The Overall Winning Artists Category consists of the 10 Best Entries received from the 3 media categories of the Painting & Other Category, Photography & Digital Category and the 3 Dimensional Art categories. 

The winning artists will now be featured on the Light Space & Time website for the month of December 2020 and thereafter, the artworks and links to the artist’s websites will remain online in the Light Space & Time Archives.

The overall winning artists’ category of the 10th Annual "Nature" Art Exhibition will receive extensive worldwide publicity and promotion.  In addition, the overall winning artists will also receive extensive worldwide publicity in the form of email marketing, 550+ press release announcements, event announcement posts and social media marketing. 

Winning artists will also have their art exhibition results posted and promoted on ArtJobs/ArtWeek. Artweek/Artjobs produces 800,000 page impressions per month, 280,000 website visitors per month and has 30,000 newsletter subscribers.  

Congratulations to our artists who made our 10th Annual “Nature” Art Exhibition so successful this month. At any time, we invite our winners and other interested visitors to link their websites to the Gallery’s Archive section for further ongoing promotion.

The Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery will have digital “Nature” Award Certificates, Event Postcard, and Press Releases sent to the winning artists within the next few weeks. Thank you to all of the artists who participated and for being a part of the gallery.  To return to the “Nature” Home Page click here.

To view the artwork in the image gallery’s below, click on a thumbnail image and that will take you to the Slide Show, which will then contain larger images. Artists can now post their images directly to their social media networks (See lower left-hand side of the Lightbox).  In order to leave the Slide Show at any time, just click on the X at the upper right side of the Lightbox in order to escape and that will take you back to the thumbnails images.

 1st Place – Ezra Larsen - “Aphrodisiac”

Ezra was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada. His parents were both artistic and encouraged him to pursue his own creative nature. During secondary school, he took a more serious approach to his craft and began classical drawing classes with Anyuta Gusakova. Soon anatomical studies followed, and Ezra found a new love of art through sculpture and the human body.

After graduating secondary school, he sought a profession in video game art and attended the Vancouver Institute of Media Arts, but decided to postpone a digital art career for later in life. After earning a diploma and doing some freelance art, Ezra found himself looking for a new medium to attract his attention. Ezra fell into what he calls his "Romantic Period". He began oil painting at Dene Croft’s studio in 2015 and hasn't put the brush down since.

After moving to England in pursuit of adventure, Ezra returned to Vancouver in 2018 and earned a Welding certification at BCIT. He is now involved with several creative art projects, including public metal art working with Ron Simmer, metal fabrication and an original comic book. He has also returned to Dene Croft studio as a drawing and sculpture instructor, in addition to making community outreach presentations in local high school classes.

Looking towards the future, he hopes to create art projects to raise awareness about climate change and the dire state the world is in, integrating his love of art, his new welding skills and his desire to create positive change.

Ezra’s website is www.ezralarsen.ca

2nd Place – Merrilee Soberg - “Flickers in the Early Morning Light”

After retiring from a successful career as a professional potter, Merrilee turned to photography and digital art to fill the creative void. She honed her digital art skills in Sebastian Michael's Photoshop Artistry online courses. As a result, she has been published in numerous editions of "Living the Photoartistic Life" magazine and was featured in the February 2020 edition.

Many of the photos used in Merrilee's compositions were taken at home on Vancouver Island on the west coast of Canada or during her world travels. She is passionate about photographing wildlife in their natural habitat. Other elements of nature regularly find their way into her creative pieces.

Since she resides at the edge of a wetland, she often runs outside to capture grasses blowing in the wind, falling wilted leaves and flowers and birds that come to backyard feeders. These photos combined with digital painting are the building blocks used to create inspired, unique works of art, which can be beautiful, intriguing, moving and at times thought provoking. She focuses on the resilience, strength and connectedness of all life. In her work, nature and digital art come together in a truly magical combination.

Merrilee’s website is www.merrilee-soberg.pixels.com    

3rd Place – Col Mitchell - “The Welcoming Night”

It was early in January of 2008 when serendipity brought me to my current practice of pen and ink on sculpted paper. Inspiration struck at a paper on canvas workshop, spurring me to deviate from the instruction to deliberately form a recognizable subject, a tree. Fortuitously, a week previously I had purchased a medium new to me (acrylic inks), untried, but perfectly suited to work with this new surface I had made -- a tree formed out of a single medium weight sheet with a delicate and judicious application of tissue. Had I chose to use the paper in another manner I am certain I would not have made the pivotal discovery of material interaction, which influences the outcome of every piece I make. This fortunate happenstance cracked my creative world wide open with possibilities involving paper.

