Drawing + Painting

Aleah Chapin (b. 1986 Whidbey Island, WA) is a painter whose direct portrayals of the human form have expanded the conversation around western culture’s representations of the body in art. She has exhibited in solo and group shows throughout the world, including Flowers Gallery (New York, London, Hong Kong), The Belvedere Museum (Vienna), Cascadia Art Museum (Seattle), and the National Portrait Gallery (London). Chapin has attended residencies at the Leipzig International Art Program (Germany) and MacDowell (United States). She is a recipient of the Willard L. Metcalf Promising Young Painters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters (New York), the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant (Canada), a Postgraduate Fellowship from the New York Academy of Art, and won the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery (London) in 2012. She holds an MFA from the New York Academy of Art and a BFA from Cornish College of the Arts. Chapin’s
work has been published extensively in print and online, including New American Paintings, Juxtapoz, Art Maze Magazine, London Sunday Times, the Seattle Times, as well as being a subject in the BBC documentary titled “Portrait of an Artist”.

Averi Endow is a painter from Southern California. He received his Bachelorʼs degree in Drawing + Painting from Laguna College of Art + Design (LCAD) in 2012 where he was a recipient of the Weingart Foundation grant of the West Coast. His work can be found in the permanent collection at LCAD and in the private collections of admirers in and around Orange County. He is currently pursuing his MFA degree in Painting at LCAD and works out of his studio in Aliso Viejo where he also teaches privately.

Kayla Janes is a fine artist located in Laguna Beach, CA. Janes received both her Bachelor’s degree and Master’s degree from Laguna College of Art. From growing up along the California Coast, Janes’s artwork reflects her nostalgic love of the world around her. Sun drenched scenes of familiar people or places inspire Janes’s drawings and paintings. She aims to capture sentimental moments in time through evocative pencil or brush marks.

Christian olid-ramirez is a first-generation Mexican-American artist born and raised in San Gabriel Valley, CA. ramirez completed his MFA at Michigan State University as a University Enrichment Fellow in 2023. His studio practice explores the possibilities of constructing a system of working as an arena for social and political anxiety. Informed by his mestizo hybrid identity, sensory observations, modernist abstraction, Mexican folk art, and Mesoamerican architecture, ramirez’s research-driven and intuitive process is analogous to destabilized socio-political structures, wherein measured decisions collide with chance, sabotage, corruption, and error. In addition to exhibiting in solo and group exhibitions throughout California and nationally, ramirez is the founder and co-director of Basement Projects, a non-profit arts project space dedicated to diversity and inclusion in Downtown Santa Ana, CA.
christianramirezstudio.com

Dave Van Patten is a muralist and illustrator from Long Beach CA, best know for his playful imagery and humorous tone.

As a freelancer, Dave has worked with Warner Music Group/ Rhino Records, Starbucks, Whole Foods, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Yeti, NPR, Hollywood Reporter, Liquid Death, and various local businesses.

In 2023 Van Patten won a Grammy Award for “Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package” design for the Grateful Dead box set, “In and Out of the Garden: Madison Square Garden ‘81 ‘82 ‘83.”

Aside from career, Dave enjoys 1980’s horror movies, 1990’s nostalgia, reading indie comics, and hunting for precious psych/punk gems.

Alejandro Buchner was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina where his passion and career in the visual arts began. Alejandro studied fine arts at the University of Bellas Artes and trained privately with artist Fernando Arranz. Alejandro has worked as a digital artist developing concepts for animated commercials and advertisements and has worked in concept design for Le Elephant Blanc in Paris, France. Since returning to the United States, Alejandro has exhibited his figurative sculpture throughout Southern California and teaches classical drawing and sculpture in Los Angeles and Orange County.

Matteo Di Ventra is a contemporary painter who works in traditional and digital media. His work has been displayed in multiple galleries on the West Coast. He is currently teaching representational painting at Laguna College of Art and Design as well as other art academys in Orange County and Los Angeles. Matteo also works within retirement communities and memory care facilities sharing his passion for art to Seniors.

Matt Duckett is a painter whose work examines the ghosts of tradition that inhabit our lifestyles, drawn from a deep involvement in the various places he’s lived, including Scandinavian cultural legacies in rural Wisconsin, the interplay of heritage and hardship in Irish immigrant communities in Chicago, and disaster-stricken refugee communities in the Philippines, investigating issues of displacement and identity through the things we carry with us when forced to leave everything behind. Duckett’s work has been exhibited extensively across the United States and internationally and featured in national publications including Fine Art Connoisseur and Poets & Artists. Duckett has been passionately involved in developing arts communities in the various places he’s lived, worked, and visited, being a key contributor to a variety of nonprofits, artist incubators and state and local arts boards in order to foster arts and education.

