Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery is very pleased to announce that Calvin Lai has been selected as one of the four winning artists of the gallery’s recent 20th “Solo Art Series” Art Competition. Calvin will now have a month-long solo art exhibition and he will be featured on the gallery’s front page, on the Gallery’s YouTube Channel, as well as in the “Solo Art Series” archive.
Calvin is an award-winning artist based in California, USA. He will now be promoted by the gallery with an extensive public relations campaign.
For this solo exhibition, the gallery will distribute, promote and circulate press releases to over 550+ major News Outlets, including Premium FOX, CBS, and NBC Affiliated Sites, with guaranteed inclusion on Google News & Bing News. The Gallery will also provide social media distribution through LST gallery’s broad social media network.
In addition, as part of his award package, Calvin will now be featured as a Light Space & Time – Artwork Archive promoted artist.
Calvin’s art will also be featured on the gallery’s YouTube Channel and with an event postcard.
The “Solo Art Series” is a series of monthly solo art exhibitions for established artists who have a body of work to present to the public. Artist participants were asked to submit the following 3 components for the “Solo Art Series” competition: 1. Their art. 2. Their artist biography. 3. Their artist statement. These elements were evaluated and judged, which resulted in the selection of the artists who will be featured in individual month-long solo art exhibitions. This was the 20th “Solo Art Series” Art Competition that the gallery has conducted.
Below is Calvin’s Artist Biography, his Artist Statement, along with 18 of her images. We hope that you will take the time to read Calvin’s information and to take a look at her artwork.
Artist Biography
Calvin Lai's art is a mixture of medicine, meditation, and personal growth. He found early on that drawing was something he loved, and to make a picture appear lifelike became his goal. Through constantly drawing, his work began to breath, and Calvin's fascination with value and perspective led him to become a student of realism. Eventually he moved from where he grew up in Los Angeles to San Francisco. There he studied drawing and printmaking at San Francisco State University. In 2008, he enrolled in the Academy of Art for illustration, but began painting instead. He found that he preferred the fine arts over commercial illustration, and now works as a full time oil painter.
Since then, working from his studio, he has continued to develop and refine his oil painting skills. Lai’s work has been shown nationally in galleries, group exhibitions and juried shows. He has executed a large number of portrait commissions over the past several years, and his paintings have appeared in national and international publications. Throughout his career, Calvin Lai has expanded his focus from figurative and portraiture to encompass a variety of subjects such as still life to the San Francisco cityscape. Now he has no borders to what he chooses to paint, and he is driven to capture everything around him through his paints, brushes, and determination.
Artist Statement
I collect moments. If you look through my collection you'll see paintings of people I've met, places I've been, and things I've seen. Because of my background in classical realism, it is important for me to paint these moments realistically. But solely painting realism feels incomplete, and I find that it can become a bit too academic. It's not only about the visual recreation that is my intention in oil painting. I want to make my audience feel they are walking down a rainy street, climbing up a sun drenched hill, or sitting in front of a beautiful figure. I want a viewer to feel the moments I collect.
In my work, I find myself breaking free from traditional ways of painting and incorporating much more expressive means. I place highly developed detail next to looser, almost abstract, areas. I'm fascinated with how to combine near photographic rendering alongside the roughness of the palette knife, or the randomness of a loaded brush. This combination of realism and Impressionism techniques creates a natural tension in my paintings, as well as directs where I want the eye to travel. Even my choice of composition and subject matter are influenced by this part of me. I find that I create compositions outside of conventional rules and gravitate towards subjects that do not necessarily follow a standard of beauty. There is a bit of provocation in this, as I play off of the traditional ways art should be, but there is also an invitation to see what else beauty entails.
Calvin’s website is www.calvinlaiart.com.
The gallery’s competition for March 2021 was the 11th Annual “Figurative” Online Art Competition. 2D and 3D, artists, (including photography & digital art) from around the world, were called upon to make online submissions for possible inclusion in to the Gallery’s April 2021 online group art exhibition.
Artists were asked for their interpretation of the “Figurative” theme by submitting their best abstract and/or representational art for this competition. The submission process and competition for the artists began in February 2021 and concluded on April 1, 2021.
The gallery received 801 entries from 27 different countries from around the world, as well as from 34 different states and the District of Columbia.
The exhibition has been divided into three media categories. Painting & Other Media, Photography & Digital and 3 Dimensional Art categories. In addition, there is an overall Winning Artists Category, which is the “best of the best” and consists of the ten (10) best entries comprised from all the media categories.
