Winners Showcase 2025 - March 15 - April 11, 2025

Nine Award-winning artists…each have a unique voice…sharing skill, originality, creativity, adept handling of the medium, design, and impact through their art. Exhibiting 60 works!

The pubic is invited to join us at the opening reception Saturday, March 15 1 - 4 pm to meet the artists and enjoy their amazing artwork!

Marianne Andresen-Magin  has been creating art her entire life. While she was very involved in art classes when younger, attending the NYS Summer School for the Arts and designated as a "Promising Young Artist" by the National Foundation for the Arts, her everyday life of work and family took her time for a while. Happily, she rediscovered her passion for art and has been exploring her creativity, experimenting with a variety of mediums. She has currently been inspired by working with Micron Pen, sometimes pairing it with watercolor markers in an illustrative style of art. She also enjoys looser style art using watercolor paint on "Yupo" paper. She enjoys trying new techniques and styles.  Marianne is an award-winning children's book author and illustrator.

Ross Barbera  -  Born in Brooklyn, Ross Barbera grew up in the city but spent summers at family residences in Smithtown and Peakville, New York. It was during these seasonal escapes that he discovered the world of the natural landscape, and it has been the inspiration for his art ever since.

In 1975, Ross received my MFA in painting from Pratt Institute and began exhibiting his paintings at Razor Gallery in SoHo, NYC. From the early '80s to the 1990s, his artwork was displayed by Soghor, Leonard, and Associates, known as the "OK Harris Annex" on Broome Street in lower Manhattan. Simultaneously, he exhibited at the Jean Lumbard Gallery on 57th Street in Manhattan and the Clark Whitney Gallery in Lennox, Massachusetts. Ross served as a full-time faculty member at St. John’s University, teaching in the Department of Art and Design and holding the position of department chairperson for four years. He retired from St. John’s University in 2020 as an Associate Professor.

Robert Berson  -   has lived on Long Island almost all his life except for a 2-year stint in the army. As a physician for some 40 years, he did not always have the time to take lessons in drawing or painting but periodically would be drawn back to art and try to squeeze it into his days. After retiring 10 years ago now, Robert has become more serious about his art and has been studying pastel painting ever since.

“Long Island offers so many opportunities for landscape painters. Its seashore, lakes, and parks are beautiful and constantly changing with the seasons. Travel is also a big part of retirement and offers even more opportunities to see and paint new and different terrain. Landscape opportunities seem endless.

Christopher L. Hanson  - Fine Art Painter and Illustrator Christopher . Hanson is best known for his large figurative works, with complex characters and narrative themes. He specializes in figurative and narrative pieces  created in Oil and graphite which range in many different styles and subject matters. Christopher’s Illustration work  explores many facets of Fantasy, Science fiction, and Horror.

“My entire life I have gravitated towards the arts.” Christopher studied drawing  and painting at Hartford Art School and served as Art Director and lead artist for the media and internet company Nine Kingdoms Publications, overseeing the development of a variety of titles and expansions.

Beyond a master painter, Christopher is, at heart, a storyteller. His compositions not only have a story to tell but actively capture the emotional tone of the subject.

Myungja Anna Koh first encountered painting when she was a little girl. When she plays hide and seek with her friends, she accidentally ends up in an atelier run by a local artist. She discovered Alfred Dürer’s watercolor painting, “The Rabbit,” there. She felt the rabbit’s delicate fur and vivid vitality in a single picture. From then on, she decided to become an artist like Dürer.
Anna’s main mediums are acrylic, watercolor, and digital art. She bases her paintings on inspiration within her mind, specifically to capture and improvise the unique energy of objects. She wants to leave traces of paint on paper or canvas by using this momentary, uncontrollable, impromptu energy.
Anna earned her master's degree in educational theater, storytelling, and arts from Adelphi University in 2023. During this process, she published her first children's book, "Hello My Robin", and realized the effectiveness and importance of the storytelling and has published several books since. She  wants to continue to be an artist, creating her work and communicating with the world through her paintings and writing.

Matthew Manthe - Matthew Manthe is an award-winning artist from Long Island, who has been sketching since childhood, always with a pencil and paper in hand. I have spent hundreds of hours filling my walls with artwork. When there was no more space, I began rotating new pieces and storing the old ones. A few years ago, I realized I had a room full of unseen original works. So, I started showcasing my art in galleries across the Northeast, earning great reviews. I have a passion for filling every inch of the page with detail, a practice that has fueled my art for years.

Howard Pohl – “In 1985, I built a darkroom in which to develop black-and-white film and, hopefully, create works of fine art. Digital photography ascended in popularity in the mid-1990s but I still found analog photography to be motivating and continue the process to this day.  I have stuck to the more traditional methods of photography. While the varieties of film, paper, and chemicals have declined in number over the years, there are still high-quality materials available upon which to capture the blacks, whites, and shades of gray that make up the monochromatic palette. To me, some digital photography seems artificial. Amateurs tend to boost the color saturation and sharpness to unrealistic degrees.  I try to avoid the worst tendencies of digital photography by staying true to the negative image.”

Adam D. Smith - Growing up on family boats on the waters of Long Island,  I have always been inspired by the beautiful coastline and the magic of the water, not only surrounding the island, but throughout the world. I love watching the dance and twinkle of the ever-changing colors and moods of the water. My intention has always been to represent this subject with the utmost accuracy. It is as much about the precision of the brushstrokes and color mixing as it is about the final presentation. I want the image to pull the viewer in, inviting them to dive into it, not just look at it.

I relish the challenge of translating our environment onto canvas. Whether it be a coastal scene, a nautical-inspired composition, or simply a portrait of water, I love finding the right colors to invoke a response. Each painting is a series of carefully calculated decisions of composition, light and shadow, and spatial relationships, designed to tell a story. While not every painting will have the same effect on each individual,  I hope each one sparks an emotional connection and helps the observer notice the little things in life.

Nicholas Valentino - The Long Island parks and shores mean a lot to me. During my teenage years, I would visit Belmont Lake and sketch birds and trees.  I found it to be so relaxing and inspiring. I still go there today at age 68! I consider myself so lucky to have so many beautiful places here on Long Island to inspire my creations! Attending Parsons School of Design gave me the skills and confidence to pursue my craft. Predominantly self-taught, I have been using my own techniques to create more contemporary pieces. I like to work with acrylics, mixed media and found objects. My passion is creating a new spin on automotive parts. They now have a new life and purpose. Nick also paints in oils, acrylics  and abstract paintings are his favorite!