| Janet Saryadegar | Iran | Saw Kennedy | Burma | I have been drawing for over 25 years. While working for the airlines, I attended school to become a professional artist. I graduated last December in Fine Arts and have been actively creating new works ever since. I have created over 100 unique artworks including drawings, paintings, frescos, collages, mosaics, and sculptures. My medium ranges from acrylic, oil, water color, stone, marble, ink, charcoal, paper, and egg-tempera. I have also made over 50 computer illustrations. My genre varies from exact reproduction of old master’s paintings to abstract art. I prefer original work that exceeds boundaries of conventional thought.
Born and raised in Iran and lived in Europe for two years before immigrated into the United States 15 years ago. Traveling abroad has expanded my understanding of art and given an international dimension to my work. | Saw Kennedy comes from a family of talented Karen artists. In 2000 Saw Kennedy fled Burma with his pregnant wife and arrived in Umpium Mai Refugee Camp in Thailand. When a friend discovered Kennedy’s artistic talents, he was offered a position as an art teacher at the Youth Development Center in the camp. He did such an excellent job that many of his students are now artists in their own right. While in the camp, Kennedy also drew illustrations for an educational organization and for several student publications. This work brought him to the attention of the Burmese government who have placed Saw Kennedy’s name on a watch list for those the government believes are a threat to the Burmese Junta’s oppressive rule. In 2006, Saw Kennedy’s work was exhibited in the IRC’s first Refugee Artvocacy show, while he was still living in the Thai refugee camp. In May 2008, Saw Kennedy was resettled in Western Washington and we are very excited that he will join us this year and show some of his recent pieces. | | Fariah Al Sabti | Iraq | Danielle Poole | U.S. | | I’m Iraqi and my name is Fariah Al Sabti. I began my work in 1991 making soft dolls until 1998. After that, in 1998, I began working as a wedding planner with my friend, decorating chocolates for baby showers and wedding showers until 2000. My hobbies include making table cloths and other crafts. | Danielle Poole is a Seattle University student who documented the first month of a Burmese refugee family’s resettlement in Tukwila, WA. The images convey the family’s resiliency as they undertake the challenges of establishing a new existence in the United States. | | Lana | Moldova | Igor Kashinsky|Russia | I was born in 1980 in the city of Kishinyov, Moldova as one of the six children of Aleksandr and Dina Adzhigirey. We immigrated to the US in 1991, directly to Federal Way, WA. I still reside there with my husband Pavel Melnik. I am currently working as a critical care registered nurse for the Franciscan Health System andpursuing a Masters degree in Nursing Leadership from University of Washington in Tacoma.
I have been sketching and painting since high school. In the last 5 years I've been exploring different mediums such as acrylics and oils. The process of creating my art helps me deal with life changes, stressful situations and express opinions. I am inspired by Vasily Kandinskiyand other modern artists.
| Igor Kashinsky was born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1982. In 2001 he studied in St. Petersburg State Academic of Art Lyceum at the Russian Academy of Arts dedicated to B. V. Ioganson. St. Petersburg, Russia. In 1998 Artistic School #1 at St. Petersburg, Russia.
In addition to several publications, his artwork has been displayed in several group, and solo exhibitions both in the U.S. and in Russia. His work has earned him several awards and honors. | | Lorenzo Jimenez-Ortiz | Guatemala | Fasika Moges | Ethiopia | | Lorenzo Jimenez-Ortiz is 20 years old, originally from Guatemala. Lorenzo is proud of his Mayan heritage and says that the inspiration for his paintings comes from both the natural beauty of his homeland and the landscapes that he has come to love in his new home. He is an asylee who has been living in the Seattle area for the last 3 years. Lorenzo is currently working towards a technical degree in auto mechanics at Shoreline Community College. | Fasika Moges is a contemporary artist, with a Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Poland.