Enchanted, I began experimenting with subject matter -- from Heath Ledger's iconic Joker face to a seven-foot tall tree trunk, and a curated 8 foot by 6 foot twelve paneled themed exhibition piece. I explored and continue to explore my limitations, working with pen nibs and their gravity dependent dipping inks, and how different papers influenced the outcome. It wasn't long before I realized I needed to identify which elements of my exploration could define a technique.

Within my technique it was four years before I could form my smallest bird of three inches, and five years before I attempted a furred animal -- a piece that went on to win an award. In my fifth year, I also began exploring how I fit into this dance of mediums. For every piece, before the pen and ink work begins, the interaction of the materials is a source of inspiration. But what also pushes my pen? The final pen and ink stage is especially meditative, and it is there that I found my answers.

It is my memories and my experiences I reach for when art making. Specifically, the summers I spent immersed in the magnificent natural surroundings of Algonquin Park, where the too few amenities of the cottage my grandfather built on Smoke Lake in 1930's meant nature was a strong presence, imagination was King. My siblings and I planned our entertainment, invented games played on both land and water. We spent time still and enveloped in lush expansive views, or crouched in intense contemplation of tiny life forms or fauna; tickled or bitten by insects, entranced or startled by sound, buffeted or soothed by wind, warmed or burned by sun.

My art reflects my process of viewing and experiencing nature as I remember it, that random pendulum of intensity and tranquility, the shape, colour, line, and texture I associate with nature's wonders, beauty and complexity coloured by an adult's remembrance of childhood imagination and fancy.

Col’s website is www.colmitchell.com        

4th Place – Laurie Snow Hein - “Penthouse”

Laurie Snow Hein has been painting since kindergarten when she first picked up a paintbrush. In her teens, she studied with an accomplished illustrator, Graham Ingels, and attended a year at Columbus College of Art and Design on Scholarship. Although she painted portrait commissions and taught art classes when she married, it was not until she turned 40 with six children that it became necessary to support her family on her artistic talents alone.

Working 30 years as a professional art teacher, licensed artist, illustrator, and participation in shows at the top art festival circuits, Laurie also taught workshops around the country and in Europe. Awards have accumulated over the years; but it is the joy of teaching, the enthusiasm of her students and clients acclaim that is most meaningful. Laurie is an accomplished portrait artist, also well known for Florida landscapes, beaches, oceans, botanicals, and birds.

In 2019, Laurie traveled across the US on a 90-day trip to start a new collection representing our National Parks. You can enjoy her art on her website: www.laurieheinartist.com or www.FineArtAmerica.com, where you can purchase her work directly. Contact Laurie from her website for originals, commissions, or custom created giclee reproductions. Follow her art creations, travels and videos on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest.

Laurie’s website is www.laurieheinartist.com  

5th Place – Carola E. Thiele - “Steinmann”

I was born in the middle of the deepest winter of 1966 in Zossen, on the edge of the Berlin Wall. The first profession I learned was toolmaker - a completely uncreative, though beautiful profession. In order not to burst, I dedicated myself to music composition and painting on the side.

In 1997 the first of 3 sons was born. In order not to burst again, I wrote and illustrated children's books in addition to the duties of a mother and wife. They were published by Engelsdorfer Verlag.

In 2004, I found my real feel-good art. Surrealism. With a two-year correspondence course with Willes Meinhardt (HAF Hamburg), I supplemented my knowledge of technique and image composition in free painting. A following correspondence course to become a multimedia designer allows me to use the possibilities of digital art. Surrealism and Metaphysical Painting have remained, the circle closes for me in my artistic statement again and again...and I am allowed to work unpredictably. For me every work ends with an unrealistic dream world that tells a story.

My motto: “Art is like a dream that you have dreamed before.”

Today I have exhibitions on 3 continents and can show art awards, excellent certificates and the participation in an Artists in residence.

