http://www.coloradoan.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011102100318

Melville Georgakopoulos was born in Boston in 1976 to parents from across the pond. His early travels overseas sparked an interest in old world traditions and especially in superstition. Stories he was told as a child by old Greek women still give him the heebie-jeebies and permeate his thoughts as he works through the wee hours. His works often convey feelings of wanderlust, curiosity, and solitude. Mainly a self-taught artist Melville Georgakopoulos continues to absorb as much as he can through experimentation with different media, and by traveling this world to meet it’s bizarre characters. His ultimate goal is to improve with each work and eventually have his own hall in the Louvre.

Thomas Studholme is a Colorado native – born in Boulder in 1969 and is currently a resident of Loveland. He was born with creative and artistic gifts and has committed his life to exploring and learning about how to express them in ways that are innovative, expressive and true to his thought process, heart and soul. Thomas graduated from the Colorado Institute of Art with an Associates of Applied Science – Graphic Design degree in 1994 and then graduated from the University of Northern Colorado in 1997 with a degree in Art Education and has taught elementary art for over 12 years in the Thompson Valley School district.

Thomas illustrates with brush and ink, graphic ink pens and Zip-A-Tone. His subject matter is based on dreams/nightmares, unexplained phenomenon and the juxtaposition of elements of beauty and horror. He is also an established found art sculptor and painter in the community. He has shown in the Loveland Sculpture Invitational and has a mural on the building located between East 3rd and 4th Streets along Lincoln Avenue. Thomas can be contacted for commisssioned work and t-shirts at his email: thebedroomgenius@gmail.com or his phone: 970-619-9456.

Morgan Sunhouse Hill earned an MFA in printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2007, and a BFA in painting and printmaking at the State University of New York at Purchase in 2004. Prior to that, he studied figurative painting at the Boulder Academy of Fine Art in his hometown of Boulder, Colorado. His work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally. More of his work can be seen at sunhousehill.com. Morgan currently lives in Boulder, and is available for lessons in painting and press-less printmaking. He also accepts commissions for work. Contact him through his website:http://sunhousehill.com or phone: (917)597-6873.

My goal when creating a piece of art is to be expressive to the extreme. I do not try to achieve realism or perfection but to evoke emotions through bold, or conflicting use of color which stands as a mirror of the human condition. I work primarily in the paint and photo medium, and prefer to work with people as subjects in a dramatic or abstracted manner. I am a senior art student at Colorado State University. My artistic influences include other painters, and also musicians. I often use songs as blueprints for pieces, creating visual narratives. Some influences include; Kirchner, Picasso, Willem De Kooning, Bjork and Tori Amos. My work has been exhibited in the Loveland Art Museum, Studio 121, and published in Collage, Vol 17. No. 1, Spring 2004.

I grew up in the Connecticut river valley but in the mid-seventies I found myself in the then quiet little city of Key West, Florida. It was there that I began to love the tropical imagery and bright colors of foliage and that aqua blue Gulf of Mexico.  After six years of learning and becoming afixed in this motif I moved to Maui, Hawaii. There I was able to paint infinitely more intense scenes and be surrounded by a gaggle of other artists who I was able to learn and be inspired by.  Even though I’ve lived in the mainland for more than a decade and love Colorado very much I am still most inspired by the tropics and the stimulating play of light and color. My main medium is oil and acrylics but I’ve been know to use watercolors and pastels when the subject requires it.

I’m currently painting salvaged hollow-core doors and other recycled building materials with water-based paints.  I like the idea of windows and doors conveying us – visually and/or physically – between the security of indoor space to the less certain world outside. The ‘window’ format indicates – as with anything in life – we don’t really see the whole of what we’re looking at: We make assumptions to fill the gaps and guess what may be beyond the frame of our view. Very often what we can see includes some relationship between the natural and build environments.

Primarily, the idea of a painting is to create an interesting image – something that may spark the curiosity of a viewer at a glance and prove to be worth a longer look and/or repeated viewing.  Interest may be generated by some combination of composition, form, color, subject matter, references to contrasting elements (built or natural, busy or simple, inside or outside, light or dark, geometric or organic, and so on), repetitive shapes, size, materials, and/or just plain luck.

I received a Fine Arts degree from CSU in 1975 and am returning to painting after a 30-year career as an urban designer – I owned Cityscape Urban Design for 25 of those years. I’ve served on the Boards of Directors of the Fort Collins Housing Commission, Downtown Development Authority, Fort Collins Inc., and the High Plains Environmental Center in Loveland. I was named Fort Collins “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 1994

In the late 70s, my abstract/geometric paintings were purchased by the Fort Collins Public Library and Colorado State University; and large-scale wall graphics were commissioned by a number of businesses in the Colorado Front Range between 1973 and 1980.

In a Canberra art museum I recently saw work by indigenous Australians who – for various reasons – only began completing or showing their art when they were beyond the age of 50.  The exhibit was called “Emerging Elders”.  I guess – if I need a label – “Emerging Elder” is something to shoot for.  Emerging is the tricky part though: Isn’t it?

Come check them out this Friday during Downtown Loveland’s Night on the Town!