Multimedia Exhibit at Activity Center Gallery

(from City Press Release) The City of Gaithersburg presents the multimedia works of Sarah Becker, Bing Huang, Edelweiss Calcagno, Mohsen Semnani, Nataliya Andreyeva, and Paul Vickers. Viewing hours are Monday through Saturday from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. An opening reception to introduce the collection will be held on Friday, September 23 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. 

Sara Becker enjoys plein-air painting because this area of the country is rich with creative inspiration. She favors painting in the medium of oil or acrylic and enjoys the vibrant colors that can be mixed to achieve dynamic impact.  Her art shows an appreciation for the gifts of nature such as vistas of mountains, oceanside beaches, farming country, historical sites and many other spectacular places. Becker is equally interested in painting from still life, doing miniatures and portraits. Color, form and value is an undertaking that holds much excitement for Becker and that feeling is conveyed in all her compositions for the viewer to experience 

Bing Huang was born in Taiwan, and came to the United States over 30 years ago. Huang was interested in Chinese calligraphy from an early age in Taiwan. Traditionally, Chinese calligraphy is a piece of black and white artwork, creating a poem or story with brush pen/black ink on white rice paper. Huang’s contemporary art style is to paint Chinese calligraphy with symbols in a colorful way to echo the meaning of Chinese characters for a unique artistic expression 

Edelweiss "Picasso" Calcagno is an internationally recognized visual artist whose works are cubist, expressionist and abstract in style. Calcagno paints with a youthful freedom that expresses elements of the human form and forceful color with liberating, compelling results. She has garnered critical attention throughout Europe, including Paris, Rome and Brussels — where she was commissioned to paint a depiction of “Copyright” for the European Union headquarters 

Mohsen Semnani was born to an artistically inclined family in Esfahan, which is one of the most ancient cities in Iran.  Growing up in this beautiful historical city allowed Semnani to treasure the amazing and colorful spaces and surroundings of fascinating symbols of life, history and culture. Intrigued with various aspects of design and literature, he has collaborated in ceramic design and metal embossment with the most renowned masters of present Esfahan Art. His unique and creative style includes painting of human figures in bold, rich colors with round and soft shapes.

Nataliya Andreyeva was born and raised in Ukraine.  Many of her ideas come from travel memories, imagination and experimentation. Andreyeva is a self-learner, her art is vivid, thought provoking and abstract in nature and will appeal to imagination and curiosity. Using dominant colors of red, yellow, blue, and green, her "signature" (style) is in the positioning of the paintings or objects designed to be shown in multiple orientations - vertically or horizontally, close together or separately... as long as it speaks to the viewer.  She is also a contributing writer on the Arts Scene for the DC Examiner.

Paul Vickers’ first abstract painting was at the encouragement of his "art teacher" sister.  Since then, art and music-related exercises were practiced but in the background due to the practicality of survival via a "regular job.” Several paintings started in such a way as one doodles while perhaps talking on the phone...a few scribbled lines, or even pressing a used palette on the canvas.  Spontaneity, playfulness and peculiarity manifest in Vickers’ work as fragments become an integrated whole. But there is rarely a plan.