The gallery also included Special Merit awards and Special Recognition awards for outstanding art. Many of the artists in either of these groups could have easily been included in the upper tier of our winners, as their art was also exceptional.
All winning entries will now be featured on the Light Space & Time website for the month of April 2021. Thereafter, the artworks and links to the artist’s websites will remain online in the Light Space & Time Archives.
Congratulations to our artists who made our 11th Annual “Figurative” Art Exhibition so successful this month. At any time, we invite our winning artists and other interested visitors to link their websites to the Gallery’s archive page for further ongoing promotion.
Overall Winning Artists Category – The overall winning artist’s category consists of the 10 Best Entries received from the Painting & Other and the Photography & Digital media categories. Please go to the results of the Figurative Art Exhibition “Overall Winning Artists” Category here.
Special Merit Award Category – These are the artists and their artwork which we felt could easily have been placed higher but due to the size constraints in each media category, this art was placed in this special category. Any of the Special Merit art, in many cases, is interchangeable with the best art that we selected for the top tiers. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “Special Merit Award Category” here.
Painting & Other Category – This media category is considered to be any art where a pigment was applied to a two-dimensional surface, such as canvas, paper, or panel. This category comprises the following media; acrylics, oil, pastels, watercolor, gouache, tempera, ink, line type drawings, encaustic, fresco, etc. applied on canvas, canvas board, paper or any other flat surface.
In addition, this category also includes any fabric, mixed media, mosaic, and various other media. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “Painting & Other Category” here.
Photography & Digital Category – This media category contains any images captured by either an analog or digital camera and would be viewed as a print. Black and white photographs, color photographs, digital or analog photographs, photograms, other experimental photography, alternative photographic processes, manipulated photography etc. would be included in this category.
In addition, this category also includes most digital art in this section. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “Photography & Digital Category” here.
3 Dimensional Art Category – This category contains any art which has or seeming to have length, width, and depth. Relief, pottery, sculpture, installation, kinetic, and conceptual 3-D artworks created in metal, paper, wood, stone, fiber, plastics, glass, ceramics, trash or any other material that can be used to create 3-dimensional art. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “3 Dimensional Art Category” here.
Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery is very pleased to announce that Paul Kenens has been selected as one of the four artists of the gallery’s recent 16th “Solo Art Series” Art Competition. Paul Kenens will now have a month-long solo art exhibition and he will be featured on the gallery’s front page, in the Gallery’s YouTube Channel, as well as in the “Solo Art Series” archive.
Paul Kenens is an award-winning artist based in the Belgium. Paul will now be promoted by the gallery with an extensive public relations campaign.
For this solo exhibition, the Gallery will distribute, promote and circulate press releases to over 550+ major News Outlets, including Premium FOX, CBS, and NBC Affiliated Sites, with guaranteed inclusion on Google News & Bing News. The Gallery will also provide social media distribution through LST gallery’s broad social media network.
In addition, as part of his award package, Paul will now be featured as a Light Space & Time – Artwork Archive promoted artist.
Paul’s art will also be featured on the gallery’s YouTube Channel and with an event postcard.
The “Solo Art Series” is a series of monthly solo art exhibitions for established artists who have a body of work to present to the public. Artist participants were asked to submit the following 3 components for the “Solo Art Series” competition: 1. Their art. 2. Their artist biography. 3. Their artist statement. These elements were evaluated and judged, which resulted in the selection of the artists who will be featured in individual month-long solo art exhibitions. This was the 16th “Solo Art Series” Art Competition that the gallery has conducted.
Below are Paul’s Artist Biography, his Artist Statement, along with 25 of his images. We hope that you will take the time to read Paul’s information and to take a look at his artwork.
Artist Biography:
Paul Kenens was born in Brussels (1947) as the eldest of six children, a childhood without a father. The lack of money soon forced us to be self-sufficient. As a 14-year-old and the family's breadwinner, he found work in a printing company. Worked up to a color mixer and offset printer for luxury printing, which was still a specialized craft at the time, he discovered his sense of composition and color.
Thirteen years later, he left the print shop for a year but never returned. He no longer wants to be dependent on third parties and starts acting. In the same period, he discovered the ceramic craft. Paul Kenens is passionate about these two disciplines, which has resulted in two parallel careers. As an independent actor in film, TV and theater, he made international theater independently. As a ceramist, he specialized in color glazes, designed decorations and tile panels, copied old Art Nouveaux panels, made ceramic architectural ceramics for protected monuments and carried out artistic ceramic commissions for other artists. Paul Kenens always immersed himself in the subject matter, searched for the core of the craft and its characteristics and followed his own path in it.
