Contemporary

Jane Slivka transplanted to beautiful Mount Dora, Florida in 2004. Originally from Ohio, she often dreamed of the ocean and wrote poems about the scenes she now creates for all of us to enjoy. Jane takes her viewers on a journey through layers of acrylic paint on over sized canvases to discover a world beyond what a picture could possibly capture.



Originally, Jane mastered the artistry of watercolor. Focused on this medium, she attended Endicott Junior College in Boston, Massachusetts, graduated from Ohio University with a degree in Art Education, and studied for a semester in Florence, Italy. The day Jane decided to try acrylics, she felt absolutely liberated!! Since that moment, she has been exploring, teaching, and motivating others to express artistically through painting with acrylics.

Jane Slivka now discovers new inspirations for her portfolio every day at the beaches in sunny Florida, from her love of people and culture, and through the play of shadow and light on old buildings. A truly gifted artist, she brings paint to life with ease and elegance.


Doreen Hardie's landscapes and people scenes, done in an impressionistic style, reflect her deep faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and the beauty He created in the world around her. Doreen works primarily in oils.

A student of the late Greek painter Antonios Karafyllakis, Doreen's impressionistic style is strongly influenced by his teaching. While inspired by the Caribbean landscape, Doreen's works also draw upon the diversity of the places she sees. Her paintings speak peace to the viewer.

Doreen has shown her works in several galleries and shows in the Washington, DC area including a one-man showing of her works at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. She has also shown at the Washington Convention Center at the National Urban League Art Expo in Washington, DC, at Fine Art at the Riverfront art show in Wilmington, Delaware and at the Off The Main art show in Soho, New York. She was awarded a ribbon at The Potomac Art League’s Juried Show and for six years participated in the National Black Fine Art show at the Puck Museum in Soho, New York. Her paintings are also in private collections around the United States, Jamaica, Japan, Australia and Europe.

In February 2010 Doreen had a one-woman showing of her works at the Larimer Arts Center in Palatka, Florida. Some of her works are in the gift shop at the Florida Museum for Women Artists in Deland, FL and at the Lost Art Gallery at Thornebrook Shopping Center in Gainesville, Fl.  In Palm Coast her works can be seen at the Flagler County Realtors Building; the Coldwell Bankers Building and at a doctor’s office at the Palm Coast Town Center’s Medical Building.

In Florida, Doreen has won awards in several juried shows at the Flagler County Art League and the St. Augustine Art Association.

Berlin 1902 -
Köln 1968

Ernst Wilhelm Nay studied under Karl Hofer at the Berlin Art Academy from 1925 until 1928. His first sources of inspiration resulted from his preoccupation with Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Henri Matisse as well as Caspar David Friedrich and Nicolas Poussin. 
Nay's still lifes, portraits and landscapes were widely acclaimed. In 1931 Ernst Wilhelm Nay received a nine-months' study bursary to the Villa Massimo in Rome, where he began to paint in the abstract Surrealist manner. On the recommendation of the Lübeck museum director, C.G. Heise, Nay was given a work grant financed by Edvard Munch, which enabled Nay to spend time in Norway and on the Lofoten Islands in 1937. The "Fischer- und Lofotenbilder" represented a first pinnacle of achievement.
That same year, however, two of his works were shown in the notorious exhibition of "Degenerate Art" and Ernst Wilhelm Nay was forbidden to exhibit any longer. Conscripted into the German armed forces in 1940, Nay went with the infantry to France, where a French sculptor placed his studio at Nay's disposal. In the "Hekatebildern" (1945-48), featuring motifs from myth, legend and poetry, Nay worked through his war and postwar experiences. 
The "Fugale Bilder" (1949-51) proclaim new beginnings in a fiery palette and entwined forms. In 1950 the Kestner Gesellschaft Hannover mounted a first retrospective of Nay's work. The following year the artist moved to Cologne, where, with the "Rhythmischen Bildern" he took the final step towards entirely non-representational painting. In them he began to use colour purely as figurative values. From 1955 Nay's painted "Scheibenbilder", in which round colour surfaces organize subtle modulations of space and colour. These are developed further in 1963-64 in what are known as the "Augenbilder". A first one-man-show in America at the Kleeman Galleries, New York, in 1955, participation in the 1956 Venice Biennale and the Kassel "documenta" (1955, 1959 and 1964) are milestones marking Nay's breakthrough on the international art scene. 
Ernst Wilhelm Nay was awarded important prizes and is represented by work in nearly all major exhibitions of German art in Germany and abroad.

Peter Max (German/American, b. 1937)

Peter Max was born in Berlin in 1937 but his family moved to China when he was still very young. In fact the young Max would move frequently with his family, learning about a variety of cultures throughout the world while traveling from Tibet to Africa to Israel to Europe until his family moved to the U.S. In American Max was trained at the Art Students League, Pratt Institute, and the School of Visual Arts, all in New York. After closing his design studio in 1964, Peter began creating his characteristic paintings and graphic prints.

