Mission Fed ArtWalk announces this year’s Featured Artists for its 37th annual event. This weekend-long
premier arts and culture event is returning to the streets of the historic Little Italy neighborhood. The largest and longest running arts festival in Southern California showcases every medium of art including painting, sculpture, glass work, photography, fine jewelry and more.
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Additionally, this year’s event will also feature an art guitar auction benefitting ArtReach San Diego with designs by Jason Mraz and Tom DeLonge of Blink 182 and Angels & Airwaves, as well as several well-known artists based here in San Diego. In addition to these unforgettable experiences, Mission Federal ArtWalk has selected eight Featured Artists—a select group of artists that demonstrate the depth of creativity among the 300-plus exhibitors.
This year’s Featured Artists include:
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Debora Levy | Mixed Media
Human nature and emotions are Deborah Levy’s inspiration for her abstract and contemporary paintings. Deborah uses a variety of materials in her work including paint, powder, pencils, and paste to create texture and dimension. Her intuition is her guide to her artwork, and she believes communicating through art is something all humans can appreciate, making it very powerful.
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Josh Hirt | Mixed Media
Josh Hirt specializes in Mixed Media artistry, metal work, wood bending and abstract imagery. Josh’s upbringing as a builder and traveler heavily influenced his appreciation of decaying architecture, seeing the beauty in things that have been forgotten. Josh obtains more depth and complexity in his work with the use of grinding, welding, overlaying, hammering, rusting, pouring, and dripping. What matters to Josh is presenting work that not only tells a story but shows his subject in a new light. What was once forgotten is a profound gift of signature art and symbolism that, to Josh, is worthy of celebration.
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Junnior Navarro | Mixed Media on Canvas
A painter from a young age, Junnior Navarro paints primarily in black and white, or achromatic colors. With a background in graphic design and animation, Junnior aims to draw attention to physical characteristics in the people portrayed that reflect a destructive, fascinating, demonic, and yet attractive woman. His paintings are often a kind of self-portrait that contain symbolic elements. While he primarily uses acrylic paint, he also uses colored pencils, graphite or other materials on canvas and paper of various sizes.
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Krista Schumacher | Oil
Initially taught to paint with a paintbrush, Krista Schumacher developed a unique alla prima, palette knife style. This technique allows her to stay loose, merging colors and sculpting wet paint into a dynamic final product. Her paintings take on a multi-dimensional form and are easily recognized for their use of heavy-texture and bold colors to emphasize nature’s spontaneity and beauty in a modern, abstract way. Inspired by the ocean, Krista hopes that collectors of her work feel the emotion through bold color, dynamic movement, and heavy texture.
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Mallory Morrison | Photography
Mallory Morrison began her career as a studio-based dance photographer. However, after becoming frustrated with the special constraints, she decided to try shooting with her dancer subjects underwater in a swimming pool. Mallory’s use of dancers in an underwater environment allows her to challenge the boundaries of people photography – utilizing weightlessness to tell stories which explore the depths of movement and composition. Mallory explores feelings of being lost, uncertainty, loneliness, and searching for a path; as well as escape, comfort, release, and return to childlike freedom.
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Michael Panetta | Hand-Blown Glass
Growing up, Michael Panetta had a passion for two things, art and the ocean. Michael creates 3D sculptures and wall installations made from mirrored glass that allows the viewer to reflect on them and their world around them. Michael is known for his innovative style and his unique eye for design. Just like the ocean, Michael’s glass has a lot of movement and fluidity, he wants people to feel the emotion and pure serenity he feels when in the ocean.
Taman VanScoy | Watercolor
Inspired by music and the beauty of nature, Taman VanScoy’s watercolor paintings serve as a form of self-expression, communicating ideas of desired peaceful, contemplative serenity to the viewer. Taman developed a watercolor technique that incorporates more of a drawing style using a brush with minimal water added to the watercolor pigment, creating a unique textured paint application. His paintings depict dream-like scenes and landscapes that capture the mysteries qualities of nature.
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Vicki Nelson | Oil
Vicki Nelson is a figurative oil painter who captures her subjects in private moments of relaxation, idealizing the ordinary. Vicki loves over-emphasizing geometry and shadows in her compositions to immerse her figures within a more abstract design. She wants people to get a psychological “glimpse” into what ordinary, private moments mean to all of us. Her hope is that by altering and reshaping the design in their background it will honor those moments.
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Mission Fed ArtWalk will be located between Beech and Grape streets in San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood. Attendance is free and more information will be released in upcoming months. For more information on ArtWalk and its programs, please visit here.
See you there, San Diego!
