Lisa Gizara has been a freelance photographer & painter for over thirty years. Her photos have appeared on billboards and in numerous publications including People, Variety, LA Weekly, LA Times Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, and hundreds of international newspapers. Her extensive work with the public relations agency Roger’s & Cowan included film and television stills work. Terrance Malick is including Lisa’s paintings in his upcoming “Knight of Cups” debuting the spring of 2016. Gizara's paintings and photographs were recently purchased by AMC's Mad Men and Modern Family and appear in other films and commercials. Three of Lisa’s paintings hang in Roger Sterling’s iconic office on Mad Men and set the tone for the new season in March of 2012.

The Huffington Post published an article about Lisa entitled “The Woman Behind the Art Behind the Mad Men.” Angeleno Magazine published an article on the now infamous Mad Men paintings in January of 2013. These paintings are available as limited edition, signed, archival prints.
Gizara's three most recent shows were part of the See/Me collective. Her "Surreal Escape" series of photographs were projected onto a building in SoHo in NYC in 2014, shown at The Louvre in 2015 and also at Art Basel Miami of 2016.

Gizara's photos of Santa Monica were included in the opening show at The Annenberg Beach House and Bloomingdales in Santa Monica purchased three large infrared photographs for their front lobby.  Her newest series of infrared photos entitled “Surreal Escapes” premiered at The Annenberg Space for Photography in Century City and then went on to the G2 Gallery in Venice, CA in the fall of 2012. 

Gizara'scontinuing series of documentary photos entitled "Lost Angeles" depicts decrepit bungalows, fading signs and decaying store fronts that are quickly disappearing in lieu of their shiny, new, characterless replacements. The images appeared in a show in Venice, CA with a group of artists called Grey Matter. She also showed “Lost Angeles” at The Kick Stand Gallery in Venice, December of 2012.

At the age of 17, Lisa was awarded two grants from the Massachusetts State Arts Council to photograph her small hometown in Westford, Massachusetts. Her camera has since led her on travels around the world including Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, France, Italy, Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii and throughout the U.S. www.GizaraArts.com
 
 

Henry Driftwood has been an illustrator and artist all his life. He has a bachelor's degree in Art from the University of Southern Mississippi, emphasizing figure drawing and design. Years in the graphic world prepared him to tackle the realm of photography only recently. He has been active since 2010.

Driftwood has worked with the Getty Conservation Institute, Brentwood, California as a Geological Consultant on
the Renaissance Bronze Project, characterizing constituents of bronze core material. He was also the Paleontological Consultant for Antiquities/Conservation, identifying the foraminifera and mineral constituents of a limestone torso of
Aphrodite.
henrydriftwood.tumblr.com

Go to the next page-hit arrow to the right  to see more of Driftwood's work

Jennifer Georgescu: (These images are part of Georgescu's series entitled, "Sand, Stone, Dead Leaves & Bone".)
"It seems that while that we can recognize that we are a part of nature, there is evidence of a disconnect taking place.  We have no solid definition of what it is that we claim to be a part of, and rationality is privileged over wildness and chaos. We set aside small areas of land for enjoyment, we pay to see caged animals; we want to “dabble” in nature so that we can feel closer to it.  “Sand, Stones, Dead Leaves & Bone” examines our relationship to nature and the anxiety that comes from our lack of contact with it. Presented in this project are slightly unsettling images of humans being engulfed by nature and vice versa; attractive and repulsive in their approach.  This dualism suggests that perhaps we fear nature might win if we don’t dominate it, while at the same time alluding to the acceptance of not being in control. Through the use of medium format film photography, installation, and digital technology, I explore “backyard” suburban nature and the integration of the physical and mental self into its surroundings."  

Jennifer Georgescu's work describes instinctual aspects of humanity correlating to and differing from societal structuring.  With a background in painting and photographic arts, she utilizes medium format film photography, installation, and digital technology.  Her projects analyze dualisms in language, relationships, mythologies and control.  "I often search for the balance that exists in between these dichotomies.  This is how I view humanity; always teetering on the line between fiction and reality, domination and submissiveness, self and other."