In 2010, he decided to paint and enrolls in the academy. Unaware of the gift or experience gained in painting with ceramic glazes, the final color of which cannot be seen immediately oil painting is a revelation: "I now see immediately now that I do," he says
He sells the ceramics studio, stops acting and throws himself completely into painting. In the academy, he quickly gets the name of an outsider for the passion and the use of a detailed painting style. He commutes daily between academy and his own studio. In between, he takes a Master class with the Brazilian Hyperrealist Omar Ortiz.
Paul Kenens exhibited in Paris (Hilton), The Hague (Gallery Heyningen - Painting of the Year 2019) Sterckshof Castle in Deurne, Cortewalle Castle in Beervelde, Royal Greenhouses Van Bouchout Castle in Laken, BOZAR Brussels, etc. Galerie NOVIA in Doorn (N) etc. He participated in art fairs ADAF (Annual Art Fair in Amsterdam, BAF (Brabant Art Fair in Breda) Lifestyle Fair in Oud Turnhout etc. (continued: see CV) and has been nominated numerous times.
A retrospective exhibition is planned in Lier for 2021.
Artist Statement:
My subjects come from the immediate environment: it concerns people. If it is not myself, they are children or women where I notice in a split second a movement, an attitude or trait that arouses a thought that goes beyond the image (or goes against it). A personal detail that lingers in the memory. An image that establishes itself and grows in its emotionality (one has to fall in love with your subject, even if it is a banal thing like a child's toy or a piece of clothing).
My work regularly starts with photos of a fixed photo model; per photo session, I take a few hundred photos that are stored on a PC. They are viewed and reviewed several times, each time creating new thoughts. The images must "ripen". After that, various photos are edited, edited and adjusted until a certain image cannot be released. It is difficult to explain why a certain image is taking over. It probably has to do with the chaos in the head in determining the direction in which an image will be painted, the reminiscences that are attached to it and the intimate feelings that an image can generate. Multiple versions are made in an atmosphere of excitement. During the preparation, uncertainty about the future painted version flashes in all directions. The state of mind, the emotional attitude, determines the direction in which the image takes. Sometimes the image itself indicates a natural direction, or is this even the result of the interpreter's character?
I paint the underlay as detailed as possible, as if I want to finish the canvas. Then I repaint the entire painting, adjusting shapes and colors. I like saturated canvases without pasty painting. They bring depth to the color. Until the provisional end, I bring details, highlights and I emphatically paint over any points of attention.
Although the starting point is photo material, it is always a challenge to make a difference between photo-realism and painted image during the execution. Each painting is an attempt to increase the distance between the two and perhaps with the aim of painting beyond realism. With a painted image, you bring something else that you don't see on a photo (or virtual image). The whole of my work is not sterile but emotional; it shows what moves me. Over time, I view the painted canvas more critically and each time from a different state of mind or point of view, with corrections as a result. Sometimes an element is added months later that breaks the unambiguity or shifts the focus.
At the moment, I am working on a series with a fashion model. The softness, call it the sensuality, sometimes in contrast with the aggressiveness of folds in a fabric make me paint. The flexibility of the collaboration and the confidence to try things out sometimes create surprising and curious images.
Some works are poetic, sensual. Others arouse curiosity through the use of unexpected elements or unusual setting or combinations. My tittles sometimes raise questions; make the spectator think. In the painting, I try to bring an underlying, perhaps enigmatic reading, a space to give the viewer the opportunity to fill in their own interpretation, to ask an unanswerable question. In the end, it comes down to the fact that by making the choice I reveal part of the inner drive that the spectator reinterprets.
Paul Kenens’ website is www.paulkenens.be
The gallery’s competition for March 2020 was the 10th Annual “Figurative” Online Art Competition. 2D and 3D, artists, (including photography & digital art) from around the world, were called upon to make online submissions for possible inclusion in to the Gallery’s April 2020 online group art exhibition.
Artists were asked for their interpretation of the “Figurative” theme by submitting their best abstract or representational art for this competition. The submission process and competition for the artists began in February 2020 and concluded on March 27, 2020.
The gallery received 623 entries from 27 different countries from around the world, as well as from 30 different states and the District of Columbia.
The exhibition has been divided into three media categories. Painting & Other Media, Photography & Digital and 3 Dimensional Art categories. In addition, there is an overall Winning Artists Category, which is the “best of the best” and consists of the ten (10) best entries comprised from all the media categories.
