Jack Magurany

As a child growing up in the south suburbs of Chicago, drawing and painting have been Jack Magurany’s passion – a passion that led him to study art at Columbia College in Chicago. Magurany received a BFA with honors in 1993 and have spent most of his professional career as an illustrator and graphic designer. However, his true passion and self-expression comes from being a painter.

For Jack Magurany, painting is a way to explore the relationships between various color harmonies and surface textures and allows him an opportunity to experiment with spontaneity and chance. It is also a way for him to develop his own unique artistic voice.

The medium Magurany primarily paints with is acrylics. Its pure pigment allows him to translate his
vision with intense and dramatic colors.

He enjoys the challenge of trying to capture a subject’s likeness while intensifying its beauty through the use of bold and vibrant colors.

His work explores the interaction of color, composition, drawing and representation of a
subject to convey a meaningful experience to the viewer.

He also experiments with the possibilities allowed through di¬fferent application techniques. With the use of large brushes, trowels, and pallet knives he makes broad spontaneous marks on the canvas to create texture, emotion and enthusiasm to the painting.

Cindy Marrazzo

Engineer and Scientist, Cindy Marrazzo says, “Art never fails to bring me happiness, whether in the form of painting or dancing, art renews my passion.”

Most of Marrazzo’s childhood and high school years revolved around art. As a teen, Marrazzo received multiple awards for her artwork. Cindy and her three art teachers had their sights set on the Art Institute of Chicago for Cindy. However, her parents wanted something more practical. So at 16 when she graduated high school, she locked her paint brush away, and at 17, enlisted in the US Marine Corps. With the help of the USMC, Marrazzo traveled throughout most of the US, where she explored her love of nature and details became an integral part of her character.

Marrazzo’s background as a US Marine and as an engineer has influenced the Marrazzo Style. Cindy says, “I apply my science and math education to my art.” She often uses math in her designs to deliver realistic accurate details to every scene, while her use of darks and lights provide amazing light to her paintings. In those details, her paintings represent the character and heart of the builder, whether the builder is Mother Nature or a gifted craftsman. Her style makes the viewer feel like they are there with her, actually walking up the steps, admiring the architecture and craftsmanship, touching the flowers and enjoying the moment.

Lidia Wylangowska

My art tells my story. It’s a story of my world, of my thoughts and emotions entwined in an internal dialogue. And some of it can be expressed only through painting.

It is incredible, how fairy-tales I heard once-upon-a-time, in my childhood actually influenced my life and defined who I am. As an adult, I still believe in happy endings and that good will prevail.
The Enchanted Pencil is one of the stories I remember very clearly. This special pencil could materialize anything drawn, such as doors that lead to any place imaginable.

I realized this story has become hardwired in me. And now my paintings are those doors. Doors that lead me to my own world of peace and harmony. A world where dragons, wyverns, basilisks and dwarfs roam free. Where life has a deeper meaning which I do not yet comprehend but searching for this meaning is a fascinating process.

Sam Tucibat

Sam is a lifelong resident of northwest Illinois. He has developed a deep appreciation of the unique beauty of the area’s natural environment. After studying photography as part of his Communication degree at Western Illinois University, capturing images of the area has become a hobby, avocation and occupation for Tucibat. He learned photography in the traditional darkroom, but has developed a distinct affinity for digital processes and used them exclusively in his workflow.

Most of Sam’s images are an amalgam of several photographs that are processed and combined in the digital darkroom using Adobe PhotoShop. Individual elements in source images are isolated with selection tools and moved to their own layers in the destination image.

Further editing and composition techniques are then employed to refine the overall image. Commonly-used processes included layer mode settings, layer styles, opacity settings and transform commands. Filters are used with extreme reserve.