Author: Iris

Born in 1973 in Graz, Austria, Gerhard Petzl has spent more than three decades exploring how art and everyday life can intertwine. Dividing his time between Vevey, Switzerland, and Kalsdorf/Graz, Austria, he works across a wide range of materials—from bronze and wood to chocolate and recycled fragments. What unites them is not the medium, but his curiosity about transformation. Petzl’s creative path is less about producing an object than about tracing a process—how something used, forgotten, or fragile can find new meaning. For him, life and art are inseparable; cooking, collecting, and creating all belong to the same rhythm of attention and…

Helena Kotnik, educated at Barcelona University and the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Vienna, approaches art as a dialogue between feeling and form. Her paintings—often called “psychological human landscapes”—reach beyond surface impressions to uncover what moves beneath thought and emotion. With her vivid yet deceptively unguarded style, she captures the tension between chaos and calm, humor and fragility. Each mark feels intuitive, as if shaped by quiet reflection. Influenced by artists from many eras, Kotnik turns the canvas into a mirror—one that reflects the strange balance between connection and solitude that defines modern life. Her art is not an attempt…

For William Schaaf, art has never been about ornament. It’s a form of reflection—a way to process, to heal, and to remain in conversation with the unseen. At 80, he still works daily in his studio, coaxing horses out of bronze, clay, and canvas as he has for more than sixty years. The horse isn’t just his subject; it’s his symbol, his vocabulary. Each one he creates carries echoes of endurance and spirit, bridging the material and the mystical. Schaaf’s work is deeply influenced by the Zuni and Navajo traditions, where small fetishes of animals were carved not to decorate,…

Ruth Poniarski’s artistic journey moves effortlessly between the realms of structure and dream. After earning her Bachelor of Architecture from Pratt Institute in 1982, she spent ten years in the construction world before redirecting her focus toward painting in 1988. That transition marked a deeper awakening—an urge to give form to thoughts that architecture could not contain. Her work draws on myth, literature, philosophy, and psychology, weaving these influences into surreal, introspective narratives. Through her art, she bridges the rational and the imaginative, exploring how human experience unfolds within the tension between order and chaos. Who’s Game In Who’s Game, a…

Keith McHugh’s art feels like a journey inward—an excavation of what lies beneath appearance. His work isn’t about polish or perfection; it’s about reaching something essential. A self-taught artist, McHugh moves effortlessly between forms: painting, sculpture, poetry, even kinetic creations like mobiles and puppets. Each medium becomes another way to translate awareness into physical form. He doesn’t follow trends or artistic doctrines. Instead, he follows rhythm—his own, and that of the world around him. His creative process is guided by intuition and presence. Every mark, every word, becomes a way of touching what’s real. For McHugh, art is less a…

There’s a dreamlike stillness in Natali Antonovich’s art—an awareness that seems to hover between waking and sleep. Her paintings open quiet spaces where thought and feeling merge, where the visible world fades and something deeper takes form. She paints not to describe, but to listen—to herself, to silence, to the delicate pulse beneath experience. For Antonovich, creating is not a display but a kind of meditation, a conversation with the unseen. Each work emerges slowly, guided by reflection and patience rather than urgency. From an early age, Antonovich was drawn to observation. She found beauty in the subtleties others might pass over—the…

Haeley Kyong’s art begins where noise ends. Her practice is built on the idea that simplicity can reveal truths complexity tends to hide. “I love creating artwork that captivates and inspires people’s minds,” she says, and her work holds to that intention. She doesn’t chase spectacle or drama; she pares things down until what’s left feels inevitable. Her language is one of form, color, and silence—basic elements that, when balanced just right, speak to something beyond logic. Each piece is an invitation to look closer, to sense rather than analyze. Kyong finds her rhythm in nature. She studies patterns, repetitions,…

Vicky Tsalamata, an artist based in Athens and Professor Emeritus of Printmaking at the Athens School of Fine Arts, works where image and conscience meet. Her practice merges printmaking, mixed media, and conceptual inquiry to explore the space between ethics and experience, politics and personal truth. Over time, her art has become a mirror for society’s unrest and a method of quiet revolt. For Tsalamata, creating is a form of dialogue—a conversation between the artist and the world, between silence and dissent. Her work resists passivity, using irony, tension, and symbolism to confront the darker forces shaping contemporary life. Color…

Nicola Mastroserio does not concern himself with what is fashionable. He does not create for market cycles or adjust his vision to please buyers. His art turns instead toward what lasts. It is a practice rooted in inquiry—into existence, consciousness, and the unseen patterns that shape our days. His work resists being boxed in by easy labels. It is less about surface and more about essence, a steady meditation on the fact of being alive. Decoration is not his aim. These works are not designed to charm or distract. Each painting stands more like a marker, a signpost pointing inward.…

Miguel Barros paints with the weight of memory and the freedom of movement. Born in Lisbon in 1962, he carries the influence of three countries—Portugal, Canada, and Angola. Each has left its mark on how he sees and creates. When he moved from Angola to Calgary in 2014, he stepped into a new chapter, bringing with him both history and curiosity. His training in Architecture and Design at IADE Lisbon (1984) gave him a sense of order, but his art moves beyond structure. It is fluid, open, and deeply human. For Barros, painting is not about copying the world. It…