Anna Afshar is a Russian born artist who lives in Indianapolis and paints in watercolors and acrylics. "I paint to fulfil my passion for the nature's beauty." Anna is a signature member of the Watercolor Society of Indiana, the Hoosier Salon, and the Indiana Artists Club. Her awards include “Best of Show” at the Watercolor Society of Indiana, 2015 Juried Exhibition at the Indiana Museum of Art. Her commissioned works are found in many homes and private collections around the world. Anna has studied and taught classes in Germany as well as in the United States. She paints in three different mediums finding watercolor her first love. Painting “en Plein air” and capturing the moment is her favorite challenge. Anna teaches watercolor and acrylics, sharing her passion for art and spontaneity of water medium.

To view more of Anna’s work online, go to www.annaafsharart.com or locally, her work can be found at the French Bleu Gallery at 111 W Main Street in Carmel, Indiana.

Karen considers herself a contemporary representational artist. Her main love is portrait and figure painting. She works in pastel, oil and mixed media. Her interests include Christian, American Heritage, and Native American imagery. Karen works out of her studio in the historic Stutz building in downtown Indianapolis, where she also teaches portrait and figure painting classes.

Rena Brouwer, a resident of Carroll County, Indiana, has been recognized and winning awards for her watercolors since her high school years.  She has studied under Zolton Szabo, Christopher Schink, Charles Reid and other accomplished artists.   Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and won numerous awards. 

Having created exceptional watercolors for more than 40 years, Rena has taught watercolor at national art conventions, colleges, museums, state and nationwide community venues.  She has served on national, state and local boards for art organizations, including the Watercolor Society of Indiana, Midwest Watercolor Society, Indiana Artists Club, and Wabash Valley Watercolor Society.

Known for her collaborative nature, she has curated and organized exhibitions since 1989, combining writers and artists, performance and fine arts, and various community interests in the promotion of art in daily life. Professional achievements include being selected as one of five Indiana professional watercolorists by the Indianapolis Museum of Art, during the Exhibition of Turner in 1997, to showcase her work.  Brouwer was one of four business owners of the Lafayette Renaissance Academy which combined visual fine arts with performance arts in a historical building from 2004-2007. In 2006, Rena was one of 10 Indiana artists of 150 fine artists of Indiana, selected by internationally known jurors for the Preserving Nature project, through the Central Indiana Land Trust. Her work was awarded Outstanding Watercolor from the collection of statewide art exhibited during the exhibition.  In 2009 the Delphi Preservation Society invited her to be a resident artist of the Opera House Gallery of Contemporary Art. In 2013, she was published in the book Painting Indiana III, the only Indiana watercolorist selected for publication. 2014, Rena, collaborated with music conductor and director Nicholas Palmer and the Lafayette Symphony Orchestra, closing their season with the Prelude Project. Painting live onstage to the music of Debussy, the project engaged and cultivated young patrons. 2008-2016 Rena collaborated with musician and songwriter Joe Peters presenting live music/art performances promoting conservation through the arts. In the spring of 2014 at the Indianapolis Zoo before the opening of the Orangutan Exhibit, Brouwer painted onsite for the Zoo’s promotion. In the fall of 2015, Brouwer reopened the Opera House Gallery of Contemporary Art LLC.

She is an Indiana Artisan, member of The Brown County Art Guild, Indiana Artists Club, and Cardinal Fellow member of the Watercolor Society of Indiana, Hoosier Salon and Indiana Plein Air Painters Association.

I am an 'abstract naturalist’ exploring the layers of life with acrylic washes and ink on canvas. My art is about color and shapes
and a positive attitude toward of life. I simplify images and find joy in the mundane and the everyday. “Art seems to me to be a state of soul more than anything else.” (Marc Chagall) I have always loved Georgia O'Keefe as an artist and her character as a woman in a man's world of art. I love her use of color and shapes. Much of her influence still appears in my own work. I am concentrating on lines, layers, color and composition primarily.   Lines represent my ‘self’ trying to order the events in my life and the layers represent the complexities and ‘color’ the experience.

Debbie (Hanneken) Bredemus is a painter, illustrator, photographer and teacher of art.  Born in Illinois, she has degrees from Northern Illinois University, Herron School of Art/IUPUI and Indiana University, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Indianapolis in the school of education.

She has a large family of 4 daughters, 10 grand children and 3 great grand babies. Teaching art to high school students joyfully consumed her life for 35 years. She's now excited that it's her turn to be an artist! She belongs to the Southside Art League, The Hoosier Salon, and The Stutz Art and Business Center in Indianapolis. She's been participating in many gallery exhibits and shows, has had private gallery invitations, commissioned paintings, and recently completed a book illustration project.  She has 2 studios, one at the Stutz Building (B350) and one at her home in Greenwood, where she gives art lessons and also creates larger pieces of art.

Her many Art awards include the Kitlinger and Grey Prelude Arts Educator of the Year Award for Indiana and was also Wal-Mart Teacher of the Year.  Many of Debbie's students have gone on to become noted artists and art teachers.