Carola’s website is www.carola-e-thiele.com  

6th Place – Judi Lapsley Miller - “Forever Calling Me (Tūī)”

Judi Lapsley Miller’s art is inspired by the wildlife and land of Aotearoa-New Zealand, the awesome forces that went into making them (and continue to make them), and the tensions between the pre-human and modern world. She strives through her art to advocate for endangered species and spaces by exploring themes like the tenacity of life in the face of environmental destruction, what it means to be endangered, and the post-human world. Many of her images are inspired by her experiences with volunteering in wildlife conservation projects, especially with her beloved endangered kākā parrots.

Judi’s website is www.artbyjlm.com  

7th Place – Anagruz - “Superpositions #14”

Anaïs Gruson alias ANAGRUZ is a self-taught artist. She began drawing as soon as she was able to hold a pen, drawing animals most of the time, especially horses and cats. Passionate with horseback riding since she was 6, she never gave up this activity, observing horse’s behaviour, details and colors and drawing it again and again.

She began acrylic painting and exhibiting her artworks in 2016, painting mountains at the beginning, but then she dedicated her art to wildlife only. Animals remind her of patience, and truth because they can’t lie. The animals seem close to human beings, but they remain at all times inaccessible, as we can’t listen to them through a communication system other than the human one. Facing the collapse of biodiversity, the artist plays an important role in awareness raising and natural diversity defense.

In her paintings, animals are the symbol of the barely known or unknown individual. In front of this individual, one can choose to only take the appearances into account, as they are easy to spot and categorize, and base its interactions on these appearances. Or, one can choose a more subtle and personal angle, breaking the appearances shell to discover the individual in the most authentic angle, the one that gets rid of these appearances.

With or maybe because of information overload, nuance is contradictorily progressively neglected. Individuals are more and more quickly labelled, and these labels are more and more shortsighted and restrictive, especially for animals that suffer and struggle in this severe antagonism human/beast. It is a strong role of the animal artist: highlight the subtle differences, bring back time and patience of observation, bring back nuances, and sometimes criticize the world around him or her.

Anagruz’s website is www.anaisgruson.wixsite.com/anagruz  

8th Place – Marcello Galleano - “Wild Velvet”

Marcello Galleano, an entrepreneur in the field of nutraceuticals and herbal medicine, has always been a lover of nature and adventure trips. He has visited more than 85 countries worldwide and collaborates with non-profit associations in Africa and South America. Passionate about wildlife photography, he loves to capture the most incredible moments that the various environments offer and share the beauty of the world.

Marcello can be reached via his email.   

9th Place – Danielle Beaulieu - “Reflections”

Danielle Beaulieu began experimenting with watercolours about eight years ago and is a self-taught visual artist. Her technique consists of several thin layers of transparent paint, each gently modulating the colours below. Some of her paintings can take a couple of weeks in the making.

She is the author of two blogs. The first is for watercolorists while the second aims to share the trials and tribulations of his personal journey with watercolour. She is also a regular instructor with Da Artisti Gallery in Ottawa.

Passionate about watercolour, Danielle devotes a large part of her free time to painting or thinking about what to paint. Recently, a common theme of her watercolours has been antiques and crystal.

You can find her art works at Da Artisti Gallery in Ottawa, ON and Riverside Gallery in Wakefield, QC. She has won awards with a number of art associations and has exhibited in the United States.

Danielle’s website is www.danielleswatercolours.ca

10th Place – Christina Brunton - “The Warning”

Fifteen years ago, I learnt how to paint and later I started photography as a way to capture images as a reference for my oil paintings, but work commitments made it hard to find the time to paint. The idea was to take photos of beautiful scenes I saw whilst travelling and later paint them once I had time. I never went back to my oil painting, as photography had taken over.

It wasn't until I discovered recently how photographs could be made into fine art that I was able to merge my passions of painting and photography. It has been a wonderful journey learning new skills and I never want to stop learning.

I am a photographer and digital artist living in Sydney, Australia. My art starts with a photo I have taken and then I enhance it digitally into fine art. Creating art for me is a meditation where I am so focused on the artistry that time stands still. Creating art is a way of life that sings to me and I hope it touches the viewer’s emotional strings, their heart and soul.

I have produced international award winning art and have been published regularly in various international magazines.

Christina’s website is www.artistsdownunder.com.au/artists-1/christina-brunton/