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

The winning artists will now be featured on the Light Space & Time website for the month of March 2016 and thereafter, the artworks and links to the artist’s websites will remain online in the Light Space & Time Archives.

Congratulations to our artists who made our 7th Annual “Abstracts” 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 “Abstracts” Award Certificates, Event Postcard, and Press Releases sent to the winning artists within the next week or so.

Thank you to all of the artists who participated and for being a part of the gallery.  To return to the Abstracts Home Page here.

1^st Place – Rex Good – “Splendor”

Rex Good grew up in Missoula, among the beautiful Rocky Mountains of western Montana, USA. He describes himself as kind of a throwback 1960s flower child with a deep appreciation for nature and the interconnectedness of life, hopefully, reflected in his acrylic abstracts.

"My paintings are usually started by choosing a general color pallet based on what might move me at the moment. Additionally, I may or may not chose a general shape and/or texture. I use liquid paints because they often flow in unexpected ways that help to inspire and shape my creations." 

Upon graduating high school, Rex decided to explore the natural beauty of the rest of the world. After many visits to Canada, he drove the Yukon highway all the way up from Montana through Canada to Alaska, where he ended up living for six years, spending several winters working for a seismic studies company on the Arctic ice near the North Pole. He has experienced first-hand, the beauty of the northern lights, arctic foxes and even polar bears. 

Rex returned to Montana in 1986 to stay with his mom after the death of his father and began the Japanese language, and Communications Studies at the University of Montana. After graduating with a degree in Communications, he lived in Osaka Japan for two years working for a Japanese log home company.

Rex moved to San Francisco, California in 1994. While living there, he had the opportunity to visit Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, and also Argentina and Brazil. Travels to those countries and Canada, and to almost all of the United States west of the Mississippi, including Alaska and Hawaii, have enriched his love of the organic shapes and colors of nature

Rex recently moved to Fort Bragg, California to pursue his art career while enjoying enjoy the cool climate, coastal beauty, and wonderful thriving art community of the area. He has only recently had the courage to share his gorgeous self-taught works with the public, and hopes they reflect the inspirations of his life and inspire YOU!   rexagood@gmail.com

2^nd Place - Peter Alessandria – “Abstract 1”

Peter was born and raised in New York City and Long Island. After attending law school, he moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as an attorney in the entertainment industry. Today he is a commercial, portrait and fine art photographer based in New Jersey. 

As a fine art photographer, Peter has created numerous collections of landscape, seascape, cityscape and still life images. His work has been featured in several solo and group exhibitions. His photos have garnered popular and critical acclaim - he has won twenty-three (23) awards for his fine art photos in the past three years. His work has been the subject of several newspaper, radio and television features and interviews. 

Photography is a second career for Peter. He spent the first part of his work life as an entertainment and intellectual property attorney in Los Angeles. Working in the film and television industries sparked his own interest in creativity and in the early 2000’s he began experimenting with digital video and became an amateur filmmaker. But it wasn't until he picked up a still camera for the first time in 2004 that his full creative passion for image-making came into being. 

The first couple of years he took almost 200,000 photos. And when he wasn't taking pictures he was connecting other people online about photography. Completely self-taught, he spent hours, days, weeks and months learning the basics of photography, mostly through trial and error. He also decided to tackle Photoshop and it quickly became his photo editing software of choice. He has become quite proficient in using the software in both his fine art and commercial work. 

Like many people, things changed dramatically for Peter in 2008. That year, as a result of the Global Financial Crisis, he lost his law practice. In the days and weeks that followed he struggled with the question of what to do with the rest of his life. It was only after much deliberation that he decided to follow his passion for photography, and in 2009, he began pursuing photography full-time. 

That’s not to say it has been easy. Turns out there’s a lot more to running a successful business than passion and creativity. But it is that passion that has carried him through the lean times and today he continues to build his businesses and reach his optimum potential as both an artist and business person. 

