Born and raised in New York City, the child of two professional artists, Chris Conover is a newly elected member to Allied Artists of America. Conover shared two examples of her recent artwork—two acrylic paintings. “A Lonesome Place,” was chosen for the 2021 Allied Artists’ annual exhibit. The other painting is titled “Clement’s Gift.” She exhibits her paintings frequently at the Salmagundi Club’s open exhibitions. |
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| Conover attended New York City’s High School of Music and Art, and went on to study printmaking and painting with master printer Harvey Breverman at the State University of New York at Buffalo. “After that, I pursued a lifelong dream: illustrating and writing children’s books. I had a long career and published 20 books.” The books garnered reviews in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and other publications. Her book illustrations were hand painted in watercolor with pen and ink.
She launched a second career in fine art and was accepted into the Catharine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club’s (CLWAC) 2013 annual open exhibit. Three years later, she won the CLWAC Bronze Medal and in 2021 earned the Katlan Family Award for her depiction of city life from Audubon Artists.
“Getting elected to membership in Allied Artists of America is an accomplishment that I am truly proud of, and I look forward to participating in future exhibitions,” she said. Conover is also an elected member of CLWAC, the American Artists Professional League, and is an associate member of Audubon Artists. http://chrisconover.com/index.html |
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| Patt Baldino is a gifted artist whose award-winning works have been widely exhibited and collected throughout the United States. Her paintings have been juried into international shows including Oil Painters of America, International Guild of Realism, and Salon International. Recent 2018 awards for her still lifes include the Betty Kaytes Floral award from Ridgewood Art Institute and Honorable Mention at the Salmagundi Club Exhibition in New York City. https://www.pattbaldino.com/ |
| Dora Hagge's watercolors break through reality into the glory of light. As she sits at the Lord's feet and listens, rivers of light cascade forth from the Father of Light in both her paintings and her writing. Her paintings have been accepted in many exhibitions in New York City including The American Artists Professional League Exhibition in which she received their top watercolor award. https://dorahagge-artist.com/ |
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| Kristie Madsen said “it’s a joy to be considered an elected member of Allied Artists of America and I feel honored to be offered this opportunity. My artistic incentive is really just an expression of my captivation and/or longing to be a part of the natural world. I have been able to travel and invest a substantial portion of my energies towards painting endangered species within the context of abstract landscapes to convey the importance of lost and/or forgotten wildernesses.”
Self-taught, Madsen’s work as a painter includes the mediums of watercolor, egg tempera, casein and oils. Her “unlikely artistic journey in painting” began in the late 1980s when she moved from California to the wilderness of Montana. “Observing and painting birds in the wild became my favorite subjects of watercolor. Local galleries in Missoula, accepted my work and I succeeded in having my first solo show at the Chandlar Gallery in 1990, with other exhibitions to follow in Missoula and Lewiston.” Her painting displayed here is titled “Black Heron Gone Fishing.”
After earning her second Master’s degree in 2000, Madsen moved back to California and worked at the local hospital, while arranging two solo shows at the Mendocino Art Center in 2003 and 2005. Two years later she was accepted into an Audubon Artists juried member show for the first time and continued to participate. In 2014 she garnered the Audubon Silver Medal Award in Aquamedia, and was elected to the Audubon Artists membership that same year. Her artwork is currently represented by Prentice Galleries, located in Mendocino, CA. She resides in Swallows Keep, located in Fort Bragg, CA. |
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| Vibrant color plus a sense of authenticity is what the representational paintings of Ted Fuka convey utilizing the pure pigment of soft pastels. He first discovered pastels in figure drawing classes while attending the American Academy of Art in Chicago and later found the spontaneous medium to be a good choice in creating color studies for finished illustrations in his graphic art business. After some soul searching and reassessment of his commercial art profession, Fuka turned his focus toward fine art and found inspiration in local bucolic landscapes. From early on Ted always knew becoming an artist was something near to his heart. Growing up in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, he always was intrigued when his family would travel into the rural Midwest whether it be summer vacations to northern Wisconsin, an occasional trip to Michigan or just a drive out beyond traffic lights. Fuka has a reverence for nature and love of the outdoors during any season. The veritable beauty of nature and its enduring serenity is the impression Ted seeks to communicate to the observer while always striving to capture light and form. His work has been juried into several prestigious regional, national and international exhibitions and has earned numerous distinctive awards. https://www.tedfuka.com/ |
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| Lewis Isaac Testa, a newly elected member of Allied Artists of America, combines the skill of a fine artist with the heart and soul of a compassionate human being. His mission as an artist is to donate sales of his work to an organization he founded, Art Feeds Hunger (Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artfeedshunger/), where he lives in Kingston, upstate New York, which provides food to hungry children and less-fortunate families throughout the United States.
“We at Art Feeds Hunger want to form a partnership with galleries and art institutions to bring awareness to the plight of hungry children in America,” is a statement by Testa on his Facebook page. “The galleries and art organization will donate their space for an art Exhibit that will bring the message to the public. The galleries will collect food and or funds to donate to the food pantries or soup kitchens of their choice. One-hundred percent of the donations will go to the selected food pantries or food kitchens.” |
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| As an example of his outreach, Testa, in October 2023, donated 23 paintings, drawings and pastels to the Harry Chapin foodbank at Long Island Cares (website: https://www.licares.org/). Chapin was a popular singer/songwriter and hunger activist in the 1970s, who died tragically in a car accident in July 1981.
Testa studied at the Art Students League of New York, 1975-1978 and was the recipient of the 1976-1977 Art Students League Merritt Scholarship. He won the 2023 Allied Artists of America’s Salmagundi Club award for graphics with his intense, close-up charcoal portrait titled “Reed.” He became a newly elected member of Allied Artists that same year. In recent years he’s overcome disabilities with physical therapy. |
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| Master pastelist Joyce Hanson said she enjoys an endless view of trees in the verdant, majestic Adirondacks mountain range of upstate New York. Inspired by this endless view, she depicted an intimate forest-floor ecosystem of color, shadow and sunlight, titled “Trail to Long Pond,” which captured the Bronze Medal of Honor at the 110th annual Allied Artists of America juried exhibition, displayed online and at the renowned Butler Institute of American Art in Youngstown, OH.
“It is a great honor to receive the Bronze Award, and to be invited to send my work to the Butler,” Hanson said. “It means a great deal to me, and it’s hard for me to comprehend this honor.”
Among the many highlights in her extensive career, Hanson is a master pastelist with the Pastel Society of America, a member of the Master Circle of the International Societies of Pastel Associations, an elected member of the Catherine Lorillard Wolfe Art Club, and an elected member of Allied Artists of America.
As stated in her art biography, living deep in the Adirondack Mountains, surrounded by forests and lakes, Hanson’s pastel paintings reflect the natural world in intimate detail, as depicted in “Trail to Long Pond.”
“The representation in my work is a moment in time in which only I will ever witness and choose to create,” she explained. The “moment in time” is defined by “a point of change; the story in an image; an unexpected visual I encounter; the wetness of rain or melting snow; shooting rays of sun pushing through the darkness; an illuminated pathway to what I should see; the sharp aftermath of a wind storm or the slow life and death of a tree. Everything is connected and important. When I am done, the story remains for me. The moment is not gone and I am connected.” https://www.pastelsocietyofamerica.org/psa-mp/joyce-hanson/ |
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