View the full bodies of work, artist profiles and art pricing in the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal magazine issues. For commission and purchase inquiries, contact artists directly.
- Susan B Borgersen
- Mary Kandalian-Aslanian
- Chelsey Clammer
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Vicky Knowler
We live in complex times, where the metaphorical cold of loneliness is commonplace. In a context of destabilizing detachment, Vicky Knowler searches through the medium of photography for a deep and steady connection between souls.
Vicky takes photographs set in an icy setting that are far from emotionless. Moved by the alienating experience of the COVID-19 pandemic, the artist searched for elements that could restore warmth and emotional contact. Interestingly, she found emotional support for her and her family in the household pet, Wendy the cat. This genuine and authentic relationship becomes the motor of her photographic project, My Dog and Me, which portrays children with their beloved dogs, close and safe in mutual trust even under the snowstorm. Vicky’s photos thus become the storybook of this peculiar bond. The art project presented here involves several families who recognized the spontaneous relationship between humans and animals in their children and pets captured by the artist. What makes Vicky’s photographs so special is that her point of view is never that of adults. She truly investigates what excites and interests children. Her photos try to give back the sense of wonder and imagination of their world.
Stylistically, Vicky’s photographic practice is highly narrative. Each image is captured as a precise frame of a larger story and then edited in Lightroom or Photoshop, enhancing its more dreamlike aspects. But that’s not all: Vicky accompanies the vision with a textual apparatus, which tells the characteristics of the protagonists, children, and animals, allowing the viewer to get in touch with their simplicity. Best friend, brother, sister, guardian, or confidant…many roles are entrusted to the dog of the house. These roles are based on a bond that creates deep memories even in cold stress or discomfort. The photographs were taken in harsh outdoor conditions, specifically in January 2022 on the coldest days in the Kawartha Lakes. Vicky’s photography fits within a particular artistic genre of portraying the world of childhood because of its joy and lack of fictional artifice. Although staged and elaborately premeditated, her photos—like those of the famous photographer Anne Geddes or those dedicated to children created by Elliott Erwitt—retain the purity and vulnerability of the tender age of infancy.
Vicky Knowler was born in Québec, Canada and moved to Toronto in 1997. She has come a long way before finding her mission and deciding to fulfill her passion for art and photography. She specializes in newborn, family, and children photography, winning several awards from International Baby Photography Contests. As a single mom who raised two children, she finds a powerful source of inspiration in their dreamlike world and expectations. Capable of keeping you warm from the cold.
Vicky Knowler is the Gold Artist of the ArtAscent Cold call for artists. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
www.champagne.photo
Kesja Dabrowska
Everest
Supposedly
there comes a rainbow after rain
So where the hell
is mine hiding…
With its 8850 meters of height, Mount Everest is the highest mountain above sea level. Freezing temperatures, constant winds, and sudden storms make its environment unsuitable for life. Everest became a sharp symbolic image in the poetry of Kesja Dabrowska.
The emotional potential of nature inspires Kesja. Meteorological phenomena such as rainbows and storms blend with the changing seasons and the summer or winter days’ hot and cold climates. However, nothing in her poetry is literal: everything becomes a metaphor to speak of moods, an observation of her sentimental flow. The poem Everest refers to the subject of cold, exploring it on a physical, instinctive, emotional level. So, rainbows, radiant and positive days, are hidden or can be counted on the fingers of one hand, overshadowed by heavy years of storms and thunders. The warmth of a soft summer afternoon suddenly chills, becoming as spiky as an ice stalactite. It gets lost in the winter of her life. Dark periods of life, when you feel alone, helpless, hopeless, transfigure into icy peaks, like those of Everest, lonely and treacherous. The bitter cold can overwhelm the traveller, which can get lost.