Peter finds inspiration mostly in the work of other photographers. And not necessarily the famous ones. Rather, it is his peers - most who he connects with on social media - that inspire Peter to go out and try new things or shoot in new locations. This connecting with others has helped fuel his creativity greatly over the last several years.

As both a photographer and filmmaker Peter’s intent is simple: create compelling images that appeal to his own sense of beauty and aesthetics. If others appreciate his work, that’s great. But he has learned to create primarily for himself and allow the work to attract those who are in alignment with it. 

Today Peter identifies as an artist. His photos are his own unique interpretation of reality. He starts with traditional photographic techniques in the camera to create his art. A fan of long exposures and filters on the lens while he is shooting, he then takes the digital file from his camera into the computer and creates his own unique take on the world. 

Peter’s intention going forward is to continue to hone his skills as a photographer while being of service to his clients in the commercial and fine art arenas. He also hopes to inspire and educate others interested in photography through his classes and workshops.  www.peteralessandriaphotography.com

3^rd Place - Roxanne Fawcett – “Under Outlaw Skies”

Roxanne’s art is done in a quasi-representational style. She uses acrylic paint on canvas or paper. She plays with different media applied with brushes, pallet knives, fingers, squirt bottles, rollers, scrapers...whatever looks like it will make an interesting texture. 

She generally paints in series...exploring the potential of each thought, taking inspiration from the natural world. The evolution of an image or an idea, working from different perspectives and directions can lead to really exciting work. And, seeing a body of work evolve from one piece to the next is an adventure in and of itself! 

Roxanne lives and paints in the Pacific Northwest, trying to add that intense color to an incredibly green landscape.  www.rgfawcettdesign.com

4^th Place – Brigitte Wiltzer – “Scottsdale”

Brigitte Wiltzer worked for the ABC Television Network and has been taking photographs since the time film was the only option. Later she switched her attention to the food business and opened a restaurant. After abandoning photography for a while she got a digital camera and her passion for the art returned. 

Wiltzer deconstructs architecture within the photographic frame. Her images are bold interpretations that emphasize line, negative space and the flattening of the three-dimensional space. Her approach is to try to look at things differently, looking for elements hidden in plain sight. 

Brigitte Wiltzer has been exhibited at the Arizona State University's prestigious Gammage Auditorium as well as receiving a Special Recognition award from Light Space & Time Gallery in 2011 and an Honorable Mention in 2016.  http://brigittemonika.wix.com 

5^th Place – Charles Wallis – “In Every Waking Hour”

Charles Wallis is a graduate of the Baylor University fine art program.  After college, he opened a graphic design studio beginning his career as a professional artist. His paintings reflect mastery of his craft and versatility in a variety of styles and media. He paints in a traditional realistic style, as well as impressionistic, abstract. 

Charles states the following about this about his art, “My art is the expression of my spirit to the spirit of others that connect with it.  I seek to create a memory, a wish, a fantasy or moment of joy or peace in the soul of the viewer.  I pursue Ideas, color combinations or images that attract my attention in the abstract; or as an impression; and some paintings are just for the fun of presenting something in an unusual manner.”  www.charleswallis.com

6^th Place – Kay McBeath – “Mesa Azul”

Kay McBeath has worked for many years as a speech/language pathologist. In her youth, she took drawing and painting classes and enjoyed painting in acrylic and oil.  Recently, Kay took several photography courses through the Journalism department at Arizona State University and several critiques from a professional at www.Gurushots.com in order to sharpen her macro photography skills.

Her passion is macro photography of abstracts, flora, and fauna. With an intense love of the natural world, a strong imagination, and the eyes of an artist, she captures what most would not see.

This set of photos are from the exterior of one large dumpster: she is grateful for what the dumpster has provided.  www.etsy.com/shop/MacamoniPhotos

7^th Place - Sallie-Anne Swift – “The Current”

Sallie-Anne Swift, originally from Australia, is an international award-winning artist and she has been creating art ever since she was a young child. Sallie-Anne moved to Long Beach, California in 2008 and her studio is purpose built and located in her beautiful home that overlooks the Queen Mary, the local marina and the Pacific Ocean with views to Catalina Island. 