After obtaining a BFA from Watkins College of Art and Design in 2008, Georgescu was awarded a year long residency at Vanderbilt University’s "Gallery F."  She has received numerous awards from Artist Portfolio Magazine, the Camera Obscura Journal of Literature and Photography and the Julia Margaret Cameron Award.  Her works have recently been exhibited in the Masur Museum of Art, the Detroit Museum of New Art, and PhotoCenter NW.
www.jengeorgescu.com

JP Terlizzi is a visual storyteller who uses photography to explore themes of memory, relationship, and identity. Drawing inspiration from his personal experiences he captures moments that convey narratives—whether the story is a framed moment that reveals something about family and home, or a poetic interpretation of a fading reality, the feeling of loss and detachment are recurring motifs in his work. 
 
Born and raised in the farmlands of Central New Jersey, JP currently lives in Manhattan. His career spans thirty years as a creative director for a boutique agency specializing in retail design. He earned a BFA in Communication Design at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania and has studied photography at the International Center of Photography in New York. His work has been exhibited in the United States and abroad including shows at The Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins CO, Umbrella Arts Gallery, New York, NY, A Smith Gallery, Johnson City, Texas, Grand Manan Gallery, New Brunswick, Canada, and Municipal Heritage Museum, Malaga, Spain, among others. He was recently named a Photolucida 2015 Critical Mass Finalist and has been selected in ONWARD Compe 16. His work has been featured in PDN, Lenscratch, The Photo Review, and Abridged Magazine. 
www.jpterlizziphotography.com

Julie Hamel: " Using what is found around me in nature, I am able to capture the calming but intermittent discomfort within a person. This is something that we, as a whole, can all relate to. By producing a beautiful image that is not the idealized definition of beauty, I am able to step beyond social constructs of popular imagery. The constant search for these environments reflects the identity that develops within them. Producing lasting impressions on the relationships between nature and how humans relate to being stripped down into comprehensive beings."

Hamel was born in Concord and now resides and works in Loudon, New Hampshire. She majored in Studio Art at the University of New Hampshire & graduated with a B.F.A. in photography. Recently taking part in the VSC residency program in Johnson, VT, she has continued to seek out her vision and connection with nature. Julie has won numerous awards both locally and internationally, and has shown across the US and overseas.  

www.juliehamelphotography.com/personal

Katherine Clayton: "I did not intend to create an entire series of self-portraits. It just happened. I had just emerged battled and bruised from a two-year fight for my daughter’s life. She had been diagnosed with liver cancer when she was 9 months old. I spent many dark days in fear and on edge.
 
One day I realized that, perhaps, the darkness was over and it might be possible to return to “normal” life.  Self-portraits were a safe place to work through my emotions.  At the time, the work was about self-preservation and returning to a place of peace and grace. The work was about re-discovery and claiming something special for myself.  I could be in control while at the same time letting the experience shape the final product.
 
When I look at the images, I see dreams and fantasies. Truth and fiction. Short stories, visions and histories. I see a face strangely familiar and as familiar as that face is, I still find myself discovering who she is."

Using a combination of pinhole and zone plate digital photography, Clayton creates dream-like and often haunting visual narratives.
 
Her fine art work has been exhibited across the country in galleries and in print including A. Smith Gallery, Kiernan Gallery, Newspace Center of Photography, The Sun, One Twenty-Five Magazine and Center for Fine Art Photography.

www.katherineclaytonphotography.com
www.facebook.com/KatherineClaytonPhotography

 

Second Place Winner

Kim Gottlieb-Walker (b.1947 in Philadelphia) is a photographer living in Los Angeles whose incredibly varied career has covered everything from classic rock and roll, reggae and politics in the 60’s and 70’s to working on major motion pictures and television shows. 

While still at UCLA (where she received a BA in Motion Picture production) and shortly thereafter, she shot for underground LA newspapers and magazines like Crawdaddy and Music World. Her classic portrait of Jimi Hendrix  was shot when she was only 20 and her High Times cover of Bob Marley remains their most popular cover, ever.  

She also shot the stills for John Carpenter’s “Halloween,” “The Fog,” “Christine” and Escape from New York” and worked at Paramount for nine years as the production photographer for “Cheers” and five years for “Family Ties” as well as the pilots and several episodes of Star Trek:"The Next Generation" and "Deep Space 9"  and Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories" at Universal.

She is one of the elected representatives for still photographers on the National Executive Board of IATSE Local 600, the International Cinematographers Guild. Her first coffee-table photo book "Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae" was published by Titan Press (UK) distributed by Random House (USA) in Nov 2010.

