Author: Seraphina Calder

Ruth Poniarski came to painting through structure. She began her creative life in architecture, earning her degree from Pratt Institute in 1982. For ten years, she worked in construction, bringing blueprints to life in the physical world. But eventually, lines and measurements weren’t enough. In 1988, she turned to painting—not as a hobby, but as a more open-ended way to think and feel. Where architecture was grounded in rules, painting gave her freedom. She began to build in a new way: with symbols, stories, and inner vision. Her work brings together threads from mythology, literature, philosophy, and history. The result…

Sylvia Nagy moves easily between the technical and the intuitive. Her background in industrial ceramics is rooted in a strong foundation—she studied at the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest, where she earned her MFA in Silicet Industrial Technology and Art. That training set the tone for a practice that’s both structured and exploratory. Later, at Parsons School of Design in New York, she expanded her role as an artist and educator, even designing a course on plaster mold making. Whether she’s working in a studio or a classroom, Nagy brings an eye for form and a deep…

Pasquale J. Cuomo’s relationship with photography started early and never let go. He picked up his first camera as a teenager and didn’t put it down. What began as a fascination quickly became a full-blown pursuit, eventually stretching across five decades. Cuomo isn’t just a photographer—he’s someone who’s stuck with the craft through its many shifts, from darkrooms to digital sensors and now back to film by choice. His career is built on versatility. Over the years, he’s shot weddings, fashion spreads, architectural details, legal documentation, advertising campaigns—you name it. By the mid-1980s, he had his own lab, serious equipment,…

Some artists show you what’s already there. Kimberly McGuiness does something different—she creates what feels remembered rather than seen. Her work isn’t about observation. It’s about channeling. Every piece seems to arrive with its own voice, shaped by mythology, nature, and the quiet pull of emotion. Her art doesn’t describe a world—it becomes one. McGuiness works with recurring themes: horses that move like freedom, peacocks rich with presence, talismans and oracles full of mystery. These aren’t visual accents—they’re carriers of meaning. She pulls from the natural world, ancient stories, and the dreamy theatrics of circus life. What results is a…

Sabrina Puppin doesn’t paint to replicate what’s already visible—she paints to stir something deeper. Her canvases are loud with movement, full of color that almost vibrates off the surface. With exhibitions spanning cities like New York, Doha, and Miami, and reaching across Europe and Asia, she has developed a visual language rooted in emotion, abstraction, and instinct. Her work doesn’t sit still or ask for quiet admiration—it demands engagement. It wants to be felt. Her paintings reject realism in favor of something more personal. They take in moods, memories, and dreams, and spit them back out as shape and color.…

Nancy Staub Laughlin approaches art with a steady hand and a wide lens. A pastel artist and photographer based in the United States, she studied at Moore College of Art in Philadelphia, earning a BFA before going on to exhibit her work in galleries and museums up and down the East Coast. Her artwork has caught the attention of both collectors and critics, with pieces entering private and corporate collections. She’s also been featured in media profiles and interviews. The late Sam Hunter, one of modern art’s most respected historians and critics, once described her work as “refreshingly unique.” That…

Kerstin Roolfs makes paintings that don’t stay quiet. They take up space—visually, intellectually, emotionally. She works mostly in oil on canvas, and her themes aren’t light: mythology, politics, gender, deformity, history. These aren’t just decoration pieces. They’re conversation starters, challenges, and questions, all built into layers of paint. She is currently represented by Twelvechairs Gallery (https://twelvechairsgallery.com/). Born in Germany and trained in fine art in Berlin, Roolfs made her way to New York in 1994, landing first in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when the neighborhood was still gritty and full of raw creative energy. In 2016, she moved to the Bronx, where…

Emma Coyle has been working with the visual vocabulary of Pop Art for over two decades, but she isn’t trying to re-create its golden era. Originally from Ireland and living in London since 2006, Coyle takes what she needs from that mid-century aesthetic—the color, the edge, the tension—and steers it into a space shaped by contemporary media and her own sensibility. She’s not playing by old rules. Her paintings are pulled from the now, stripped from today’s advertising culture and reassembled into something more personal, more current. In 2022, her solo show The Best Revenge at Helwaser Gallery in New…

Stormie Steele didn’t walk the usual path to becoming an artist. She didn’t come from art schools or formal mentorships. Her work comes from somewhere more personal—born out of years spent growing, reflecting, and healing. A self-taught artist, writer, and healing arts practitioner, Steele approaches creativity the same way she approaches life: with openness, honesty, and deep listening. Her paintings don’t try to impress or explain. They’re rooted in feeling, in letting the brush follow the rhythm of something larger than herself. Her work isn’t about chasing perfection—it’s about embracing the rawness of being alive. In Steele’s world, abstract art…

L. Scooter Morris doesn’t create work that stays on the wall. It reaches out—visually, emotionally, and even physically. She calls herself a sensory illusionist, and it fits. Her “Sculpted Paintings” are built from mixed media and layered surfaces that invite you to move around them, not just look at them. These aren’t decorative pieces. They’re charged with tension—the kind that lives between what’s happening and what’s underneath. What drives Morris isn’t perfection. It’s truth. She works to create spaces that ask, rather than answer—spaces where we can slow down, take stock, and ask harder questions about the world around us.…