Mr. Moges' art combines an interest in tradition with modern style and expression. His paintings range from highly abstract to almost realistic, and from traditional to innovative in technique, the use of color and texture, and the choice of tools and materials. Mr. Moges' mastery in both the art and the craft of painting, gained by years of study and experience, allows for great freedom and flexibility with which his concepts are brought to life. | Poul A. Costinksy| Former USSR
| Petro Markovych |Ukraine | Poul A. Costinsky was born in former USSR, in city of Lvov, on border with Poland. He finished Lvov’s art school, class of painting, in 1982. Later he moved to Moscow, where he participated in the underground art scene.
In 1998, he moved to Seattle, and inspired by city’s artistic energy, started new series of paintings, which culminated in his first show on American soil, in Pitcairn Scott Gallery, in April 2002. Since then he regularly shows in the gallery and various other venues in Seattle.
At some time, trying to convince public and critics that he is not representative of “bold surrealism from behind Iron Curtain” (from Stranger’s art review, he half jokingly invented new art movement, called polyrealism. It stuck, and now is the name of his web site, http://polyrealism.com.
He mostly paints oil on canvas, but sometimes uses other media like Japanese ink on paper, acrylics, spray paints, and sometimes even a photo camera. His art reflects on human condition in our hectic age, the nature of beauty of body, soul and nature around us.
His art credo comes as a quote from a Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, who, once asked how to become a real artist, answered: “if you can help it, don’t”.
Probably Poul just cannot help it. | Petro Markovych, a well-known artist in his native Ukraine, has been creating work in ceramics, in metal, and on canvas for over thirty years. A muralist as well, he designed interiors for the spa which welcomed returning cosmonauts. His extensive training and apprenticeships also found expression as a teacher at several levels, including the illustration of children's books. In the 60's, Petro participated in the movement which rebelled against the "socialist realism" that furthered Soviet propaganda. As a result of his conversion to Christianity in 1976, he was expelled from the Union of Writers and Artists, which prevented him from exhibiting in State-sponsored museums and galleries. The move did, however, launch his career as a sought-after evangelist. In the era of Perestroika and Glasnost, Petro was "rehabilitated" such that major exhibits of his work were covered by State Television and reviewed in collections in Germany and Israel.
Steeped in all of the major schools of art, Petro employs whatever mode is required to give his own interpretation of an experience, event, or idea. Often, he will explore the same motif in various media to see how form and content affect each other. Sometimes, what Petro did and how he did it was determined by political pressure: "The more we were harassed the more abstract our work emerged. As the pressure abated, we became more naturalistic." With other artists, he responded to the specter of Chornobyl. In the United States now since October 1991, Petro, his wife Svitlana and their two children reside in Renton, Washington with other refugees, learning English as the first requirement for a continuing career | | Nha Vuu |Vietnam | Vitaly Saad | Ukraine | In 1979, Nha Vuu (of Chinese ethnicity) and her family fled from their home in Vietnam to escape communist persecution. After living for two years as refugees the Vuu family was granted asylum in the United States. Nha, lived in Seattle for twenty years before making a bold return to Asia to study Chinese painting and travel abroad.
Nha lived in Taiwan for nearly five years and had the privilege of studying under two masters. Lin Ruo-Yu and Cai Mao-Song.
By combining the teachings of two masters, Nha Vuu has developed her own style which embraces ancient yet sophisticated concepts of emptiness as well as contemporary brushstrokes which give her work “life-movement.” With a firm foundation beneath her feet Nha’s style is free to evolve on its own. | Vitaly Saad was born on January 1, 1949 in western Ukraine. He came to the U.S. on July 12, 1995. Vitaly spent his whole childhood creating art, and graduated from the Lwiv college in Ukraine in 1970 with an Art Design focus. Vitaly's paintings mostly use oil and have been in quite a few exhibitions in Ukraine and the U.S. Vitaly also has sculptures in some local parks. He is inspired by the impressionist era artists. His life desire is to take his life experiences, education and spiritual knowledge and transform them into a picture.
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