Maureen Ruddy Burkhart is an award-winning and internationally exhibited artist. She received her BFA in Photography from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1976 and went on to work in film, documentary photography, and always came back to her first love—fine art photography. 

Living in the Colorado Rocky Mountain region since 1990 has given Maureen an ever-growing fondness for the natural world, especially birds, and a passion for conservation. In creating her gilded prints, she draws inspiration from old handmade prints of extinct birds—in the hope that we won’t have to do that with the world’s current avian population.

As an artist living and working in these trying times, she consciously seeks to portray beauty for its own sake… and maybe save the world too.

Images for Sale: 

The Last Rookery #1—5” x 7” pigment print on archival 8.5” x 11” vellum with 24k gold leaf gilding
$500 unframed
Limited edition of 10
Signed on bottom right of vellum


The Last Hummingbird #2— 5” x 7” pigment print on archival 8.5” x 11” vellum with 24k gold leaf gilding
$500 unframed
Limited edition of 10
Signed on bottom right of vellum


Evanescence #6— 5” x 7” pigment print on archival 8.5” x 11” vellum with 24k gold leaf gilding
$500 unframed
Limited edition of 10
Signed on bottom right of vellum


Last Mating Call #1—5” x 7” pigment print on archival 8.5” x 11” vellum with 24k gold leaf gilding
$500 unframed
Limited edition of 10
Signed on bottom right of vellum


Rookery #4—5” x 7” pigment print on archival 8.5” x 11” vellum with 24k gold leaf gilding
$500 unframed
Limited edition of 10
Signed on bottom right of vellum


The Last Hummingbird #5—5” x 7” pigment print on archival 8.5” x 11” vellum with 24k gold leaf gilding
$500 unframed
Limited edition of 10
Signed on bottom right of vellum

Contact: Maureen Ruddy Burkhart, mophotoartist@gmail.com

www.maureenruddyburkhart.com
http://www.instagram.com/mophotoartist

Naohiro Maeda says, “This project is about exploring my unreliable narrative as an immigrant, as someone alien to a new territory. 

My work integrates photography and embroidery, creating unique pieces that deconstruct and reconstruct landscape imagery. I capture photos during car journeys, often with my partner driving. I then digitally manipulate these raw images, employing excessive image correction tools until they lose their single vanishing point. Once the digital manipulation is complete, I print the images on matte photo paper and begin an intricate process of hand embroidery. This step involves making hundreds of white knots on the inkjet print surface, a technique inspired by Sashiko, a traditional Japanese embroidery method used to mend and reinforce garments.

My work is deeply influenced by my experiences of living in different countries, such as Alaska and Germany, and reflects the quiet comfort of displacement and not knowing how life unfolds.”

Naohiro Maeda(b.1978) is a visual artist from Japan. He studied fine art photography with honors at New England School of Photography and cognitive psychology at Keio University. With his practice, he explores memory and space. 

He was selected for Klompching Gallery’s Fresh 2023 finalist and Japan Photo Award. His works were exhibited internationally including the Griffin Museum of Photography and The Curated Fridge and featured in Lenscratch and The Boston Globe. He is currently living in Colorado Springs.

https://www.naohiromaeda.com/

Natalie Obermaier says “‘Coalescing’, is a series of hand-cut collages made in response to the incessant onslaught of mass media and pressures of mainstream beauty standards found within. 

Women’s fashion magazines in particular stand at a crossroads of cult, consumerism and the unattainable image. By re-appropriating and deconstructing those glossy pages something truer, hand-made and authentic can be expressed. The resulting juxtapositions seek to remind one of the visual and psychological manipulations abound in advertising while also creating a new dialogue in response. 

Coalescing manipulates the manipulated as both rebuttal to the aesthetic pressures of advertising and as reclamation of the human image to speak a deeper truth by reflecting a more personable and representative spirit of self. 

Using found images pays homage to both of the original subjects and photographers but also appropriates their likenesses in order to remix the meanings and messages; weaving my own narrative out of many others. These original images often provide a scripted institutional display of inclusion and diversity that ultimately commodifies the Other and their bodies instead of demolishing and addressing the structures that underpin them. I strive to challenge the illusions of glamor and the desires they project and provoke ways of seeing that both duplicate and redirect their associated realities. To question what is considered “normal,” both the visible and invisible boundaries built around us, and refocus our eyes to see beyond the carefully crafted constructs that make up our current experiences.”

After graduating magna cum laude from Philadelphia’s Drexel University with a degree in Photography, L.A. based artist Natalie Obermaier moved to Seattle where she worked alongside acclaimed photographer, Jock Sturges. Working in the darkroom five days a week for three years under his guidance, she mastered the craft of black and white photographic printing, while also acting as his studio manager and model. Following this intensive immersion into large format black and white photography, she traveled extensively, discovering her own voice as an artist. 

Her early bodies of work in black and white film are soulful and classic, showing a natural and deep connection with the people she photographs. In addition to her black and white work, in 2012 the artist began taking a photograph every day for 365 days of the year, using multiple formats, from film to iPhone. The results were printed and exhibited at the end of each year for three consecutive years as immersive installations. 