She had her first solo gallery show of photos from the that book in London at the PROUD Camden. Her first USA solo show based on the photos from the Bob Marley book, was at KM Fine Arts in West Hollywood in Jan-Feb of 2014. Her newest photo book "On Set with John Carpenter" launched in Oct 2014.

www.Lenswoman.com

Florin Firimita: "We live in an enormous, constantly changing puzzle. In this light, my new mixed-media compositions are riddles born out of the juxtaposition of the real and the imagined, the private and the universal, the desire and the cancelled desire. I believe in beauty as a way of putting order in chaos. What I do is a reflection of my interest in philosophy, music, photography, literature, film, nature, and history. I find amazing sources of inspiration in everything surrounding me: my students’ work; my walks around the streets of New York City or Paris; a Mahler symphony; Proust and Borges; a Godard film; a graffiti-covered wall; an old photograph found at a flea market. Meaning is never a one-way road, and therefore is always a result of collaboration between what I am trying to communicate, and what you are willing to see. I am interested in exploring universal themes through private questions. I am preoccupied with the issues of identity, love, death, and loss, reality versus fiction, dreams and memories. Within these new works, I am interested in constructing a certain mystery, create hidden introspections and multiple meanings that invite you, the viewer, to question, and hopefully, enjoy my work. In a world hyper-saturated with images, I still believe that everything is possible, anywhere, anytime. I have always believed in parallel universes in which the past and the present coexist in different dimensions. From time to time, they meet through gates that no one could precisely define or locate. I hope that my art could often function as one of those gates."

Firimita is a visual artist, teacher, filmmaker and novelist who traces his interest in art back to his father’s modest amateur photo lab, in Bucharest, Romania, where he was entrusted with mixing chemicals, developing film, and printing black-and-white photos, at the age of six. His interest in drawing and painting started around the same time, under the influence of his mother, an art teacher and a fashion designer.
 
Lately, his work has appeared in France, Great Britain, and in the U.S. in House Beautiful, The Sun, and the Hartford Courant. The Art of Leaving a film about Florin’s art and life was released in 2003. The film was the official selection of seven international film festival such as Santa Fe, Durango, New York, Chicago, and also Montreal’s 23rd Festival International du Film Sur L’Art. His first novel, Reliquary is scheduled to be published in 2017.
www.florinfirimita.com

Gina Cholick: "I’m of a generation taught to follow my dreams, which is a beautiful and seemingly liberating concept. For me, life without constraints causes anxiety. I want to be and do everything. Within this infinity of choice, I freeze. Instead of taking action, hours are spent in an internal struggle. I visualize multiple versions of an idealized life. Expectations form, melt and reform. I hold up what I want for my life and weigh it against what others want, to what they have. I question everything and look for perfect answers that never come. There are moments of respite and clarity and moments of darkness. I search for meaning and identity. I want to stay in the magical world where anything is possible but I know I must face the reality of choice." Cholick
grew up in the countryside of South Dakota. After taking a summer photography class as a teen, she converted her father’s bathroom into a darkroom. Currently she lives in Los Angeles and works as a commercial and fine art photographer.

Gina has participated in group shows at Los Angeles Center of Photography, The Robert Berman Gallery, Broadway Art Space in Santa Monica and Krowswork Gallery in Oakland. In 2013, she was the Grand Prize winner for Emerging Focus and her work was shown as a part of PhotoLA. 
www.ginacholick.com

Julie Burillo: "Nature speaks to my soul and it is through my lens that I am able to tell a story. I’ve always been mesmerized by natural lighting and love the fleeting reality of its unexpected mysteries and effects. My passion for capturing the moment, the wonders and beauty that gives a sense of the places, people and things and sharing these captivating reflections is how I embrace life’s beauty. I am a creative photographer, artist and writer committed to spiritual awareness and the encouragement of our human spirit.  I studied photography, both digital and traditional film, for eight years. It was during a transition period that I became enamored with historical printing processes and mixed media which allow for unexpected creative expression. My photographs have been used and published in brochures, as well as, a book cover, and other marketing materials.  I am currently based in the Bay Area."

To see more of Burillo's work go to next page on computer. Scroll down if on mobile.
http://www.embracethebeauty.net

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All Entrant's work is shown in Exhibitions 1,2,3, and 4.