Ask me about the birds and the bees.

I am a 29 year old elementary school teacher, who expresses herself through photography and painting in her spare time. I actually never took an art class until college, where I earned my undergraduate degree in Fine Arts. Through my education, I was able to explore a variety of mediums. While I have always, loved photography oil painting became a passion of mine. For this show, I have focused on my photography. My work portrays my own point of view of life, some in fragments and some larger than life.

My work in this show, reflects four different series , three pictures in each that reflect the beauty of Ireland, the Finger Lakes of New York, Bermuda and of our own back yard. With these four, I see that of color, man, power, and envy of nature’s hand.

As a “Green artist” I am concerned with environmental issues and show this in my themes and the techniques I use. Since it's not just the finished product, but also the process used to create the art, the work invites the viewer in to explore the underlying structures and themes, which are strikingly visible below the surface. The themes are all highly personal but also very universal, focusing on reforming and restructuring our lives and society to one that is more respectful of our surroundings.

The material that I use in my artwork is one of the least recycled materials: window glass. Unlike the glass made specifically for craft and art use, window glass is difficult to re-melt, and I have had to develop new techniques to exploit the characteristics of this material.

My installation, "Less Than Nine," is a little bit of this and a lot of that.

I'm showing a little bit of my work and a lot of plastic.

For less than nine years, I've collected quite a bit of plastic, mostly plastic caps from non-dairy creamers. Though I haven't saved every category of plastic, or every piece, there's still a lot.

I can't seem to come up with an actual statement. Once you see the quantity of plastic-- well, hopefully it makes its own statement. I was thinking that maybe my tag line should be, "Not big enough, or cool enough, for Burning Man."

This is my first time at Artomatic, so I'm purty pumped. I've seen the last three Artomatics, and I think it's great what you people do.

A tangible ode to the inner child, the earth, and the home. Located on the 9th floor.

The concept for my installation “The god shaped hole in the heart of man” comes from French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre who once said “There is a God-shaped hole in the heart of man where the divine used to be”.

The installation will consist of molded paper torsos. Each piece would have a hole where the heart should be – the hole would be in the shape of a religion’s symbol. Such as a cross, a half moon, a star. The written and spoken word is an integral part of most religions, so molded paper, with pages and passages taken from different faith traditions would be integrated into the very pulp from which the torsos will be shaped.

The pieces will be life sized, hang from the ceiling or from a series of lines, stretched above the viewers heads. Being light, they would sway gently, as people walked between them.

The pieces will have integrated sensors which would detect motion and “speak” to the viewer – this might or might not be feasible, but a recorder playing sacred music and intermittently asking questions is definitely doable.

The installation will be circular, and enclosed by light curtains, to create a sacred space.

my practice is open to various mediums however for the past five years i have developed work using mainly audio and video.

I have initiated and project managed numerous film and audio installations and helped local arts companies by acting as a producer on their show reels.

last year I collaborated with an audio artist on a site-specific work “Passenger”. installed at Holy Parish Trinity Church Sunderland, the work looked at the outskirts of Sunderland’s skyline creating a ‘visual map’ tracing back from the centre of the city to the church itself. Commissioned by /sLab this installation was profiled on ITV Tyne Tees and in local press.

I won the AV Festival 08: AV: IRAL short film competition. Open to all colleges and universities in the North East region, the winning entry was shown as part of last years festival the theme of which was “Broadcast”. AV Festival is an international festival of electronic arts featuring visual art, music and moving image. A biennial event, the festival takes place in Newcastle, Gateshead, Sunderland and Middlesbrough in the North East of England.

Since university i have completed a two month funded art residency in Berlin and have been asked to submit work for a numerous exhibitions based in the north east. Later this year i will be exhibiting work from my time at Berlin. The exhibition will be installed at the Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art and previewed on the 31st july.

This is my artist statement.

"Corporate work" (2009), an installation by efc gillespie, explores the corporatization of daily life and, in financial terms, the everyday experience of economic crisis.

Artomatic visitors are invited to meet in the company office space (located at the south end of the 7th floor) to review and comment on project plans, execute term sheets and define deliverables, and chat by the water cooler.