Ananda Fetherston received her education at the City College of New York in Mathematics and Physics. After discovering the work of painter, Jacob Collins, Ananda chose to abandon her graduate studies to join the prestigious full time student body of the Grand Central Atelier. Upon graduating from the Grand Central Atelier, Ananda assumed the position of Director of Public Programs for the school. She is also currently an instructor there with an emphasis on figure drawing, color theory and materials. Ananda’s work is heavily, albeit indirectly, influenced by the quatroccento and the Italian Mannerists. She is the author of “The Whimsy Manifesto”, an essay outlining an artistic ethos she calls whimsy. Her work can be found in private collections around the world and she is the recipient of the 2021 Ancient Worlds, Modern Communities grant by the Society for Classical Studies.

James Galindo (b. 1983) is a Southern California oil painter and a graduate of Laguna College of Art & Designs bachelors and masters programs. He is currently represented by Dawson Cole Fine Art in Palm Desert, CA, where he exhibits three dimensional paintings on glass and acrylic. Notable commissions include paintings for the Nolet Distillery in Schiedam, Netherlands, Green Valley Hospital in Tucson, AZ, and artwork featured in various shows and advertisements in the Los Angeles TV industry. James has taught at a number of art studios and colleges in Southern California, including Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art, Brentwood Art Center, Kazone Art Academy, FT Art Academy, Rio Hondo College, Saddleback College, Orange Coast College and Laguna College of Art and Design. James has more than 15 years of teaching experience and specializes in foundation level drawing and painting.

Emily Gordon has a BFA in Illustration and completed 7 years of private study with nationally known artist William Whitaker. Named as an Artist to Watch by Riviera magazine, her art has been juried into numerous exhibitions, including the prestigious ARC Salon held by the Art Renewal Center. She received her MFA in Painting from Laguna College of Art + Design and was invited to be a live demonstrator at the Huntington Librarys Brushstrokes: Beyond the Gallery event. Emily currently teaches art at the university level and exhibits her work in galleries in Utah and California.

Graduate Alumni: Painting

Adam Matano is a contemporary representational artist specializing in sculpture. His work is an organically evolving process combining a visceral reaction to life, his interest and admiration for the natural world and our relationship with it. The exploration of these ideas allows for psychologically dense, rhythmic artwork.

Adams interest and involvement with nature and the arts began at a young age. Early in his career, he nurtured his musical interests, which now play an integral part in his overall aesthetic, its principles echoing in his sculptures. Most of Adam’s subjects are real life models that he has spent time with, through observation or interaction.

Adam attained his BFA in Sculpture at the Lyme Academy College Of Fine Arts in Connecticut, in 2010. Currently, Adam sculpts and lives in Los Angeles, exhibiting his sculptures and teaching classes/ private, in person or online via Zoom.

Kelley Mogilka (b. 1995) is a figurative painter originally from Edmond, Oklahoma. After obtaining her BFA in Studio Art at Oklahoma City University in 2018, she attended a summer artist residency at Otis College of Art and Design that inspired her to relocate to California. Spending two years struggling as a working artist and taking online courses to improve her technical skill, she built up her portfolio to attend Laguna College of Art and Design for her Master of Fine Arts Degree in Painting. Since then, she has lived, worked, and studied out of Laguna Beach, winning several awards for her paintings at the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association and being featured in Southwest Art Magazines 21 Under 31, Young Artists to Collect Now. Mogilka is represented by Vanessa Rothe Fine Art in Laguna Beach and Pence Gallery in Davis where she was the recipient of their annual Emerging Artist Award.

Michael was presented with the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association Lifetime Achievement Award in 2015. He recently won the “Collector’s Choice Award, Artist Choice Award and the Southwest Magazine Quick Draw Award at the Laguna Beach Invitational Plein Air Competition as well as the “Best of Show” at both the Kern County Plein Air Invitational and the Grand Canyon Celebration of Art, and the Gold Medal at the Carmel Art Festival. Collectors include the Marriott Hotels and Resorts, The Irvine Company, Hoag Hospital, California State Parks and many corporate as well as private commissions.

Michael is the President of the prestigious California Art Club, and a Signature Member of both the California Art Club and the Laguna Plein Air Painters Association. Michael is an adjunct faculty member at Laguna College of Art & Design (LCAD) where he teaches Landscape Painting. Currently, his paintings are showing at galleries in Pasadena, Carmel, Balboa Island and Laguna Beach, where he is a regular exhibitor at the Festival of Arts.