The gallery also included Special Merit awards and Special Recognition awards for outstanding art. Many of the artists in either of these groups could have easily been included in the upper tier of our winners, as their art was also exceptional.
To view the artwork in each media category, click on a thumbnail image and that will take you to the Slide Show, which will then contain larger images. Artists can now post their images directly to their social media networks (See lower left-hand side of the Lightbox). In order to leave the Slide Show at any time, just click on the X at the upper right side of the Lightbox in order to escape and that will take you back to the thumbnails images.
All winning entries will now be featured on the Light Space & Time website for the month of April 2020. Thereafter, the artworks and links to the artist’s websites will remain online in the Light Space & Time Archives.
Congratulations to our artists who made our 10th Annual “Figurative” Art Exhibition so successful this month. At any time, we invite our winning artists and other interested visitors to link their websites to the Gallery’s archive page for further ongoing promotion.
Overall Winning Artists Category – The overall winning artist’s category consists of the 10 Best Entries received from the Painting & Other and the Photography & Digital media categories. Please go to the results of the Figurative Art Exhibition “Overall Winning Artists” Category here.
Special Merit Award Category – These are the artists and their artwork which we felt could easily have been placed higher but due to the size constraints in each media category, this art was placed in this special category. Any of the Special Merit art, in many cases, is interchangeable with the best art that we selected for the top tiers. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “Special Merit Award Category” here.
Painting & Other Category – This media category is considered to be any art where a pigment was applied to a two-dimensional surface, such as canvas, paper, or panel. This category comprises the following media; acrylics, oil, pastels, watercolor, gouache, tempera, ink, line type drawings, encaustic, fresco, etc. applied on canvas, canvas board, paper or any other flat surface.
In addition, this category also includes any fabric, mixed media, mosaic, and various other media. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “Painting & Other Category” here.
Photography & Digital Category – This media category contains any images captured by either an analog or digital camera and would be viewed as a print. Black and white photographs, color photographs, digital or analog photographs, photograms, other experimental photography, alternative photographic processes, manipulated photography etc. would be included in this category.
In addition, this category also includes most digital art in this section. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “Photography & Digital Category” here.
3 Dimensional Art Category – This category contains any art which has or seeming to have length, width, and depth. Relief, pottery, sculpture, installation, kinetic, and conceptual 3-D artworks created in metal, paper, wood, stone, fiber, plastics, glass, ceramics, trash or any other material which can be used to create 3-dimensional art. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “3 Dimensional Art Category” here.
The gallery’s competition for March 2019 was the 9th Annual “Figurative” Online Art Competition. 2D and 3D artists (including photography & digital art) from around the world, were called upon to make online submissions for possible inclusion into the Gallery’s April 2019 online group art exhibition.
Artists were asked for their interpretation of the “Figurative” theme by submitting their best abstract or representational art for this competition. The submission process and competition for the artists began in February 2019 and concluded on March 27, 2019.
The gallery received 845 entries from 35 different countries from around the world, as well as from 33 different states.
The exhibition has been divided into three media categories. Painting & Other Media, Photography & Digital and 3 Dimensional Art categories. In addition, there is an overall Winning Artists Category, which is the “best of the best” and consists of the ten (10) best entries comprised from the media categories.
The gallery also included Special Merit awards and Special Recognition awards for outstanding art. Many of the artists in either of these groups could have easily been included in the upper tier of our winners, as their art was also exceptional.
To view the artwork in each media category, click on a thumbnail image and that will take you to the Slide Show, which will then contain larger images.
Artists can now post their images directly to their social media networks (See lower left-hand side of the Lightbox). In order to leave the Slide Show at any time, just click on the X at the upper right side of the Lightbox in order to escape and that will take you back to the thumbnails images.
All winning entries will now be featured on the Light Space & Time website for the month of April 2019. Thereafter, the artworks and links to the artist’s websites will remain online in the Light Space & Time Archives.
Congratulations to our artists who made our 9th Annual “Figurative” Art Exhibition so successful this month. At any time, we invite our winning artists and other interested visitors to link their websites to the Gallery’s archive page for further ongoing promotion.
Overall Winning Artists Category – The overall winning artist’s category consists of the 10 Best Entries received from the Painting & Other and the Photography & Digital media categories. Please go to the results of the Figurative Art Exhibition “Overall Winning Artists” Category here.
Special Merit Award Category – These are the artists and their artwork which we felt could easily have been placed higher but due to the size constraints in each media category, this art was placed in this special category. Any of the Special Merit art, in many cases, is interchangeable with the best art that we selected for the top tiers. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “Special Merit Award Category” here.
