Berly Brown (Lincoln, NE) Awareness of our environment and surroundings carry us closer to an awareness of who we are and where we come from. Thoughts, emotions, expectations and circumstance all collide to mold our perspectives and beliefs. Limitations of sense perception obscures the nature of reality, the underlying mechanics of this reality and the realms that lay hidden beyond these structures. In order to make sense of natural phenomena, our brains must simplify. I am interested in consciousness and human perception and how the results of sensory input comes together to form our world. My most recent work attempts to play with these concepts by combining vibrant gradations in color, explorations of pattern and layering of objects to enhance depth and give a sense of expansion and transience. My studio practice as well as my work is shaped by my interest in Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta, neuroscience, cosmology, physics and nature. http://www.berlybrown.com/

James Bockelman (Seward, NE) The work of James Bockelman has been represented by Lo River Arts in Beacon, New York, the Karolyn Sherwood Gallery in Des Moines, Iowa, and the Kunstoffice in Berlin, Germany. His art has been featured in one–person exhibitions at the , the Joslyn Museum, the Museum of Nebraska Art, and the Norfolk Arts Center. Bockelman is currently planning exhibitions for the Ironton Gallery of Art in Denver, and Circuitous Succession Gallery in Memphis. http://jbockelman.com/

Ben Darling (Sydney, NE) Ben Darlingis an artist primarily working in oils in Sidney, Nebraska. A 2013 recipient of a Nebraska Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship, he recently featured his work in a solo exhibit for the “Nebraska Now” series at the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney. Over the past several years, Mr. Darling has toured his work throughout Nebraska and the Midwest with Impact, a juried group of nationally recognized artists working in Nebraska. He participated in the U-Cross Foundation retrospective at the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper, Wyoming, and has taken part in several invitational shows, artist residencies, and solo exhibits. Recent explorations in art have Mr.Darling working with a fiber arts technique called sprang, water colors, linoleum block prints, ceramics and photography as well as continuing to paint in oils. In his spare time, Mr. Darling enjoys gardening, bicycling, and volunteer archeological work with the Bureau of Land Management Field Office in Buffalo, Wyoming. He currently teaches art for grades 5 – 12 in Sidney, Nebraska.

Gary Day (Omaha, NE) Gary Day works in printmaking, computer generated imagery, and animation. He was born near Great Falls, Montana in 1950 and received a BA from Montana State University and an MFA in printmaking from Florida State University in 1976. As computer graphics began to develop in the 1980's he studied computer science at the University of Nebraska Omaha. He is a Clark Diamond Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Nebraska of Omaha where he teaches printmaking, animation, game design, and is the current director of the UNO Print Workshop. http://www.synapticforge.com/

Stephen Dinsmore (Lincoln, NE) Stephen Dinsmore's can be found in public and private collections both nationally and internationally. Dinsmore, a Nebraska-born artist, presents paintings that testify to the vitality of representational art as a means of communicating visual poetry. His paintings may border on the abstract being a synthesis from several sources; in other instances they may convey a more specific sense of place and time. "For me means being always on the lookout for an image/idea that excites. Sounds straightforward but it's nothing like a straight line. So many things count: the creamy light of late afternoon on landscape; the abstract beauty of marks on the side of a train car; new snow that reshapes all it touches; an interior filled with color and reverie; the riveting beauty of a vase of flowers; a fly fisherman in shadow; a disregarded corner of town; a found image... I try to make a painting that has in it at least something of the magic and mystery of the thing; the alchemy; the thing that excites." http://stephendinsmore.com/index.html

Michael Farrell (Lincoln, NE) Michael Farrell practices the traditional craft of photography using large format cameras and lenses, developing his own b&w negatives and making enlargements in his darkroom. The prints are archivally processed double weight gelatine silver paper lightly toned in selenium for added permanence, matted and framed using archival materials.

Recently he has mastered the film to digital workflow in color shooting 8"x10" color negatives, having them developed in a commercial lab and then scanning them to process the finished photographs in a digital post production and printing environment.hotographs in a digital post production http://www.michaelfarrell.com/

Charles Guildner (Originally from Hastings, NE, currently resides in Everett, WA) In 1990, I began photographing the landscape and the lives of the people of the rural heartland, primarily spanning Montana, Wyoming, Colorado & Nebraska. Born and raised in Nebraska, drawn to my “Roots”, this project has developed into a quest to record and express my vision of the many “Lives of Tradition” that I find as I travel and network across the country. The core of this project is finding and recording ordinary people who are living and working in some ways that have changed little since the settling of the heartland of this country. This has brought me to the study of farmers and ranchers and small rural communities where the people are living these “lives of tradition”. Many of these lifestyles are shrinking in numbers, so it is interesting to find people whose lives seem grounded in tradition, who find their vitality in long standing ways of living. How long many of these traditional ways will continue is uncertain. But the spirit I have found among these people suggests many will continue. http://www.guildner-photo.com