He maintains his studio in Laguna Beach, California.

MICHAEL OBERMEYER STUDIO

3251 Laguna Canyon Road #D-1
Laguna Beach, California 92651 949-433-6149
[email protected]
michaelobermeyer.com

Hilary McCarthy is a contemporary figurative painter living in Laguna Beach. She is currently adjunct faculty in the Fine Arts Department at Laguna College of Art + Design. Prior to that she lived in NYC for 18 years. Her work has been exhibited in numerous galleries in the United States and Europe. She received her BFA from Hartford Art School and her MFA from New York Academy of Art. She also attended The Art Students League and Columbia University. She has attended art residencies in Puglia, Italy; Victoria, Australia; Leipzig, Germany, and Johnston, Vermont. She received the Fostering Creativity in a Time of Crisis Grant in 2020 from the Laguna Beach Community Foundation.

My paintings aim to be visual poetry based on dreams and the subconscious. As a subject in my recent work, the ocean is healing both physically and emotionally to me. It existed before we did. It is wiser than we are. We need it more than it needs us. I am constantly inspired by its majestic beauty. The women I paint in the foreground deal with the messy complexities of the human condition. In the background, the ocean forms a vast rhythmic backdrop. The narrative of the painting tests these two interfaces.

Betty Shelton is an accomplished and award-winning artist whose work has been exhibited extensively in the United States. Betty has received numerous painting and drawing awards throughout her artistic career, most notably she has been a finalist in the Art Renewal Center Salon, and the 6th Annual TAPPED at the Manifest Gallery. She has shown recently at the Watercolor West International Exhibition, Women by Women – Depictions
and Interpretations by Greater Los Angeles Women, and Poets and Artists, at the Arcadia Gallery.

Betty has BA, MA and MFA degrees in Drawing and Painting. She has been teaching 40 years, and has been privileged to spend the last 28 years teaching painting, drawing, and watercolor at the Laguna College of Art + Design.

Her metaphorical realistic figurative paintings are inspired by contemporary culture and yearly pilgrimages to the great museums of the world. Currently she is working on paintings, commissioned portraits, and maintaining a studio in Laguna Canyon.

Daniel Von der Ahe is a writer/illustrator and teacher living in San Juan Capistrano. He trained at the Florence Academy of Art and has worked as a classical portrait artist, illustrator, and visual development artist for animation where he discovered a love for story and writing. He teaches figure drawing, color and painting in any medium. His teaching focuses on clear, strong, fundamentals to give students the ability to achieve any style, understand different types of expression, and ultimately discover their own. Everyone has a story and its worthwhile to develop the best, clearest way to tell it. Following his first illustrated novel, Daniel is currently completing his second novel in addition to working on his first hybrid graphic novel. Meanwhile, he keeps up with painting commissions and changing diapers.

Gary Musgrave is a Southern California-based problem-solver, illustrator, designer, and educator with both a BFA from the Art Center College of Design and an MFA in Illustration from California State University, Long Beach (CSULB). With 15 years of professional commercial experience, his work spans editorial illustration, branding, public art, and design, showcasing his versatility and distinctive retro-inspired style.

Gary’s editorial illustrations have been featured in major publications such as The New York Times, Variety, Wired Magazine, Harper’s Magazine, Popular Mechanics, and Scientific American. He has collaborated with leading brands and events like Nike, Disney, Marvel, Stance, and the U.S. Open of Surfing.

His client list includes cultural icons such as Quentin Tarantino and the Elvis Presley Estate.
In the action sports world, Gary has worked with brands like Hurley and RVCA. He is also active in public art, co-creating murals with artist Jeff McMillan under their collective, “”The Draculas,”” for events such as POW! WOW! Long Beach and the San Jose Sharks at the SAP Center.

Above all, Gary considers himself a problem-solver. His personal work explores perceptions of meaning and value, often incorporating technology to create pieces that encourage viewer engagement and participation. In addition to his commercial work, he teaches in the Illustration program at CSULB, emphasizing the importance of creativity and resourcefulness in his students. His dedication to craftsmanship,storytelling, and community involvement continues to shape his diverse and evolving body of work.

Fun Fact: Gary was once hired with artist Jeff McMillan to paint cherubs in Justin Timberlake’s bathroom!

Professional Portfolio: www.garymusgrave.com

Education
BFA in Illustration – Art Center College of Design, Pasadena (2009)
MFA in Illustration – California State University Long Beach (2023)