Nic Noblique

325.232.5533 | info@nobliquestudios.com  |  www.nobliquestudios.com

Nic Noblique is an artist who sculpts with salvaged steel. His sculpture has been exhibited in many solo and group shows at galleries and art centers nationally and abroad. He has accepted many commissions to create sculpture for both private and corporate collections, such as Baylor Heart Hospital in Plano, Texas, Forest Park Medical Center in Dallas, Texas, LA Z Boy Headquarters in Monroe, Michigan, Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, Denton City Hall, in Denton, TX, Park 17 Luxury High-rise in Dallas,Texas, and The Core Apartments in Houston, Texas. In 2003, his sculpture 'Runner' won Chicago's Navy Pier Walk Competition, Juror David Pagel. In 2008, he received a grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation. He donates his art to numerous charities and arts initiatives. Noblique has taught graduate level 3D art at Hardin Simmons University and now works with apprentices at McMurry University in Abilene, Texas. Noblique has owned two art galleries, both highly regarded in their respective communities. His alternative art space and studio concept in Galveston, called The Nic Noblique Studio Gallery, garnered a ‘Best Art Gallery’ award in 2008 from Galveston.com and company.

Prior to transitioning into fine art full time, Noblique's passion was for snowboarding and skateboarding. He owned and operated skate and snow retail shops in Wisconsin, California, and the Pacific northwest. He placed in the first ever X-Games (snowboarding competition). After studying pliable materials engineering in California, he created a new center point concave skateboard that was then produced by major skateboard manufacturers. He continued to apply creative insight with an understanding of physics to design and produce several indoor and outdoor skate and snow parks. In 2000, he left the skate and snow industry to work as a full time artist.

Renee Copes-Parnell

Voilà Art Studios  |  118 Hillside Circle  | West Monroe, LA
318.855.4132  |  reneeparnell30@yahoo.com

Renee Copes-Parnell is a Louisiana native of rural West Carroll Parish, and a graduate of ULM with a Bachelors degree in Fine Arts. Growing up in the small town of Epps had a huge impact on her art. With easy access to physical materials normally found in that farming community, Renee found her source of inspiration. She works predominantly in wood, and feels that the grain, color and texture infuses life into her work. She uses wood, vines and other natural textures as symbols in her sculptures to reflect the human condition. Her focus is often on the roles that women play in society, and the mother/child theme often appears in her work. Renee uses contrasting elements frequently in her work—geometric and biomorphic forms together in one sculpture, or abstract and realistic elements in another. In these, she explores the dynamics of how opposites attract and co-exist.

Steve Prachyl

214.732.3206 | Dallas, Texas | www.steveprachyl.com | steveprachyl@sbcglobal.net

I grind metal. To be more exact, I carefully grind metal.

The obsessive nature of my art lives loudest in the millions of lines I carve into a sheet of metal. I enjoy the sensation of becoming awestruck at just how three dimensional metal can be when I step back and observe from various angles and positions the effects generated by the refracted light. Tripping out a bit at the thought, I realize how much I enjoy optical art.

Most often my imagery is inspired by the fleeting glimpse or a complete visualization of what I’d like to see which leads me to the creation of the artwork in real time, with real materials and real processes. Often the art work results from a series of experiments; repetitive testing to achieve the illusive imagery initially present in my mind's eye.

My intent with the art, is that the viewer, while concentrating on the curve, line, textures and transitions, should get a chance to drift off into hypnotic thought, perhaps into a trance-like state. Or at the very least achieve a sense of euphoria. Ah, a sense of euphoria. I like that…

Yelizaveta Nersesova

469.644.6141 | Dallas, Texas
lisanersesova@gmail.com | wwww.nersesova.com

Nersesova is Russian, born in Iran. At age two she relocated with her family to Africa where she spent her formative years in Lusaka, Zambia. At the time of Soviet collapse she returned to Russia where she lived in Moscow until 1996. He family then relocated to Dallas, Texas where she has been residing since. Nersesova holds an MFA in studio art from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, as well as an MA in art history from University of North Texas in Denton. She is currently an associate faculty at the University of Texas at Dallas, teaching introductory as well as advanced courses in painting and drawing. She has a solo show of her work at Alan Simmons Art+Design in May, 2013.

I reduce my identity and experience in the world to the simplest and most essential forms. The process of drawing and painting is a ritual in which I carefully seek out meaningful arrangements of forms. As they evolve these arrangements become microcosms, entities, symbolic events. They pulsate, oscillating between contraction and expansion, harmony and chaos. The self is hidden in the dynamic relationship between the parts and the whole. It is hidden in the underlying forces that sustain the microcosm. In the studio I am driven by the desire to access a space that allows for an interweaving of the external and the internal. This is a space where the external landscape penetrates the physical form and the internal landscape spills out into the surrounding environment.

In order to be allowed into this space, certain actions must be taken, certain words recited. The process takes the form of a ritual. This is not a ritual that I assign to myself, neither is it a predetermined set of actions. Rather, the acts of painting, looking, listening, responding, are all part of the ritual, which I am responsible for discovering. In this way, I feel myself drawn to the Aboriginal conceptions of Dreamings and Dreamtime. A Dreaming, which is at once highly personal and communal, alludes to an abstract space where uncreated creation spirits act out their roles in a time before creation of the universe. The beings and places of the Dreamings oscillate between various forms and can appear in many places at once. They are the form and space at once. Through ritual I bring the disparate parts of myself into a cohesive whole. I see the process of discovering the “self” as a necessary letting go of concrete realistic forms and a giving myself over to an abstract language which to me seems at once timeless and primordial as well as familiar and personal. Ultimately I think the “self” is in fact the Dreaming that is able to at once be singular and multiple, solid and fluid, form and space.

Anne Neal

214.824.9593  |  rneal11@tx.rr.com

I am primarily a sculptor and have created and shown work in welded metal, stone carving, jewelry, figurative sculpture and pottery. Kiln formed art glass is the most recent media I have studied and I find it captivating. I have been working with glass since 2006 and like to experiment with organic and sculptural forms. I use gravity and heat in the kiln to manipulate and shape glass. The unique physical properties of glass add design and engineering challenges to 3-D work but also allow me to explore and create my own techniques.