Painting & Other Category – This media category is considered to be any art where a pigment was applied to a two-dimensional surface, such as canvas, paper, or panel. This category comprises the following media; acrylics, oil, pastels, watercolor, gouache, tempera, ink, line type drawings, encaustic, fresco, etc. applied on canvas, canvas board, paper or any other flat surface.
In addition, this category also includes any fabric, mixed media, mosaic, and various other media. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “Painting & Other Category” here.
Photography & Digital Category – This media category contains any images captured by either an analog or digital camera and would be viewed as a print. Black and white photographs, color photographs, digital or analog photographs, photograms, other experimental photography, alternative photographic processes, manipulated photography etc. would be included in this category.
In addition, this category also includes most digital art in this section. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “Photography & Digital Category” here.
3 Dimensional Art Category – This category contains any art which has or seeming to have length, width, and depth. Relief, pottery, sculpture, installation, kinetic, and conceptual 3-D artworks created in metal, paper, wood, stone, fiber, plastics, glass, ceramics, trash or any other material which can be used to create 3-dimensional art. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “3 Dimensional Art Category” here.
The gallery’s competition for March 2018 was the gallery’s 8th Annual “Figurative” Online Art Competition. 2D and 3D (including photography & digital) from around the world, were called upon to make online submissions for possible inclusion into the Gallery’s April 2017 online group art exhibition.
Artists were asked for their interpretation of the “Figurative” theme by submitting their best abstract or representational art for this competition. The submission process and competition for the artists began in February 2018 and concluded on March 27, 2018.
The gallery received 626 entries from 27 different countries from around the world, including Australia, Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Chile, Columbia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Lithuania, New Zealand, Norway, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saint Maarten, South Africa, South Wales, Spain, Taiwan, United Kingdom, and the Ukraine. In addition, the gallery received entries from 32 different states.
The exhibition has been divided into three media categories. Painting & Other Media, Photography & Digital and 3D Art. In addition, there is an overall Winning Artists Category, which is the “best of the best” and consists of the ten (10) best entries comprised from the media categories.
The gallery also included Special Merit awards and Special Recognition awards for outstanding art. Many of the artists in either of these groups could have easily been included in the upper tier of our winners, as their art was also exceptional.
To view the artwork in each media category, click on a thumbnail image and that will take you to the Slide Show, which will then contain larger images. In order to leave the Slide Show at any time, just click on the outside of the large images in order to escape and that will take you back to the thumbnails images.
All winning entries will now be featured on the Light Space & Time website for the month of April 2018. Thereafter, the artworks and links to the artist’s websites will remain online in the Light Space & Time Archives.
Congratulations to our artists who made our “Figurative” Art Exhibition so successful this month. At any time, we invite our winning artists and other interested visitors to link their websites to the Gallery’s archive page for further ongoing promotion.
Overall Winning Artists Category – The overall winning artist’s category consists of the 10 Best Entries received from the Painting & Other media, 3 Dimensional Art and the Photography & Digital media categories. Please go to the results of the Figurative Art Exhibition “Overall Winning Artists” Category here.
Special Merit Award Category – These are the artists and their artwork which we felt could easily have been placed higher but due to the size constraints in each media category, this art was placed in this special category. Any of the Special Merit art, in many cases, is interchangeable with the best art that we selected for the top tiers. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “Special Merit Award Category” here.
Painting & Other Category – This media category is considered to be any art where a pigment was applied to a two-dimensional surface, such as canvas, paper, or panel. This category comprises the following media; acrylics, oil, pastels, watercolor, gouache, tempera, ink, line type drawings, encaustic, fresco, etc. applied on canvas, canvas board, paper or any other flat surface.
In addition, this category also includes any fabric, mixed media, mosaic, and various other media. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “Painting & Other Category” here.
Photography & Digital Category – This media category contains any images captured by either an analog or digital camera and would be viewed as a print. Black and white photographs, color photographs, digital or analog photographs, photograms, other experimental photography, alternative photographic processes, manipulated photography etc. would be included in this category.
In addition, this category also includes most digital art in this section. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “Photography & Digital Category” here.
3 Dimensional Art Category – This category contains any art which has or seeming to have length, width, and depth. Relief, pottery, sculpture, installation, kinetic, and conceptual 3-D artworks created in metal, paper, wood, stone, fiber, plastics, glass, ceramics, trash or any other material which can be used to create 3-dimensional art. Please go to the results in the Figurative Art Exhibition “3 Dimensional Art Category” here.