When she isn’t lighting sets for Mark Seliger, David La Chapelle and other commercial photographers, she continues to explore her own visual vocabulary and exhibit her work around the country. 

www.natalieobermaier.com
http://instagram.com/kobramaier

Nicola Hackl-Haslinger says of  ‘The Invitation’, 2024, “Everyday life, constantly enclosing us, holds a wealth of treasures, waiting for being discovered by us, perceived in a moment of silence. In times like these, it might seem quite a challenge to give in to this deeply felt yearning for harmony and see the beauty that surrounds us.

On walking through a landscape, my senses can open up to moments of exactly this beauty, often unheeded and lying in secret, notice them and give them artistic expression. Pressing the camera shutter button, which opens the lens shutter for the moment I choose, is comparable to the symbolic act of opening a portal. It is exactly this act that creates a link between the objectivity of the perceived and my subjective interpretation.

The word portal is derived from the Latin word porta, meaning door, gate and gateway. They all stand for a transition from the outside to the inside world. 

As such, they can be regarded as entrances and exits and passages between the unknown to the known. In architecture portals can be found throughout the centuries, be it in palaces, cathedrals, castles etc. 

They all are meant as invitation to enter and this inviting gesture is expressed in sculptural design and rich ornamentation, this underscoring the sanctity of the place, the transition from the mundane to the sacred.

Drawing upon this art historic inspiration, I attempt to open up a symbolic door for the beholder by way of sawing out and then three-dimensionally assembling a special picture element. It is brought to the fore by additional gilding in 24 carat - the purest form of this metal, thus creating a frame, a picture in the picture, in short: a portal.

Its intention is to create a thematic connection with the beholder and invite them to search for the translucent poetry in everyday life.”

Nicola Hackl-Haslinger (1974-) is a visual artist who lives and works in her native country of Austria. Her passion for photography started quite early, when at the age of five, she took her first photographs with an Agfamatic camera. She continued to hone her creative skills as a student at a higher vocational school for arts and crafts in Linz where she started taking photographs with a reflex camera.

Engaging in analog photography was a formative influence on the development of her artistic work. During this period, she also discovered a second passion, that of jewelry design, and after graduation, she started an apprenticeship as a goldsmith and silversmith.

She was awarded the Künstlerpunze or Artistic Hallmark in 1999 and worked independently as a jewelry maker until she chose to focus her energies on photography. 

Nicola began advanced studies at the Prague School of Photography for Applied and Artistic Photography in Linz/Austria (Prager Fotoschule Österreich) from which she graduated with honors in 2011. 

Her love of gold and other precious metals has continued, however, and Nicola often uses and combines different forms of it in the creation of her photographs.

Employing a variety of techniques and presentations, her work is regularly featured in both national and international exhibitions and magazines and is part of permanent collections in Austria and abroad. 

In 2016 and 2018 she was nominated for the St. Leopold Peace Award for her photographic achievements. In 2023, she published her first monograph titled Beyond Time. 

Series The Invitation, 2024 archival pigment ink transfer on aged aluminium
hand sawn, hand applied 24 carat gold
museum glass, museum board image size 15 x 15 cm, framed size 33 x 33 cm
signed, titled, dated, and editioned on verso
unique variants of 5.
Images are not for sale. 

www.nhh.art
www.instagram.com/nicolahacklhaslingerart

Orin Rutchick says, "Of all the alternative processes, cyanotype is the simplest. The chemicals required are relatively inexpensive and non-toxic, and their ease of use make the process perfect for grade school classes and art fairs. My work expands the horizon of traditional Prussian Blue cyanotypes through the use of multiple exposures and specialized processing techniques to achieve a spectrum of colors, and elevates the standard cyanotype well beyond shades of blue.

In my process, I employ many of the same skills I have learned in analog photography, digital printing and graphic design. It begins with multiple images of the same subject created from film, digital or graphic file sources. I adjust the analog film scans or digital files in Photoshop. I duplicate layers, increase contrast, and reduce densities to produce multiple large format negatives that are registered and printed in multiple sensitized layers with varied exposure times and final processing techniques. The resulting images present a range of colors and tones that transforms the traditional blue cyanotype to something unique."

www.PrussianBlue.Design
http://www.instagram.com/orutchick
 

Patricia Sandler says, "'The End of The Beginning', Within the past year, I came upon a bible in the possessions of a relative who had passed.  Inside the book were various pieces of yellowed newspaper clippings attached with an old piece of tape.  I became fascinated with which clippings my relative had chosen, and what he may have thought of each sentiment.  This process then continued with my own search through vintage papers, books and magazines.  The words served as inspiration for a visual work combining photographic images as well as other collage elements.  These are not necessarily a literal translation of each quote, but where my imagination took me.  The more I continue to work with this idea, the more I draw parallels to today’s world, whether it be spirituality, child welfare or identity politics.  The work is ongoing."

Patricia Sandler is a photo-based visual artist who believes passionately in the notion of art as catalyst to stimulate the heart, the mind and the memory. Her love of and belief in the power of words has also played a significant part in her projects, many of which center on the complexities, interactions and histories of family, both biological and chosen.  She is also fond of mystery, poetry and absurdity, and looks forward to the many moments of discovery and revelation that are presented daily if one's eyes and heart are open.   

Patricia has exhibited her photography in many group exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe. She has been awarded honorable mentions on two occasions for The Julia Margaret Cameron Award, has been featured in Lenscratch and has pieces in the permanent collections of The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Center for Photography at Woodstock permanent print collection, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art/College Art Gallery at S.U.N.Y., New Paltz, New York.   

www.patriciasandler.com
www.instagram.com/psandlerphotog 

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