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August Issue 2007
Bart Shigeru Uchida
Bart Shigeru Uchida, a third generation Japanese Canadian, born in Vancouver, Canada, has lived in Boston, MA since 1982. Bart is a visual and performing artist who has been creating work in the US, Canada, Europe and Asia since 1972. Initially trained in Italy to carve stone, his work has evolved to include mixed media, large-scale installations, performance art, collaborations and public art. He has participated in several international sculpture symposia and has exhibited his works in Western Europe, Macedonia, Japan, Taiwan, Canada and the U.S. Uchida has created many collaborative performance works involving established performance artists, composers and poets. He has also served as Project Director for the Boston-Tainan Art & Urban Design Cultural Exchange (Boston, MA and Tainan, Taiwan) and as Project Coordinator for "The Unifying Gift," a US-Macedonia cultural exchange. Uchida has taught numerous college-level art classes, and his works can be found in the collections of the City of Boston, Museum of Contemporary Art (Macedonia), the Texas Department of Highways, the City of Hamburg (Germany) and the Museo d'arte Moderno in Italy, among others. He has served as artist-in-residence for projects in Madeconia, Japan, Germany, Taiwan, Canada and across the United States.
Nora Valdez is an Argentine artist working and exhibiting since 1977. In 1982, she graduated from the College of Fine Arts (Mercedes San Luis, Argentina) with the title of Professor of Fine Arts. She continued her studies in Italy, Spain and Boston, MA. Her work has been exhibited in a variety of venues in Argentina, Peru, Brazil, Italy, Spain, Germany, Greece, Japan, Canada and the United States, including numerous international sculpture symposiums.
From the beginning, Valdez has utilized sculpture and installations to create images that reflect on the nature of change, the life of the individual and the natural or societal forces that buffet our souls. She believes that art belongs to the people, and for the past several years has focused on creating Public Art pieces and monumental sculpture. Her thematic concerns are also reflected in her involvement with the community: Art becomes not just a way to explore issues of human rights, but to have a direct effect on them as well.
Valdez is the recipient of many awards and she has been selected and appeared in numerous publications, including "Who's Who in the World" since 2001, "Sculpture Magazine" in 2003 for her work "The Journey" and the art history book "La pintura y La Escultura en San Luis". Her work has received funding from a variety of public and private institutions including the National Endowment for the Arts, the New England Foundation for the Arts and different arts councils in Georgia, Texas and Massachusetts.
For further info visit (www.noravaldez.com).
Belgian sculptor Paty Sonville studied sculpture at the Brussels Art School, and is now a teacher herself in stone and bronze. Working mainly in stone and metal, she has exhibited her sculpture in Belgium and abroad. Sonville took part in artistic exchanges in Quebec, France, and Denmark. She was also commissioned for a monumental sculpture by the town council of Berchem Sainte-Agathe, Brussels. In 2001, Sonville was awarded the "Prize of Sculpture and Relief" by the Royal Academy of Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Brussels. In 2003 and 2005, she organized the sculpture symposium of Les Avins-en-Condroz.
Paty Sonville
It is along the winding paths of the relations between being and nature that Sonville leads her artistic searches. Working on heavy, rough materials, she refines these into intense, dense, and yet lighthearted, representations. Sometimes an empty space surprises us where a solid mass was expected, or a hard material is given sensuously shapely curves. Using such paradoxes, the sculptor talks about the role and place of the individual in the making of reality. Sonville invites us to explore the poetry of the forms and what they refer to. She puts us in a position in-between untouched nature, and the way it is modified, or even "recreated" by the human hand. Sonville's choice to work a particular material depends on the idea she wants to develop, and the possibilities that particular materials offers to her. As she considers that a sculpture belongs to a space that is open to the public, she gives a great importance to the work of monumental sculpture.
For more info visit (http://members.lycos.fr/patysonville/).
Persi Narvaez Machicao is a Peruvian artist born in Lima in 1963. He graduated from the "Escuela Nacional Superior Autonoma de Bellas Artes del Peru" in 1996 with the Silver Sedal.
Persi Narvaez Machicao
Machicao has a vast experience doing individual and group shows, nationally and internationally, winning numerous awards and distinctions for his artistic endeavors.
In his work Machicao expresses his culture: Lima and its ancestors, the quotidian as well as the historic. He draws on the Pre-Colombian Culture so characteristic of Peru, representing both the mundane and the magic life of his society.
Machicao is able to express his feelings through an intense range of luminous colors that explode in fragments evoking an extraordinary vision of the artist's own passionate space. His work is rich in detail. His Linear constructions give a sense of movement creating a poetic image of his Peruvian world.
As a sculptor, Machicao uses the imagery and icons from his paintings, his interest in negative and positive space and his mastery of intricate detail to translate his vision into three dimensional works in wood. Those works are then painted with the same chromatic range of his two dimensional work.
For more info visit (www.novica.com/itemdetail/index.cfm?pID=114346).
