn’t separate her art from her life. The way she lives and the way she paints come from the same place—intentional, intuitive, and full of listening. Her work isn’t trying to impress. It doesn’t shout for attention. Instead, it unfolds slowly, with a softness that asks you to pause. There’s no perfection being…

L. Scooter Morris’s paintings don’t just hang—they press forward. They reach into your space, ask things of you. Built with rough textures, shifting surfaces, and sculpted layers, her works are less about visuals and more about experience. Morris calls herself a sensory illusionist, and it’s easy to see why. Her pieces invite movement, contemplation, and touch. They’re not passive objects; they’re invitations. What motivates her isn’t polish or perfection. It’s the need to tell the truth—especially the hard, uncomfortable kind. Morris’s work opens space to sit with contradiction, with what we’ve buried, ignored, or rewritten. Her goal isn’t to simplify.…

Natali Antonovich didn’t come to painting with grand gestures or showy ideas. Her work doesn’t shout—it listens. Over time, she’s developed a quiet, thoughtful approach to art, one shaped by her lifelong attention to the small and the meaningful. She’s someone who notices things—how light moves across a face, how silence fills a room. That sensitivity shaped her path through various creative forms—graphic work, portraiture, batik, and years of teaching. But it’s in oil and watercolor that she seems most at home. These mediums let her slow down, let her think, and speak through the brush. For Antonovich, painting is…

Katerina Tsitsela doesn’t paint the outside world. She paints what’s going on underneath. Her work is driven by mood, by perception, by the way emotions take shape inside the body. Based in Greece, she works in both painting and engraving, moving fluidly between the two. What stays constant is her focus on the inner landscape. “Internal landscapes,” she calls them—states of mind translated into color, gesture, and space. Less about what you see, more about what you sense. Her art isn’t about telling a story. It doesn’t unfold in steps or offer neat conclusions. Tsitsela is more interested in what…

Helena Kotnik treats painting as a form of questioning. With training from both Barcelona University and the Akademie der bildende Künste in Vienna, and a Master’s degree that deepened her conceptual approach, she uses her work to examine—not embellish. She pulls from art history, cultural cues, and private emotion, not to repeat them, but to break them apart and look inside. Her art isn’t about making statements. It’s about creating space where meaning can unfold slowly. Her 2025 painting Friends revisits American Gothic, but not in the usual way. Rather than parody or quote the original, Kotnik uses it as…

Art, for William Schaaf, has never been about surface beauty. It’s been a way to work things out—spiritually, emotionally, and physically. At 80, he’s still showing up to the studio. Still molding forms from bronze, layering pigment on canvas, and watching the spirit of the horse move through each piece. Schaaf has spent over six decades with the horse as a central figure—not as a literal image, but as a symbol. The horse, in his hands, becomes a carrier of memory, a spiritual force. His connection to Zuni and Navajo fetish traditions runs deep—not for imitation, but to honor the…

Clint Anthony makes art like it’s a conversation with himself. When words fall short, he turns to paint. His work—rooted in abstract expression and modern design—is less about ideas and more about emotional presence. After more than 20 years in New York City, he returned to Australia with a deeper sense of how to channel inner life into visual form. In New York, he studied performance at The Lee Strasberg Theatre and painting at The Art Studio NYC, curating exhibits at The Gershwin Hotel along the way. It was a long stretch of experimentation, learning, and creative collaboration. Since coming…

Montreal-born in 1964, Adamo Macri isn’t easily boxed in. His education at Dawson College spanned everything from commercial art to art history, photography to fine arts. That broad mix didn’t just shape his skillset—it shaped his entire way of working. Macri doesn’t commit to one form. He moves across sculpture, video, painting, and drawing. But photography has become a kind of anchor, or at least a recurring container, for his ideas. And what he’s after isn’t just how something looks—but how it reads. Words matter in his work. He treats language like raw material, loaded with hidden meanings and cultural…