Office hours coincide with regular exhibit times. Handouts will be provided.

An immersive interactive video environment with real-time generated visuals and audio that respond to the participants' moves and gestures. A variety of interaction modes are randomly cycled; direct visual object manipulation, abstract synthesis/dance, virtual flight, and more.

Interacting with the Order of the Everyday

My work tries to break out of the constraints of expectation, to explore and examine the broad possibilities of engaging the public domain with both the commonplace and thought provoking. My installations use discarded objects and utilitarian materials. I respond to the building's history, focus on the construction of place and reveal spatial relationships. Through layering and juxtaposition, texture and color, my pieces connect the political, social, and cultural implications of space and its boundaries. They infuse life into urban sites and comment on various means of habitation.

In my work, the implied dismantling and reorientation of spaces help make the places and their contents identifiable and knowable. My art challenges perceptions of ordinary activities by encouraging people to take a closer look at the things around them. My photographs are not the idealized image of a place; they contain narratives. I encourage the discussions, critiques and exchanges that occur when composing and layering the mundane and functional with the derelict, and found with the physical and stationary.

I'm a mixed media artist/visual photographer in the Northern Virginia area. I create mixed media “with an out there edge.” Primary concentration is with recycled items on acrylic, pen/ink on mannequins, and visual photography. I was exposed to a broad range of art by art collecting parents. Creating art is a release outlet from my every day real-life existence in the corporate/white collar world. Having showed for the first time last fall and meeting great artists was a true inspiration for me. Exhibiting has opened up new opportunities and inspiration.

Visual Media Artist, Isaiah Headen samples from life while sticking with his love for street art and Asian culture. Graffiti Pencil is a funky collection of vectorized pieces that focus on emotions and feelings.

Michelle Herman is an emerging interdisciplinary artist and recent graduate of the Maryland Institute College of Art who lives and works in the DC area. As an interdisciplinary artist, her work ranges from video to painting to sculpture and installation.

My installation entitled A.R.T. (Applied Research & Technology) began after creating several 16mm stop-motion films, which studied the behavior of ink and a porcelain plate and the fractal-like patterns that resulted. My interest in these forms grows out of a technique in painting called “Decalcomania” (as coined by Max Ernst). In creating these films, I began to think of the forms as growing, living organisms that abstractly represented the essence or force of chance, as each ink-blot grew and behaved unexpectedly each time I repeated the “experiment.” In some of my research, I uncovered the work of Eshel Ben-Jacob, a physicist at the Tel Aviv University who discovered that bacteria can grow in these same complex fractal patterns. From there, I became fascinated with these fractals and the metaphor they represented for me. I then developed the idea of creating a pseudo science laboratory as a way to showcase these films of fractals and to have the viewers interact with my work. I created a live video feed microscope so that the viewers whom may be here to observe my work could, in turn, observe themselves.

My work is more or less about peace. In my practice, I make opportunities (spaces) where people, along with me, make the work (Yes, Beuys.). I work in or outside of a gallery. My work usually requires that viewers-cum-participants and me perform or make a gesture. I'm displaying some results of four projects this year.

PeaceKiss, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, National Mall, 2009. Though I was kicked off the Mall several times (security couldn’t get their heads around the project), I managed to collect kisses from a lot of people who got it and wanted to do something for peace.

We’ve got the whole world, etc. 1 and 2, 2009. One late night, I saw many latex gloves scattered down the road and sidewalk like breadcrumbs. I didn’t have my camera so I went to the store and bought a disposable one.

The World Is Not Well. At Flux 2009, I invited people to put something in the world to help it along. This project came out of a series of photographs I took of discarded gloves.

From Babe to Booyah: The Making of Abu Grab Barbie. A video strip tease transformation of Barbie into an Abu Grab diva.

"Men and women have to put on mental armor every day to deflect the pointed barbs and subtle hints that we should wax away hair, lose twenty pounds, and have bigger breasts or a larger penis."
~Tammy Vitale & Heather Bartlett