Gulu Artist Alumni

Laura Niemi Young - www.lauraniemiyoung.com
June 2010

Pix from the Gulu show

Art Opening takes place on Thursday June 17 at 7PM. Music by The Scott Ouellette Trio to follow.

Laura Niemi Young is a new resident of Salem who has a BA in Studio Art from Clark University, and who is in the process of obtaining her MA in Art Therapy and Mental Health Counseling at Lesley University. The work presented in this show is a collection of images created toward the end of her first-year art therapy and counseling internship.

When creating these paintings, Laura was thinking about the opportunities she has had to be a witness to individuals’ resilience after difficult challenges. In this series, the different paintings either balance each other, or contain their own internal polarities, which speaks to how coping often seems beautiful and contradictory. Like the performers, acrobats, captives, and explorers in these works, we all, at times, are called upon to use our abilities to simultaneously embody both grace and strength, to be intensely conscious and also amuse and surprise ourselves, and generally, to negotiate with our pain and difficulties, and transform them into a more reflective hardiness. Hopefully, these paintings capture a bit of the wonder of the little feats that people achieve against the odds everyday.

Brian Donnelly - http://munkybunny.deviantart.com
May 2010

Art Opening featuring music by Dr. Nemo Spaceman and the Legion of Superclowns!
Thursday May 13 - Art Opening at 7PM | Music at 8PM

Pix from the Gulu show

At birth, my parents named me Brian Donnelly. My father, who was a middle-school history teacher, taught me to read before nursery school. I found, that if I wanted to learn something, all I had to do was read about it. This was much to the detriment of my grade school teachers, who seemed to have dubious itineraries for me. This continued in a steady decline through junior-high, where the "Little Napoleon" in me fought the system by refusing to play their reindeer games. As the dark curtain of wolves and crows descended upon me in the form of bullies, detentions and curfews, I escaped into a world populated with monsters, super-heroes, and naked women. I would surface momentarily to explain my travels to people around me. As time went on I traveled to darker and more mysterious places. Places not written about directly. Places hinted at on stone walls and collective dreams. Still, to this day, I travel and surface, honing my skills of tone in order to communicate these patterns and forms that lie just below our waking life. I am now, as you see me, as I always have ever been- A Searcher For The Infinitely Elusive Truth.

Love,
Brian Donnelly

Dan Nolan
April 2010 - Pix from Gulu-Gulu Show
www.DanNolan.com

Dan Nolan is a self-taught artist based in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. A dabbler in several mediums and styles (yielding work such as his graphic novel – Business Casual Stag Devil Death Boy), Dan always returns to oil paints. While most of his time is spent on dog, baby, and grandma portrait commissions, he’s recently been channeling New England’s baseball fever, producing this series of baseball paintings.

More of his work can be seen on his website, www.dannolan.com and he can be reached via email at dan@dannolan.com or phone/text at 857-719-6091.

Cambridge Community TV Interview: part 1 | part 2

Glenn Church
March 2010 - Gulu's Art Show
www.artreview.com/profile/GlennChurch

Artist Statement:
'My work combines a passion for sound and its visual counterpart. I am interested in how these two disciplines combine to create a ‘total’ and immersive psychological experience, both discordant and harmonic. To this end I utilize a multimedia approach to creating art, an expression of philosophical, spiritual, social and psychological reactions to the 'personal' engagement with the world; both the 'seen' and the 'unseen'. My experience of multimedia includes scale models, lighting, installation, graphic design and sound to create the desired immersive psychological experience. I have exhibited both with sound/visual Installation art, video and printed media in London, New York, Europe, Australia, the Far East, and worldwide. As well as a multimedia art project, I also write and produce experimental music under the title of Neophyte Capsule.

The images for this exhibition were constructed using a hybrid of digitally drawn insect anatomy; their intention to highlight the inter-connectivity, interdependence and infrastructure between the human and insect societal systems despite our primal fears of them.

After being born and raised in the UK, I moved to North America in 2006, first living in New York, and then in Salem where I currently live and work.'

Karen Hallion
February 2010
Facebook | Twitter | DeviantART | Etsy

Karen Hallion grew up in Nahant, Massachusetts where she spent many summers exploring rocky beaches and swimming in the ocean. Karen began pursuing Art as a student at Swampscott High School and after graduating in 1992 attended Ringling School of Art and Design in Sarasota, Florida. She graduated in 1997 with a B.F.A. in Illustration. Karen taught full-time elementary school Art in Swampscott from 2003-2009. Currently, she teaches one day a week at the Hathaway School, also in Swampscott, and is enrolled in a Masters in Art Education program at Salem State College.

Karen's work has always centered around a general theme of Fantasy, with a specific focus on mermaids. She is heavily influenced by the Art Nouveau movement, and Alphonse Mucha. Lately, she has been painting mermaids on driftwood found on the beaches of north-shore Massachusetts.

Karen currently lives in Marblehead, with her husband Matt, their son Ryan, and their dog, Tolkien.

Click here to see pix of Karen's newest work.

Jennifer Lewis
www.mio.8k.com