The work of Kesja as a poet is the daily expression of the situations of life and mind. Pandemic and the state of health emergency greatly influenced her writing style and content, primarily modifying her mentality. The impact is not just on a day-to-day level, but it affects a different way of seeing and relating to the world. In this manner, driven by the urgency of getting to the substance of a matter, her poetic style has been intensely purified. It tends towards simple and essential forms, working on evocativeness. Kesja’s poetry acts as an attempt to reflect and draw a connection between the darker and more ambiguous side of poetry and the more explanatory and narrative one of prose. The lucid, visionary world of Edgar Allan Poe influenced her writing since her teenage years, providing with the same sense of foreboding and anguished apprehension. But also, famous poets such as Sylvia Plath and Rupi Kaur inspire her poetry, especially in the metaphorical and emotional use of natural elements and in the simple and immediate literary style.
Kesja Dabrowska is renowned as an illustrator and art practitioner in Greater Manchester, UK. She won several honours and awards both as an illustrator and a writer. She works as an illustrator of books for children and curates live projects. Her propensity to work with images as an art enthusiast makes her poetry incredibly visual and imaginary—an identifiable style, anything but cold.
Kesja Dabrowska is the Gold Writer of the ArtAscent Cold call for writers. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
https://kesjacorvussen22.wixsite.com/welcome
Kate Greenway
Kate Greenway captures a glimpse of nature with its inhabitants and creates a sensitive look into the life and motion of living beings— her precise brush strokes merge with dreamy shades and open the path to a realistic dreamscape.
Kate makes us feel the surroundings and the possible sensations of the animals in her paintings. In Dashing Through the Snow, the wild passion and sincere pleasure of the sled dog literally jumps into the eyes of the spectator.
Forest Stillness mirrors the suggestion of its title. It is a brief moment of mutual acknowledgment, a moment of pause between the deer and the voyeur of this painting. Continuing beyond the first connection, one can see the frost forming around these two animals— the mother and its fawn—as if the observer would look through a frozen window. This visual statement of cold almost allows us to hear the clear silence of a day outside in winter.
In contrast to Kate’s other paintings, Winter Perch has a clear pop of colour, introducing a small red bird sitting on the edge of a branch, round and fluffed up to resist the brisk cold. Through its light sparkling blue and the warming red of the bird, this painting combines a supple focus of simplicity with a sharp sense of harshness that winter months can sometimes bring along.
A recurring method Kate engages in is the inclusion of white spaces, an invitation for the audience to paint in their own story—a blank canvas to be filled by the observer’s imagination, a friendly push to wonder what might wait in the background.
Kate shows her special attention to detail throughout her paintings and guides the viewer’s eye through fine brush strokes. A shared approach to nature can be found in Joseph Zbukvic, a painter who shares similar mindfulness of light and the creation of dream worlds for the main subjects in his paintings. One can witness the surroundings gently fading into the background and leaving some spaces for the viewer’s imagination.
Kate Greenway is a self-taught artist who specializes in watercolour techniques and includes forms of glass in her artwork. She completed a Master’s and Ph.D. in Arts Education. Some of her recent exhibitions include Women’s Art Association of Canada Small Gems and En Plein Air (Artists’ Choice), Newmarket Juried Art Exhibition, Grey Cube Gallery Blue (Honorable Mention), Gallery 1313 Emerging Artists Show, and Gallery Ring Online Juried Art Exhibition Animal (Crystal Award).
Kate Greenway is the Silver Artist of the ArtAscent Cold call for artists. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
www.womensartofcanada.ca/user/katgree/
Eric Goldstein SCA
When talking about seasons, winter is hardly as romanticized and glorified as spring or autumn. Yet, it still has doubtless magnetism that attracts and excites artists like Eric Goldstein.
Eric’s primary intent is “to capture the pondering presence we get from nature, not as it appears but as it feels to experience: incomprehensible, indescribable, and often very chaotic.” Therefore, his choice of abstract visuality is an entirely logical avenue of expression. The featured compositions were created using various materials: from traditional, like acrylic paint, to experimental, like sand and plaster. Although they follow the well-familiar painting format, the artworks are closer to decorative panels with a distinct monumental flavour. The latter is achieved with the noticeably large scale of the pieces. The irregular rows of horizontal and vertical stripes are intertwined into the quilt-like stream, giving the sense of turbulent dynamism.
