About the Artist

Samantha Reynolds is a Long Beach based artist. Drawing from memories, dreams, her work looks for magic in the ordinary. An abundance of various items and textures weave themselves into her work creating mixed media paintings, collages and fiber works. Samantha graduated from California State University Long Beach with a BFA in Drawing and Painting in 2018. She has since worked as a scenic painter and teaches private art lessons.

Artist Statement

My work reconstructs fragmented, fading memories and captures moments of longing through a combination of paint, fabric, collage, glass and other found objects. Whether it’s a vague memory, a fleeting moment or feeling of yearning, my crows nest of materials integrated into my work offer a tactile experience grounded in a sense of unplaceable familiarity.

About the Artist

Kat Furtado is a contemporary, mixed-media artist from San Diego, California. She specializes in abstraction and creating ethereal, expressive art. Kat is a certified and licensed Speech-Language Pathologist (SLP) with a Master’s of Art in Communication Science and Disorders. Her background as an SLP informs and inspires her path as an artist. Storytelling, emotions, and recurrent themes of humanity are woven with care into her work. To Furtado, creating art is an act of non-verbal communication and is validation of the human experience. Being that communication is the only true link between sentient beings, Furtado considers the creation of art to be an essential communicative endeavor.

Furtado became a mother in 2015. The nuances and transformation within motherhood sparked the need for a creative outlet. This was the catalyst for her third career (SLP, motherhood, artist), wherein she realized that parenting two small children required her to do the bravest thing she could imagine: something new. She became a full-time artist in December of 2020. Furtado has sold out two twenty piece collections of small works upon release. She has collectors worldwide. Her artwork was featured in the Roaring Artist Gallery’s “Powerful Little Things II” exhibition, and she was recently interviewed by “Shoutout SoCal” to discuss her career as an artist. In October of 2021, she successfully self-released her first full product line featuring her illustrative work.

When she isn’t painting, she can be found cuddling with any combination of her two kids, her rescued cat, and/or her rescued dog. True to motherhood, there is always someone on her lap, and also true to motherhood, she doesn’t really mind.

About Artist’s Work:

The miniseries, “Onward” is a digital mixed media collage series of abstract figurative work very loosely describing specific seasons within the artist’s life. They portray a quest for authenticity and resilience. The first portrait, “Running Out,” features the untamed emotions of an adolescent and young adult searching for comfort, meaning, and a sense of connection. The wild brushstrokes and loose writing mirror the enormous danger and fear the subject feels as she moves through a time when she has little to no control over the trajectory of her life. The second portrait, “Onward,” shows a vulnerable adult female, post-partum, yearning for validation and hope she isn’t seeing in herself or others. Dejected, depressed, and isolated, she seeks to find answers within herself but falls short. Still, the act of her conscious vulnerability is enough to carry her through to whatever comes next. By the third portrait, “Resilient Spirit,” our subject has discovered a sense of peace and resolution. She works tirelessly to provide a safe space for her children. She has fostered opportunities for them to have a sense of independence and autonomy, allowing them to be whoever they need to be to feel safe. They know they are loved. They are validated. They are comforted. They are home. The subtle confidence her children have in her gives her the chance to see herself through a different lens. She moves onward into the next season of her life, working to be the best possible version of herself for them.

About the Artist

Iwas born in Jerusalem, Israel on 1973. My father was a documentary film director and an Artist, and my mother was a school teacher, and later on a Yoga instructor. I’m a middle child in a family of three girls. In 1999 I got my bachelor degree in Business and Economics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Between the years 1999 to 2006 I worked in finance as a financial risk manager in Tel Aviv. On 2008 I opened my own ceramic art studio, where I produced original sculptures and pottery and taught ceramics to adults and children. Between the years 2013 to 2014 I studied graphic design and digital media in Cavim Institute of Design in Tel-Aviv. In the spring of 2015 I have relocated to California with my husband and three daughters. During my stay in California I discovered the Mixed Media Art and started creating collages. I have been selling my art since 2018 in the bay area and in Tel-Aviv. Galleries and shows: • JCO’S ART HAUS – Art Gallery Los Gatos, California • Under1000 – Art gallery Tel-Aviv • January 2018 – march 2018 “Overlap” – A Dual Exhibition at the JCC of Los Gatos, California.

Artist Statement

My art emerges from the interaction between my creative mind and the materials around me. It deals with ideas, shapes, forms, colors and compositions. I choose specific visual images, sometimes iconic, to represent each subject I address. The images repeat themselves forming the skeleton of my work. Its defined boundaries give me the confidence to create in a free, abstract way. My subject investigation is done through the various changes in the image and its encounters with other visuals, transforming the one-dimensional, tabloid image into a complex and profound work. The interaction and connection between all the elements create the final artwork that can be categorized as a contemporary art with a pop-art feel.

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