From visionary pop artist of the 1960's, to master of dynamic neo Expressionism, Peter Max and his vibrant colors have become part of the fabric of contemporary American culture. In the 1960's Max rose to youthful prominence with his now-famous "Cosmic '60s" style, a bold linear type of painting which employed  Fauvist use of color and depicted transcendental themes. Peter Max revolutionized art of the 60’s just as the Beatles transformed the music of the decade. As his expressionistic style evolved, becoming more sensuous and painterly, Max’s unique symbolism and vibrant color palette have continued to inspire new generations of Americans throughout the decades. Peter Max is a passionate environmentalist and defender of human and animal rights, often dedicating paintings and posters for these noteworthy causes. He has celebrated our nation's principles of freedom and democracy with his famous paintings of American icons of freedom including Lady Liberty and the American Flag.

Peter Max has received many important commissions including the creation of the first "Preserve the Environment" Postage Stamp commemorating the World's Fair in Spokane, Washington; 235 Border Murals at entry points to Canada and Mexico commissioned by the U.S. General Services; and a painting of each of the 50 states, resulting in a book, "Peter Max Paints America" in celebration of the Bicentennial. In 1981 he was invited by President and Mrs. Reagan to paint six Liberty portraits at the White House. Max has painted for five U.S. Presidents - Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton. Max has exhibited in over 40 international museums and over 50 galleries, worldwide. His work can be found in many prominent museum and private collections around the world. 

Anthony Ackrill’s formal education as a painter began at the Florence Academy of Art in Florence, Italy.  He studied there for five years and was also an instructor for four of those years, teaching anatomy, drawing and painting.

The focus of the curriculum was a strict academic approach to painting and drawing based largely on the principles of art as taught in the painting academies of Europe in the 19th century. In this system, the pupil studies with a master until the student has become a master as well. Often the pupil then becomes a teacher, passing on a continuous body of knowledge, generation after generation, always with a strict adherence to observing nature and painting directly from life while focusing on the human figure. In Ackrill’s case, the instructors at his school are at the end of an unbroken chain of master/pupil relationships spanning generations and centuries, which includes the 19th century master painters Gerome, Delaroche, Gros, David, and Ingres, each who successively taught the next.

Since leaving Italy, he has lived and worked in Gainesville, Florida, producing paintings and selling them primarily through galleries and exhibitions in America and Europe. His works are created with a traditional approach to the craft of painting, in that they were all painted from life, with careful observations of nature and requiring a live model to pose in the studio.

Ackrill’s work consistently reveals what inspires him the most -- light, nature, water and humans.

Simil was born Emilcar Similien in St. Marc, Haiti on August 28, 1944. He completed his primary school studies at Frere Herve, the Christian Brothers school in St. Marc, in 1958, and continued his education at the Lycee Toussaint Louverture in Port-au-Prince.
In 1965 he entered the Academie des Beaux Arts to study sculpture and painting. According to his long time friend and dealer, Michel Monnin, it was at this time that Simil began a deep dialogue with Professor Montaguelli who besides teaching him art, also imparted to him" a certain attitude toward art; constancy of effort and the research necessary to find beauty." In his fifth year at the Academy, Simil became an assistant professor, teaching courses in Art History. He also worked with Georges Hector at "Coumbite 67".
Around this time he created a seven foot marble sculpture of Christ which was placed at the sacred vodou site, Saut-d'eau, with a commemorative plaque.
Simil is an avant-garde intellectual who is interested in many things; Monnin writes of him "...(he) has a curiosity which pushes him to cutivate knowledge in every domain. The cinema, literature, foreign language and philosophy thrill him". Simil is also an accomplished musician; he plays the violin and the slide trombone.

His paintings are modern, stylistic jewels. The subject may be a "paquet congo' of Haitian vodou, a perfume decanter or an elegant woman. All are rendered with a technique that is exquisitely detailed and breathtaking to experience. His work is included in major collections worldwide. Unfortunately, the printed page, much less the digital one, cannot adequately convey the glory of a Simil painting; they are best experienced in person.

Cuca Romley’s paintings and etchings of places around the world are depicted with a keen attention to detail and a sophisticated sense of line and color. The artist, who lives in Sag Harbor, has been exhibiting at the Winter Tree Gallery there since 2003.

“Forty Years in America,” a new show of her work, will open soon. “The paintings and hand-colored etchings illustrate actual historic places,” Romley wrote, places “where the past tends to disappear.”

Romley has gone through many evolutions, including her “red period,” which reflected her emotions, and when she was “painting my divorce.” In 1997 she began to make smaller paintings of local scenes.