Karen Kunc (Lincoln, NE) Karen Kunc’s prints and artists books stem from her contemplation of the forces of the natural world, ephemeral encounters and the immeasurability of time and distance. Her unique style of printing records the process of destruction and creation inherent in reduction woodcut, and as an artist she takes on an omniscient role as evolutionary choices move toward the resolution of her images. Karen Kunc was born in Omaha, Nebraska. http://www.karen-kunc.com/

Michael Larsen (Lincoln, NE) Michael Larsen is a visual artist based in Lincoln, Nebraska and received his B.A. in Art from Nebraska Wesleyan University and an MFA in Ceramics from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013, where he worked for one year following graduation. He has shown his work in several notable Chicago venues and produces installations, which incorporate ceramics as well as found and altered objects. His work balances an innate interest in the organic with contemporary sculptural practice, creating installations that engage space and perception. Narratives involving innocence, growth, and desire intertwine to form an Edenic backdrop that encourages curiosity and exploration. "I believe in the act of making as an exercise in playful experimentation. This manifests in bright colors, a cast of lively forms, and the incorporation of a variety of materials, often within sculptural installations. Lightly tapping on the frames of everyday domestic and social activity, my work searches for entry points to an imaginative realm that is personal in its idiosyncrasy yet universal in its utopian impulse." http://michaelianlarsen.com/

Diane Lounsberry-Williams (Omaha, NE) My current body of multi-layered paintings combines a minimalist environment with pattern, surface and shape to establish a dialogue reflecting history and time and the important connection to our past. It is a comment on the buildup and breakdown of our man-made environment reflecting weathered surfaces, and alluding to frescoed walls or stoned streets and pathways that once supported the footsteps of another time. As I develop a painting, I have come to depend upon my unconscious memory to lift familiar passages from the body of each painting while allowing reflections of France and Italy to remain as points of reference. Intuitively, I build a history of texture and color using acrylic, oil, beeswax, pumice or plaster to create the surface, knowing that each brush stroke, every personal mark, is of equal importance whether it is evident in the final composition or not.

Deborah Murphy (Omaha, NE) "Some people may feel that what I choose to portray is mundane and not a vision grand enough to warrant the attention I devote to the subject. But as an artist I am not a mere casual observer… My work is an effort to capture the pastoral quality of the Midwestern landscape with its delicate and elusive beauty, but also to put forth a dramatic appeal." --Deborah J. Murphy

Born and raised in North Platte, Nebraska, Deborah Murphy attended Kearney State College, now the University of Nebraska at Kearney, where she received a B.A. in art. She has worked as a professional artist since 1973.

Christina Narwicz (Omaha, NE) My work has always had a spontaneous and multi-streamed direction. Memory and the natural world are the starting points for my image making. My methods are very different and only a few are remotely of the “Scientific” variety none- the -less, I am continually searching and chasing my own intuitive experiments and theories. My findings fall into the poetic rather than that of the Journal Scientific. Natural phenomenon like the physicality of water or the reciprocal qualities of honey and bees that create it fascinate me with their perfunctory and yet abstract qualities. The beginnings are the same as the endings and yet nothing is ever done (finished). These new works are another step in my exploration of collective memory in the context of our place in the cyclical nature of nature and the fluid nature of the mind. http://www.christinanarwicz.com/

John Spence (Lincoln, NE) I am interested in understanding the space and structure of the landscape. I work toward a clear solution that expresses this essence in a meaningful manner. My work is broad scale Nebraska. My hope is these images would resonate with the Nebraska student providing a positive connection between home and the halls of academia. My hope is these images would provide the out-of-state or foreign student with an engaging point of view within an unfamiliar environment. http://www.johnspencephoto.com/

Barbara Takenaga (originally from North Platte, NE, lives and works in Williamstown, MA) Barbara Takenaga was born in North Platte, Nebraska, and has a M.F.A. from the University of Colorado, Boulder. She has had solo exhibitions at the Colorado University Museum, University of Colorado, Boulder; Brattleboro Art Museum, Brattleboro, Vermont; McKinney Avenue Contemporary, Dallas; Art in General, New York; and the Museum of Art, among other museums and galleries. Takenaga’s work has also been exhibited in group exhibitions at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; San Antonio Museum of Art, Texas; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; American Academy of Arts & Letters, New York; Bell Gallery, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island; deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, Massachusetts; Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; and the Asia Society, New York. In 2013 Takenaga was elected National Academician of the National Academy, New York. Her work can be found in numerous public and private collections, including the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts; Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California; Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York; the San Jose Museum; Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; and the Frederick R. Weisman Art Foundation, Los Angeles; among others. Takenaga is the Mary A. & William Wirt Warren Professor of Art at Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts. She is represented by DC Moore Gallery, New York; and Gregory Lind Gallery, San Francisco. Takenaga lives and works in New York City and Williamstown, Massachusetts. http://www.barbaratakenaga.com/

Bart Vargas (Council Bluffs, IA) Bart Vargas is from Bellevue, Nebraska. He received his BFA from the University of Nebraska at Omaha, and his MFA at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, and his work can be found in many collections throughout the , Europe, and Asia. His works have also been featured in many publications including Sculpture magazine, New American Paintings, and HGTV Magazine. Vargas is currently a member of the full time Art Faculty at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. http://www.bart-vargas.squarespace.com/