Toomas Altnurme
Toomas Altnurme, born in Estonia in 1973, is a freelance artist, sculptor, and art teacher working in a variety of media: painting, drawing, sculpture wood, stone, metal, plastic, silicone, installation, performance art, drums, photo, computer and video art. In 1994 and 1995, Altnurme received a UNESCO scholarship to attend the Rajamangala University, Faculty of Fine Arts in Bangkok, Thailand. In 1996, he toured the US as part of the cultural exchange program "Up with People". Graduating from the Tallin Pedagogical University, Faculty of Fine Arts in Tallin, Estonia in 1997, Altnurme went on to study language at the Kyonghee University in Korea. From there he studied sculpture and installation at the Seoul National University and received an MFA in 2001 in painting at the Hongik University in Seoul, Korea.
Altnurme has exhibited his work in numerous countries and participated in sculpture symposiums in Costa Rica, Chile, Brazil, Estonia, South Korea, Thailand, Canada, Germany, Lithuania, Russia, Taiwan, Denmark, France, and England, His work can be found in the Estonian Art Museum, Tartu (Estonia) Art Museum, Rajamangala (Thailand) Art Museum, Hongik University Museum, as well as sculpture parks in Chile, England and Brazil and private collections the world over.
Altnurme offers the following statement, "In every culture there seems to be something deep and wordless, something that escapes language and confinement. My art is for everyone anywhere, who is able to go beyond words. I am looking for the answer by searching for meaning through color and shapes. I hope that my inner world, which has been expanding by various media and techniques, may form a global language that can bridge cultural differences, promote greater understanding and tolerance, which will help to make the world a better place. The more you become aware of your unknown self, the more you realize that all there is, is inseparably connected with everything else that is. The artist as a magician has visions about existence and my personal experience as an artist has led me to know, that the creation involved in colors, shapes and motions in space, is a highly powerful and Sacred Way. The process is a dynamic condition of balanced movement, that brings along the need for peace in the world, love in relationships, harmony in the universe and complete freedom in artistic expression."
For further info visit (www.art-altnurme.com).
Matthew Terry grew up in Paris, France and currently resides in Massachusetts. He holds a BFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, MA, along with a BFA from Tufts University and has studies with the Friedel Dzubas Master Class and at the Academie de la Grand Chaumiere in Paris.
Matthew
Terry
Terry's artwork has been featured at the Cathedral of St. John the Devine in New York City, the Federal Reserve Bank, Boston City Hall and Boston Symphony Hall, among many other places. He has received the Artist's Foundation Painting Fellowship and the Dana Pond Award. At present, Terry is the owner of M. Terry Design Co., where he specializes in consulting, custom painting, furniture and fine carpentry.
David Sanders, a Sumter, SC, native and resident, describes his work as "in constant transition". He is the owner of K-Sands Artist's Co-op, has worked for the SC Arts Commission, as an art instructor at Morris College & Sumter School District 17, and is also the owner of the Manning Avenue Free Studio. Sanders completed a BA at Morris College and has studied at the Pratt Institute of the University of South Carolina.
David
Sanders
Sanders' project for the Symposium, "Portal of enlightenment: constantly pondering the human stigma of opposing forces..." is described as "cubistic" in approach. Sanders states, "The pathless journey towards understanding and appreciation of each individual's sojourn upon the planet can only be found through thought/that level of thought would lead to the mental portal/the portal of enlightenment."
"The work that I will create, like everything else on the planet, is in constant flux/transition," adds Sanders. "The work finds its initial form in the figurative sketch of two figures in position of dominance and subjugation/characteristics which mankind must eliminate before enlightenment. The piece will be constructed/carved/sculpted from planks of 2' x 12' cedars, all forms originating from within a pyramid with a base of approximately eight feet and an apex of approximately 12 feet. A mobile will extend from the apex to the center of the final form."
Emil Adamec was born in 1972 in Frydek-Mistek, Czech Republic. He studied at the School of Fine Art in his home town (1991-93). Later he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague (1993-1997) studying conceptual-media art, monumental art in landscape and sculpture. At the same time, Adamec studied engineering of living environment at Czech Technical University in Prague. In 1997, he finished his undergraduate studies at the Academy of Fine Art in Prague and other universities. Adamec received his masters degree in 2001 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, followed by the study of Chinese Astrology, Daoism and Feng Shui in Prague. From 1999 to 2001, Adamec traveled through China while studying ancient Chinese Sculpture. In 2002, he was accepted to the TAMA Art University on Research Studies in Japan.
Emil Ademec
Adamec has participated in numerous sculpture symposiums since 1999 in Austria, China, Czech Republic, Brazil, New Zealand, Greece, United Arab Emirates, and United States, winning prizes and critical acclaim.
For more info visit (www.emil-adamec.com).
Joint Sculptures: Nora Valdez and Matthew Terry:
Existing sculptures already on site:
Frank Holder ---------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Williams
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