The rich dynamism of Eric’s compositions is perceived in strong contrast with the static freeze that is typically associated with Winter. Even in this seasonal period of chilling silence, the artist finds subtle movement—water under the ice, frosty night air, or silver morning light. There is no single figurative element in his compositions, but one easily recognizes the atmosphere of natural landscapes. The painter himself claims to be inspired by the palette, geometry and lines of the west coast of Canada, where he lives. Abstraction is inherently connected with nature, offering us its quintessence.
The collage approach to structuring the images reminds us of an outstanding abstractionist of the 20th century Paul Klee. Klee viewed shape not as form but as a process. Aligned with Klee’s vision, Eric applies it on both compositional and coloristic levels. Fluidity and kinetic energy of the surrounding world is translated into a shimmering flow of lines and splashes of colour. In the artist’s interpretation, cold loses its motionlessness, proving to be not the absence of life but one of its most delicate and, at the same time, powerful forms of existence.
Eric Goldstein is a mixed-media artist, born in New York, U.S.A and currently residing in Vancouver, Canada. He earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Rhode Island School of Design in 1979. Eric has worked for 40 years in the film industry. Over the past 30 years, he has collaborated on over 100 film projects as a Director of Photography. He has received Eastman Kodak Award, Excellence in Cinematography, and the Leo Awards for Best Cinematography for TV Movie. Eric is a member of the Society of Canadian Artists, Federation of Canadian Artist Vancouver Chapter, and Federation of Canadian Artist Okanagan Chapter. He has participated in various art shows since 2010.
Eric Goldstein is the Bronze Artist of the ArtAscent Cold call for artists. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
www.ericgoldsteinart.com
Sienna Hooper
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
www.sienatypes.etsy.com
Colleen Cassidy
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
Valentino Campos
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see this in print, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
Kesja Dabrowska
Hollow
coils wrapping
tightly around my ribs
I’m heaving
nothing left…
Distinguished Writer of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
https://kesjacorvussen22.wixsite.com/welcome
Antoaneta Tica
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see this in print, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
Josephine Condotta
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see this in print, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
www.blushblondedesign.com
Kathie Muir
A Crack in the Fence
I could barely contain my tears and was certain my bloodshot eyes betrayed my grief. Forcing myself to put one foot in front of the other. I was just going through the motions of the day, doing only what was absolutely necessary. My neighbor Leo looked at me quizzically and cautiously asked how I was. Too sad to lie or pretend, I managed to choke out, “My cat died this morning.”…
Distinguished Writer of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
Alex Ferrone
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
www.AlexFerrone.com
Theresa Gage
Abandoned in the Cold
Gray was the note she tucked inside.
Gray was the blanket she bundled tight.
Gray was the floor that dreary night.
Gray was the raging storm outside…
Distinguished Writer of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
www.clawingmywayin.wordpress.com
William Horton
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
www.williamhortonphotography.com
Alexandra Iorgu
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see this in print, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
http://alexandraiorgu.com/
Taylor James-Rousson
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see this in print, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
https://taylorjamesrousson.wixsite.com/portfolio
Kesja Dabrowska
River
Another day,
another beating.
The weeks stretched
into months of dread…
Distinguished Writer of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
https://kesjacorvussen22.wixsite.com/welcome
Soteris Sam Roussi
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
www.samroussi.com
Marian Kaplun Shapiro
Visitation at Mid-Night
Theyre rmm rmming around the livingroom, up-
ending the magazine rack, pulling on the leaves
of the dracaena I have nursed throughout
the long northern winter. Light’s what we
all needed, the sun rising late and cold,…
Distinguished Writer of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
Merana Cadorette
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Cold call for entry. To see this in print, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Cold issue.
https://merana-cadorette.pixels.com/