This is an updated bio for Jakki Annerino.
Jakki Annerino is a mixed-media artist and singer/songwriter living in Kitchener, ON. She grew up in Chicago, Illinois and Phoenix, Arizona.
Making art has been a lifelong passion for Jakki. She creates encaustic (wax) collage, glass collage pendants, altered books, greeting cards and recently started making hammered copper jewelry. She incorporates various remnants and relics, both natural and vintage in her work.
She finds encaustic (beeswax and damar resin mixed with oil paint) an intriguing medium as it allows for layering, creating textures and using beautiful colours. When painting with encaustic she works intuitively starting with a single element such as a vintage photo.
She likes to convey a sense of whimsy in many of her pieces. And as a songwriter, she likes to bring a narrative quality to her work.
She is inspired by nature, literature, music and personal relationships. She hopes that her art brings joy, beauty and meaning to the lives of those who view it.
Tag Archives: mixed media
Artist Bio: Rob Soosaar
As an artist, I am still in the infant stages of trying to understand and interpret the world around me. I have had a long time interest in photography, spending countless hours working in black and white 35 mm, both behind the camera and in the darkroom. At that time I recognized that my interest was driven by trying to understand what was behind the objects I was portraying – exploring texture, mood or emotion. While still actively engaged in photography, I have moved into the realm of painting as a medium to continue the deeper exploration of those themes that I found so engaging in me earlier years. Much of my painting takes form through multi-media abstracts. My inspiration is often driven by natural elements of rock, stone and wood like the rugged landscapes of the Canadian Shield. What brings energy to me from those landscapes is the connection between living spirit of the present with elements that are thousands or millions of years old. This same connection between layers of evolution of human spirit, stone, earth and water was a powerful inspiration that was absorbed through travels to ancient villages in the South of France.
In order to present my paradigm of ever evolving spirit, emotion and the physical world I developed a technique that allows the paintings to have both a physical as well as visual element. The base is either plywood or Masonite, prepared to allow for the adhesion of a layer of concrete/mortar. Development of the mortar layer allows for a variety of textures and fluidity to emerge that would not be possible with other dimensional substrates. The shape and flow are very much inspired by the emotional vision for the finished piece. Gesso, tinted with a base colour, is painted over the cured concrete as a base on which acrylic paint is applied. Colours are primarily motivated by the spirit element of the work, developed in harmony with the emotional aspects. A range of tools are used for working with the concrete and paint – brushes, palette knives, hands, sponges – whatever is necessary to achieve the desired effect. Music is an important energizer when developing these works as it has the ability to transport me from my current space and time and take me to new worlds where I fell as though I am participating in the painting rather than working on the painting. Inspiration comes from an eclectic mix of Tom Waits, Muddy Waters, Rolling Stones, Miles Davis, Harry Manx and a range of Native folk artists.
I have been a resident of Waterloo for over 20 years with 19 of them in the city core. I’m married with 3 teenage children and work in the local technology sector.
Artist Bio: Jennifer Gough
Jennifer Gough has been working as a self taught, visual artist in the Kitchener-Waterloo area for the past four years. Jennifer is most commonly known for her abstract contemporary, and mixed media paintings.
The unique nature of her work has sparked much interest and attention and her individual style of creating can not easily be condensed into any one category.
Modern abstracts drenched in color, combined with her use of clean lines and shapes lend themselves to a feeling of big city loft living. Structured, detailed pieces with a definite bold connection to retro print add & comic book genres inspire a playful, punchy attitude with a hint of the provocative. Layered, mixed media pieces give depth and texture to an otherwise flat canvas and add intrigue and interest for conceptual analysis.
As with many artists, Jennifer’s inspiration comes from many different places. The obvious conventional sources such as color, shapes, texture and contrast all play a huge part, but the root of her inspiration comes from life itself. Human nature, emotion, life experience and freedom of expression. The objective of her work is to bring the viewer into the piece. To inspire a connection and allow each one to find something of themselves in the piece.
“In my opinion, art is a very personal experience. To be viewed from ones own perspective. Not necessarily to be understood, but instead to be felt, and inspire a reaction in the viewer. It’s a love affair.”
Portrait of the Artist: Lisa Meschino
Informed by her training as a dancer, Lisa has a long-standing interest in observing the human body. She is fascinated by the relationship between the body’s lines and shapes, as well as the body’s relationship to the larger space it occupies. Her figure studies have evolved from investigations of shapes wrapped by space to figurative lines returning to space to the inner space of the body. By reducing the figure to simple forms, she aims to capture the embodied experience of movement. Through her passion for the process of mark-making, she explores new ways to break through the surface of the body. In all her paintings, the effect is sensual and visceral, eliciting fleshiness out of stone, and sinew out of line.
With over 25 years of painting and drawing experience, Lisa has honed her painting and drawing skills at Central Technical School, York University fine arts department, and The Toronto School of Art. She continues to evolve her “bodyscapes” through local mentorship programs and artists’ collectives, bringing to life the expressive interpretation of the inner landscape of the human form.
She will be showing at Station 2 Studios.
Portrait of the Artist: D. H. McKee
D. H. McKee is a multi-skilled artist who works with painting, mixed media, journaling, digital photography, music, and video. He has a range of experience in various media, but painting is his first and foremost output; painting is a way of expressing ideas and emotions which cannot be formed through words or sound.
His education has helped him integrate film and video aesthetics into his artwork: video stylistic themes work their way into the paintings, and one can discern letterboxing, test patterns, scrambled pay-television signals and over-saturated colours in the works. It is in this manner that he explores different mediums and surface techniques.
Paintings are created quickly, passionately. They are assembled adjacent to thought and emotion, and are influenced by music, noise, television, and computers. The highly decorative images are richly textured and overflowing with colour. They are a combination of cubist and surrealist influences on non-representational abstract forms — essentially the interpretation of different external stimuli. The image dictates its final form, resulting in a surprising, unpredictable finished product.
He lives in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada. You can visit his Website here, and purchase online prints and framed photographic prints here. His Behance network page is here.