Art In Your Eye Festival is pleased to introduce the fourth in a series of annual collectible fine art posters


The 18 w ” x 24 h ” high quality, framable poster is being sold for $10. Festival donors of $100 or more will receive a complimentary poster.


The poster can be purchased at the locations listed below, during their business hours. The 2008 poster, as well as the 2005, 2006 & 2007 posters, will also be sold during Art In Your Eye Festival August 9 & 10.

Cash or Check payable to: Art In Your Eye
 
Purchase at:

Batavia City Hall
2nd Floor Receptionist Desk, 100 N. Island Avenue, Batavia
630-879-1424

Batavia MainStreet
2 E. Wilson Street, Batavia
630-761-3528

Allen+Pepa Architects, 8 W. Wilson Street, Batavia
630-879-8831

K.Hollis Jewelers, 147 S. Randall Road, Batavia
630-879-8003

Kiss The Sky, 301 W. State St., Geneva
630-232-1888

 

Each of the original paintings featured on our posters have been purchased by the Art In Your Eye Festival and will be on permanent display at the Batavia Government Center.

Become a Festival Sponsor/Donor

 
Our sincere appreciation is extended to



of Batavia
for the printing of our posters each year


 
 

 

 

Our 2008 Fine Art Poster
"A Place to Go and Think"

by Batavia photographer Brian DeWolf
Link to Brian DeWolf's Website

Brian DeWolf thinks of himself as a photographer more so than an artist. But, if creating landscape images that evoke strong feeling is an art, he could be considered a photographic artist. Whatever label is attached to his work, it gets attention and has nostalgic appeal.

 

"The Fox Valley (mainly the Illinois river towns of Geneva, Batavia, and St. Charles), has been my home for more than 30 years. I made a project of photographing this area simply to develop photographic skill. When we're in unfamiliar surroundings, such as a vacation, pictures seem to be everywhere so it seemed a practical exercise to develop a “photographic eye” in my own back yard. We need not travel far to experience the way light falls seductively upon subjects. Striking scenes are everywhere. After all, photographing is the process of selection and isolating a subject in favorable light. It’s a mental exercise that can be done anywhere.”

 

And judges for Professional Photographers of America (PPA) agreed that he became skillful. A number of Brian’s photographs have been "merited" in international competition. His image of a bicyclist crossing the fog-shrouded bridge over the Fox River earned a place in PPA's LOAN COLLECTION for 2002. Marathon Press, publisher of the LOAN COLLECTION book describes this array of images as the "best of the best" from over 8,000 entries entered in international competition. More of Brian's photographs have been selected for PPA's General Showcase Collections.  A summary appears on the Recognition page.

 

Brian grew up in Wheaton, IL. He attended McKendree College in Lebanon, IL and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology. He sold hardware for his father's business in the 1970's and was a policeman in St. Charles, IL from 1979 until his retirement as a sergeant in May of 2000. He began photographing with a relic Mamiya 35mm camera and two lenses right after graduating in 1971. As time permitted, he photographed landscapes on sales trips around the Midwest. "I might have been a traffic hazard. I was always watching cloud formations and scenery as I drove."

"The Fox Valley (mainly the Illinois river towns of Geneva, Batavia, and St. Charles), has been my home for more than 30 years. I made a project of photographing this area simply to develop photographic skill. When we're in unfamiliar surroundings, such as a vacation, pictures seem to be everywhere so it seemed a practical exercise to develop a “photographic eye” in my own back yard. We need not travel far to experience the way light falls seductively upon subjects. Striking scenes are everywhere. After all, photographing is the process of selection and isolating a subject in favorable light. It’s a mental exercise that can be done anywhere.”

 

"We filter everything we see and hear. We unwittingly isolate parts of a scene that get our attention and ignore others. That's one reason our photographs can disappoint us when we see the print. The camera records it all. A disappointing photograph can be the result of clutter in the scene that should have been omitted. Or maybe the light didn’t compliment the subject"

 

"I rarely shoot spontaneously. I’m a plodder and a planner for the most part and, as photographer David Plowden said, 'stalk photographs like a heron.' I don't photograph for sensation. Mood motivates me. Sometimes I choose a subject and wait for good light and scout for best angles. Other times I shoot based upon instinct. Either way, I think about the lighting and search the viewfinder for distracting objects. And I especially like black and white images. They are abstract and, in their own way, strengthen relationships between forms, textures, lines, and shapes. But if color holds an emotion, I'll use it."