Her most recent project is a large 5-piece epoxy resin series which measures 48" x 106" titled Genesis, Chapter 1. It has been accepted into the Grand Rapids 2016 Art Prize exhibit, which will be held in Grand Rapids MI Sept. 21-Oct.9. In its 8th year, Art Prize Grand Rapids has become the largest art event in the world.

You can reach her at debbiebredemus@aol.com.  
Her website address is debbiebredemusArt.com.

Deborah Kolp has worked for over twenty years as a studio artist doing group and solo shows in addition to church commissions. She has also taught children and adults in various educational settings. 

Deborah writes of her work, “My initial compulsion to paint was born out of a robust need to bear witness to internal struggles on a spiritual level by linking truth and beauty. Particular books and pieces of music have inspired and provoked a deeply personal style hinting at the mystical silence of iconography to dream saturated surrealism.”

Deborah is a studio artist and instructor at the Art Lab Indy located in the Carmel Arts District and Poplar Art Studio in Zionsville. More information about Deborah Kolp can be found at www.deborahkolp.com

Joanne Breen is a Marion, Indiana artist. Born in Dubuque, Iowa, she has lived her adult life in Indiana. She attended Clarke College, Dubuque, as a foreign language major but later channeled her attention to art. A self-taught artist who works in several media, she now works primarily in watercolor and acrylics. She studied under Bruce Campbell and Ron Mazellan at Indiana Wesleyan University. She is a member of the Grant County Art Association, the Hoosier Salon and the Watercolor Society of Indiana.

She has received numerous awards, including two purchase awards and a merit award in Hoosier Salon and Best of Show in the Grant County, Indiana Art Association. She also received recognition and a purchase award in the Red-tail Conservancy competition at the Minnetrista Cultural Center, Muncie. 

Her work has been hung in shows at the Hoosier Salon galleries in Broad Ripple and Carmel as well as the Hoosier Salon Wabash Gallery. She has also exhibited at the Community School of the Arts, Marion, Indiana; The Honeywell Center, Wabash, Indiana; Minnetrista Cultural Center, Muncie, Indiana and Fort Wayne Museum of Art. Joanne’s work is regularly displayed at the Wilson-Vaughan Historic Hostess House, Marion, Indiana. She taught watercolor at the Marion YWCA adult education program for 10 years and currently teaches watercolor at the historic Wilson-Vaughan Hostess House in Marion. She is the mother of two adult daughters and has two grandsons. For more information, you may contact Joanne atbreenart@hotmail.com

Ann Simons is an Indiana native and has lived in Indiana her entire life. As a former travel agent of twenty years, she has traveled extensively. Ann enjoys painting the beauty of Indiana as well as the many places she has traveled.Ann’s memberships have included the CCA Gallery, The Hamilton County Artist Associaiton, The Hoosier Salon and the Stutz Artist Association. She has participated in the Broadripple Art Fair and the Penrod Art Fair. In 2011 Ann won honorable mention at the Indiana State Fair and then won third place honors in 2012.

After studying at The Cincinnati Art Academy, The University of Cincinnati College of Design, Art and Architecture, Judith Ann Weiss received her BFA, graduating Summa Cum Laude from the Illinois State University College of Fine Art. She has gone on to take workshops with nationally known artists: Albert Handell, Kim English, Lesley Rich, Sally Strand, John Michael Carter, Ken Auster and Robert Eberle. Most recently she has painted in Venice with well-known California artist, Lesley Rich. A group of paintings from that trip were shown at The Artist’s Vineyard last year.

The Orchard Park Art Gallery is thrilled  to be showing the work of our own Jim Potts. Jim has been a controller and  CFO in the automotive industry for the past thirty years. He had no formal  education in art until 1980 when he took a class at the Birmingham Bloomfield  Art Association in Michigan with well-respected professional artists—and loved  it! Although he is mostly self-taught, since retirement he has enjoyed taking  classes at the Indianapolis Art Center where he received the Merit Award for Oil  Painting.

Jim paints for the sheer joy of recreating the beauty he sees in  nature and in his travels. He especially enjoys showing his artwork in the  angelgram notes his OPPC small group sends out.

ABOUT THE ARTIST: 

I am originally from Portugal. Growing up in another country, school worked differently. There were barely any art classes or art supplies available. The main reason why I got interested in art was through my mother who is an art teacher. She would do creative art activities with my siblings and me when we were younger. Through my mother I really started to love drawing. I would always draw pictures; and even now, I draw every day, whether it is only in the form of small sketches in my sketchbook. Throughout my life I have always been interested in the arts and knew that I wanted to incorporate them in my future.

After moving to the United States four years ago, I was exposed to many different types of art classes, mainly in high school. It was in high school that I fell in love with painting and have developed my style as the years progressed.  

I would describe my style as colorful and realistic, while incorporating symbolism or some sort of unrealistic element. Most of these pieces are from my studio art class in high school. I wanted to show some of the different styles that I have explored in my high school career as well as some of my more symbolic pieces. All of the self-portraits in this room are part of a collection of pieces I created for my studio art class. I like to use myself as model in a lot of my pieces to show my mental state and my feelings in the moment I create them. These specific paintings represent depictions of loneliness and the idea of escapism.