She draws her inspiration from the ocean, and Sallie-Anne states, “I’m a die-hard for all that lives in the sea, "like a little kid chasing waves”, I have always been fascinated by the ever-changing movement and depths of the sea and my ambition to capture it.”

Sallie-Anne’s idea for 3D paintings stemmed from many years of working as a Graphic Designer mixed with drawing and painting since a young child. She continues her thoughts, “By painting on different surfaces and then combining them and leaving space between the different substrates, I create my 3D pieces, which mostly focuses on water as my subject.”

Sallie-Anne discusses her materials, I use a variety of well-known products and some not so well known as typical artist mediums. All paint I use must have strong pigment with a high UV protection rating and all substrate’s and finishes used are for longevity - after all, I want my creations to last forever.”

Her art is on exhibit at the Cove Gallery in Laguna Beach, an area famed for it’s galleries and many artists in Southern California. She concludes her thoughts here, “Expressing a call to nature and the ocean, pushing my pallet beyond its routine discipline creating bold, textured, 3D abstracts with balance, a sense of harmony, depth and movement with titles that often reflect my humorous side and you can find a list of my achievements, awards and more information about me on my website. www.sallieswiftart.com

8^th Place – Robert Gilbert – “Abstract 2”

Robert Gilbert is a graphic designer, digital artist, and educator. He grew up in Santa Barbara, California, raised in a house that his father had built in the hills above the city, where rows of olive trees from Spanish plantations still grow. The Spanish colonial nature of the town, its colors and rustic surfaces were a strong influence to his early work as a painter.

He graduated from the Otis Parson’s Art Institute in Los Angeles and received a master’s degree from California State University in Los Angeles. Robert has worked in varied design environments such as the entertainment, health, and garment industries. His experience ranges from advertising to publication and he works to refine a visual approach that combines the surprise of commercialism within fine art design.

His personal work uses the digital image, employing the concept of a personal mythology. He has shown his work nationally and internationally. Robert has taught and worked as a designer in Greece, and he is an Honorary Professor at Hengyang Normal University in China. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley, working in the border region of south Texas. www.digitalsaintsdesign.com

9^th Place – Sally Tuttle – “Fragments Series 32b”

Sally Tuttle is an artist living and working in the Monterey area of California. Sally’s current body of work represents her work with non-objective painting and combined media collage, using fragments of drawings and hand-painted papers to create compositions, she loves the accidental building nature of this type of work.

Sally considers her current work to be influenced by her admiration of the American Abstraction Expressionists from the 1950’s. Sally received her BA in interior design with a focus on furniture design from Cornish Institute in Seattle. Soon after graduation, Sally started painting and continued painting off and on while working with clients on various interior design projects. During these years, a painting was done “as time permits” and Sally discovered that if you paint when time permits sometimes you do not paint at all.

In 2004, Sally took a painting workshop for inspiration and motivation and Sally has been painting regularly ever since. www.sallytuttle.com

10^th Place – Mike Salcido – “Santa Fe Dreaming”

Mike Salcido was born on March 16, 1971, in Roswell, New Mexico. From an early age, he showed an interest in and a talent for a variety of art forms, including drawing, painting, music, and acting. In 1991, at the age of 20, he relocated to Dallas, Texas, where he has worked as a travel agent to support his study of and interest in art. 

He has traveled extensively in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Latin America. His visits to Mexico City have been particularly meaningful because there he was able to experience firsthand the power of the life and work of one of his major inspirations, Frida Kahlo. Other influences include Canadian artists Diane Desmarais and Dominic Besner and American Artists Cody Hooper and Mark Whitmarsh.

Mike creates beautiful images of a world full of color and constantly in motion. Mike's goal is to trigger in the viewer a unique emotion that simultaneously snaps him out of his ordinary life and puts him into contact with the reciprocal energy of the world.  www.mikesalcido.com