Iman Maleki (Iranian, 1976)

Iman Maleki was born in Tehran. He has been fascinated by the art of painting since he was a child. At the age of 15, he started to learn painting under the mastery of his first and only teacher - Morteza Katouzian - who is the greatest realist painter of Iran.

Meanwhile, he began to paint professionally. In 1999 he graduated in Graphic Design from the Art University of Tehran. Since 1998, he has participated in several exhibitions.

In the year 2000, he got married and in the following year he established ARA Painting Studio and started to teach painting, considering classical and traditional values.

Ghiannis Ritsos / Christian Schloe | Un albero

Quell'albero era cresciuto nella parte superiore del giardino,

alto, solitario, slanciato - la sua altezza

tradiva forse un'idea segreta d'intrusione. Non diede mai

fiori né frutti, solo un'ombra lunga che divideva in due il giardino

e una misura inapplicabile agli altri alberi, carichi e curvi.

Marcos Damascena (Brazilian painter, 1981)

Born in Poções Bahia, Marcos Damascena settled in St. Paul, where he began his artistic career, studying with the great names in figurative art.

Made with the design of the live model and teacher Luis Alberto, the Paulista Association of Fine Arts, then studied with the master Abraham Jorge Esteves: color theory and anatomy of animals, especially horses.

Jeff Barson (American, 1966)

Barson was born in Logan, Utah. At the age of nine, his family moved to England where Barson attended Beechwood Park Preparatory School. Over the next years, Barson traveled extensively throughout Europe and was exposed to its great museums and fine artistic legacy.

He credits his early interests in Art and Literature to this move which provided an excellent education and inspiration for the creative young Barson. Barsons paintings have hung in galleries in New York, Boston and Los Angeles.

His limited edition prints are distributed nationally and have met with great enthusiasm from the press and public. U.S. Art Magazine named him one of six artists that will change the limited edition print market.

Dragan Ilic Di Vogo (Serbian painter, 1962)

"Boundaries of art have no shape, colour and smell; therefore, even if they existed, we would not be able to know that we have stepped on them. If you seek art, you may find it in everything around you. Mainly in style, since man is style. I find the man to be the most perfect work of art, shaped and painted by the Creator himself.

The art is always one and the same, though it may be more or less present at a particular moment and in particular place. The art does not progress or regress, it only goes through transformations. The consciousness about art does not progress either, although we wish it would. The need for art does not grow or decrease.

Thanks to God, art is constant, while we are the ones who change, appear and disappear. Cheers!" - Dragan Ilic Di Vogo.

Z.L. Feng, 1954 | Landscape / Figurative / Watercolor painter

Growing up in Shanghai, Feng began painting at age seven and never stopped, experimenting with different mediums, including pastel, oil, and egg tempera, before choosing his favorite, watercolor.

"With watercolor you cannot cover your mistakes, so you must know what you are doing", he says.

He finds inspiration for his lovely landscapes in the countryside of the New River Valley: "Usually I go around - to the river, the forest, the lake – to try and find interesting compositions".

Those familiar with Feng’s art are also captivated by his portraits of the people of Tibet, Native Americans of New Mexico, Southern farmers, and others.

Chen Yongle (Chinese painter, 1954)

Chen Yongle was born in the Yunan Province of China. He is currently the President of the Yunnan Research Institute of Fine Art, and is a member of various art organisations and committees including the Chinese Artists Association, the Chinese Graphic Artists Association, and the Association of the Artists of Chinese Craft and Art.

He is among the few contemporary Chinese printmakers who can claim a series of international exhibitions.

William Whitaker Jr. | Figurative painter

William Whitaker Jr. (1943-2018) was one of the most respected living classical-realist figure artists in the Western United States.

Whitaker describes his training as being "Most influenced by the academicians of the last century for their craftsmanship, by the impressionists for their color and life, and by the abstract expressionists for their boldness".

He earned a BA from the University of Utah where Alvin Gittins was his mentor and later studied at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles.

Stanislav Aristov / Станислав Аристов, 1982 | Flame art

Russian🎨 photographer Stanislav Aristov / Станислав Аристов, better known by his moniker Pol Tergejst is an artist from Ekaterinburk, in Russia, who decided "to play with fire", literally. He uses flame shapes to create some kind of flame-shape paintings, he composes different images of them. All this involves a lot of photographing.

Aristo made a splendid series of images with matches between 2010 and 2013. It's after taking part in a themed "line of life" photo contest from Formula foto that the idea of using lighted matches came to him.

The "stroke of genius" or as Stanislav said himself: "it's not the first idea with one things that shows another things :)" reminds us all the poetry that has fire in the collective unconscious. Thanks to Stanislav for giving us some of his time answering our questions and for sharing with us his work.