Antar Vartan

Antar Vartan (b. 1966)
Antar Vartan is the March 2006 Digital Color Artist of the Month. Antar was born as Jitendra in Gujarat, India. In art college he excelled in lithography and drawing. Being a rebel by nature, he experimented with different techniques. He painted on large canvases. He burnt plywood. Once a whole lot of his paintings got burnt in this process.

He took Osho’s Sanyas and moved to Osho’s Pune Commune. His Sanyas name was Swami Antar Vartan. His friends call him Vartan. For over a year Vartan worked at the paintings in the Ashram. A number of exhibitions took place around this time at the Commune. Later he moved to “Mystic Village” in the nearby mountains. Here he lived close to Mother Nature. He hardly spoke around this time. Three years latter he returned to a normal life. He came out spiritually strong and vibrant.

Vartan dives into his painting, flows with it, lives with it; this has been his approach towards his painting. Vartan’s bold abstraction and free brush strokes epitomize spontaneity in a grand scale. He is a master of composition: his paintings emanate a wild energy from what at first appears to be a free, unconstrained and even chaotic form, but a closer inspection reveals a structured dynamic of tranquility and turbulence. His paintings are frequently anchored by a simple yet elegant geometric shape or a region of serene, radiant negative space. Around the anchors there is unceasing motion. http://RenownedArt.com/digitalcolor/

New Artwork in the Galleries
Joseph DiSipio, Matthew Bates, Eileen Kasprick, Nick Biagini, Kevin Barr, Karyelle Starnes, Jay Anthony, Kerry L. Marsala, Decio Ferreira and Adelle Jean have added new work to their galleries. http://DigitalConsciousness.com/gallerylist.phtml

New Contemporary Artists The following artists registered this month. To view the work of an artist enter the artist's name at http://DigitalConsciousness.com To see the most recent artists go to http://DigitalConsciousness.com/new/

1. Kamarudeen Habib. Characters from Ghana.
2. Jenny Fraser. Iconic and everyday symbols of Australian life.
3. Julia Brooks. Bright impressionistic landscapes from the UK.
4. Vassilis Makris. Architectural photography from Greece.
5. Andrea Newell. Landscapes and literature.
6. Joyce Newkirk. Performance art.
7. June Newkirk. Performance art.
8. Santos Diez. Oil portraits from Spain.
9. Timothy Clark. Interactive installations.
10. David Cochran. Digital art.
11. Joachim Schmid. Photography from Germany.
12. Peter Reddy. Landscapes from Australia.
13. Chanin. Mystical B&W Hollywood celebrity portraits.
14. Blair Thomson. Coastal and Japanese temple structures.
15. Andrew Celso. Exciting funky art.
16. Shem Booth-Spain. Hypermedia Synesthesia.
17. Fredy Romero. Spiritual landscapes from Argentina.
18. Sandra Maarhuis. Realistic portraits from the Netherlands.
19. Jitendra Gosai. Elephant art from India.
20. Martin Velez. Watercolor murals.
21. Lauren Stole. Digital art.
22. Andrew Stevenson. Landscapes from the UK.
23. Alexandre Chlenski. Ordered chaos fractals.
24. Kaija Aittamaa. Realistic pencil portraits.
25. Sergio Gaspar. Photo-realistic animals from Argentina.
26. Afrika Abney. Abstract expressionism.
27. Humarea SLG. Fantasy naif.
28. Ognev Vlaminck. Megalomaniac minimalism from Belgium.
29. Dana Marie. Impressionistic landscapes.

News from the Artists
R.W. Firestone has a Solo Exhibition at OMMA Center of Contemporary Art, Santa Barbara February 28 – March 26, 2006 Opening Reception Saturday March 4, 5 – 9 pm. “Transformations” is both the title of this show and a key element in the work and life of prominent Santa Barbara digital painter R.W. Firestone. The works on exhibit reflect the transformation of his life from student and artist, to psychotherapist, to renowned psychological theorist and author and to artist once again.