 

"The past intrigues me and can hold sentiment. I hope viewers get a feeling of the past, or a sense that our present quickly becomes locked away forever. Most people want to hold unchanged that which is interesting or gives them joy. It might be a flower, brown and brittle, that was tucked between the pages of a book to remind you of a walk on a bright, clean May morning. Or maybe it's a letter, with pages tearing at the folds, written by one whose voice you can no longer hear or whose hand you can no longer touch. If my photography can evoke something like this, it has done its job."

 

Brian's business and artistic philosophy is simple; make the best images possible with the highest quality materials. When Brian was in sales, he saw some fine companies violate their customers' trust. "They had good products, but they wanted more profit. Instead of maintaining the quality that earned their customer's trust, they chose to cut costs. “Sure, there's a market for products of lesser integrity, but I didn't want to be part of it. I don't ever want dissatisfied clients to be figured into the cost of doing business."

 

"I owe so much to my parents. My father had unlimited optimism and creativity. My mother loves people and has boundless generosity. They have inspired me. Brian DeWolf is a member of Professional Photographers of America and the Fox Valley Arts Council.

 

Brian is also a Patient Volunteer for Fox Valley Hospice. This organization assists persons with life threatening illnesses, and their families. It receives no government funding and is supported entirely by the donations of generous people and businesses.
Posters From Previous Years

Our 2007 Fine Art Poster
"The Window"

by Batavia artist Edward Dlugopolski
Edward Dlugopolski received a bachelor of art education from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a master of arts from Northern Illinois University. He spent thirty years as an art educator, teaching grades 2 - 12 in Illinois Public Schools. For twenty-two years he served as Art Department Chairman at Glenbard West High School in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.

Art In Your Eye is pleased to have also purchased Dlugopolski's "Self Portrait No. 27" shown below.

Artist's Statement - Edward Dlugopolski
My work is generally introspective ranging from realistic renderings to abstract compositions in acrylic paint using universal themes and symbolic colors. I have an inner compulsion to liberate my passions and ideas - to express my most profound feelings about the human condition and complexities of life. Mostly, I rely on my instincts, intuition and underlying emotions as opposed to working from observation.

The exceptions are my self-portraits and other likenesses, and the hundreds of figure studies done from life an careful observation.

Early training, my knowledge of art history, personal experiences, immediate impressions and feelings, memories and dreams, the materials I use - all serve to inspire and shape the ideas I draw or paint. I think that everything in the physical world and the conscious/sub-conscious mind can have special meaning and signficiance to the artist.

Our 2006 Fine Art Poster
"Wilson Street Bridge "

by Batavia artist
Rebecca Wilson Allen

 

 

 

 
Our 2005 Fine Art Poster
"The Golden City"

by Batavia artist
Rosalie Waranius Vass
This poster is still available for sale for $10 - available at Batavia Government Center, Batavia MainStreet, and at the Art In Your Eye Festival
Rosalie Waranius lives and has a studio in Batavia, Illinois. Vass grew up in the glacier area of Wisconsin. Her hometown was small and her roaming range quite large. She was fascinated by the changes in the sky and the colors of the seasons. She watched the cows and sheep graze in the pastures and all of life seemed amazingly slow and multi-colored. She was content to scan her environment to find the colors, textures, moods, and compositions that she would later paint.

Her paintings burst with the reflections and experiences of her childhood adventures and adult travel. The desert, the ocean, the mountains and the architecture of her world travel all find a place in her work; never as one scene from one location but a blenderful of images from many times and places. She has painted flocks of sheep, herds of cows, choirs of angels, and countless towns, cities, palaces, bridges, and cemeteries. Her paintings are like random pages out of the diary of her life; come experience the joy of her art.

Vass paints with mixed water media (watercolor and acrylic) on heavy watercolor paper in a layering technique. She uses prisma color pencil to heighten the texture and direction of the movement in her paintings. The sizes of her work range from a tiny (5 x 7 inches) to a very large (3 x 4 feet). Commission requests are welcome.
Link to Rosalie's Website

All Rights Reserved Copyright 2008 Art In Your Eye