Artists
Artistic energy on display by artists and artisans living and working in Omaha, Elkhorn, and surrounding area
Alissa Hansen | Stone Cottage Studio
Alissa Hansen, a resident of Wahoo Nebraska, grew up in Overland Park, Kansas. In 2004, she received her Bachelor of Arts in Studio Art, with an emphasis in drawing, from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. In May of 2005 she moved to Denver and quickly fell in love with the area. After 13 years in Colorado, Alissa made the decision to move to Nebraska, with her husband and children, to be closer to family after her mother’s dementia diagnosis.
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Though my artwork goes through phases, I always find myself returning to the themes of place and human connection. I am interested in people and their stories, whether it is a relative, whose life I know intimately, or a stranger passing by. I am constantly scanning and observing my surroundings. Much of my art is a personal record of these observations – filtered through my own eyes, emotions, and imagination, of course. By drawing and painting these moments of pause, I’m allowed to linger with them a bit longer. I like to allow the viewer to personally connect with my art, while leaving room in my work for them to create their own narrative about the subject.
Anna Stoysich
Anna Stoysich is a potter and painter who was born and raised in Omaha, Nebraska, and now lives nearby in the Loess Hills of Malvern, Iowa. She graduated from the University of Nebraska – Lincoln in 2002 with a BFA and an emphasis in ceramics. She spent the following 14 years working in the United States and abroad. She was an artist in residence at the Archie Bray Foundation and Watershed, a studio assistant at Penland School of Craft and apprenticed to wood fired ceramicist, Chris Gustin, in South Dartmouth, MA. She also was a Montessori teacher in rural North Carolina and Mexico and later became a caretaker for her grandfather on the family farm in southwest Iowa.
Artist Anna Stoysich – Wood-fired vases – 7x9x9 inches – $400 each
Anne Newman
Anne Newman is a painter and illustrator working in Omaha, Nebraska. She graduated from the University of Nebraska at Omaha with a BFA in Studio Art. In her home studio, she uses watercolor, pen, ink, and oil paint to create naturalistic, but darkly whimsical work. Newman’s work is imaginative and fantastical with a focus on folklore, myth, and anthropomorphism. She takes a naturalistic and observed approach to drawing while adding invented elements. Her style is highly detailed and polished with richly saturated colors in oils or thickly cross-hatched over watercolor on paper. She is highly inspired by Golden Age
illustration, Northern Renaissance panel painting, and natural history illustrations of the 18th and 19th centuries.
https://www.annenewmanart.com/
Aspen Polly Hansen
Aspen Polly Hansen, originally from Denver, has lived in Wahoo, Nebraska since 2019. Her favorite medium to work in is Prismacolor colored pencils, because of their bold color, smooth texture, and precision. She is inspired by realism and enjoys watching tutorials to learn techniques from other artists. She has received multiple commissions from people wanting portraits of their pets. Still in her teens, she is saving money for college with future plans to study art and archeology. She devotes hours each week to practicing and improving her drawing skills. “I love art” she says, “I have as long as I can remember. My mom is an artist, so naturally, I’ve grown up doing art and being creative. Art is a part of me and my life. If someone were to tell me to stop doing art, it would be like telling me to stop breathing. It brings me and others joy and that is why I love it.”
Aspen Monet Laboy
Aspen M. Laboy (they/them) is an interdisciplinary artist from Omaha, Nebraska working in poetry, glass sculpting, installation, and film photography. Exploring concepts of environmentalism, internal identity, and cultural heritage, they are influenced by nature, science, and philosophy. Aspen has three published books; “Spirit” (2017), “The Quiet Lion” (2018), and “I MATTER” (2022). They co-hosted the poetry workshop “Corner’s Space” at KANEKO and have performed poetry in various galleries. In 2023, several of their selected poems were aired on “Friday Live” with Nebraska Public Media through NPR. Their work has been exhibited at MoonRise Gallery, Fleabane Gallery, Goldsmith Silversmith, LUX Center for the Arts, Generator Space, Family of Things, and Union Street Gallery. Currently, Aspen is one of the selected artists for the Alternate Currents Cohort through Amplify Arts. In addition, they were awarded a scholarship for Penland School of Craft to attend in Summer of 2024.
Aubrey Niemoth
Aubrey Niemoth’s work contains an impressive understanding of the subtleties of light and shadow, skillfully capturing light across multiple mediums including pastel, oil, and textile. Her background of growing up in small-town Nebraska is reflected in the subjects and techniques she features- from small landscapes and animal skulls to quilt- making. Throughout her collection of work, viewers can see a desire to explore the boundaries of her subjects- both in art and in life.
Becky Kinloch
I grew up on a farm outside of Malvern, Iowa. Graduated from college with a degree in art education with an emphasis in ceramics, painting, and drawing. I taught art at Papillion Junior High for thirty-eight years. I currently lead art workshops, make wheel thrown pottery, take photographs, garden, and make some art.
Art is everywhere. The images are already here. Painting is allowing the fleeting to become visible through color, technique, and style. Through creating we come to appreciate the richness and the possibilities of the images in a world that surrounds us.
I paint subjects that interest me and challenge what I think I know and see. I try to expand my skills by exploring media in and out of my comfort zone. I often say- “Why not?”
Bill Hoover
Bill Hoover’s art is a dynamic synthesis of both his interior and exterior worlds. Using oil paint, charcoal, graphite, and textures like sand, he builds up his paintings using shapes, colors both muted and bright, and texture till he arrives at a place that is fresh, unpredictable, and meditative.
His work is widely collected throughout the United States and is featured in many private collections.
Chris Machian
Chris Machian was born in the diverse, working class community of South Omaha in Nebraska. Rather than receiving an allowance, Machian managed a paper route at age 10, teaching him the value of hard work. The after-school job also launched Machian’s love affair with the news. As a child he often read more than just the comics in the Omaha World-Herald, where he would later become a staff photographer. He attended college at the University of Nebraska at Omaha where soon his work started appearing in USA Today and the Sporting News.
Later he earned Master’s degree from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and is a licensed drone pilot.
Now Machian’s word be seen in Sports Illustrated, the Washington Post and even the front page of the New York Times. His style is one of accurate representation with little disruption.
https://photo.machianphoto.com/
Omaha Nebraska Self portrait by Omaha World-Herald photographer Chris Machian at TD Ameritrade Park. CHRIS MACHIAN/THE WORLD-HERALD
Elisabeth Percival | ElisabethSpace Jewelry
Glenda Stone | Skunk Farm Studio
A Nebraska Native who grew up in Omaha, Glenda has been surrounded by craftsman and artists since birth. Given a free moment she has always preferred to work with her hands, creating something that she and others could enjoy.
“I seem to eat, sleep and dream art. It’s a rare moment when I’m not contemplating my next painting or wearable art design. My mother used to tell me that I would wear out my hands”
Since her college years at the University of Nebraska, Glenda has worked in several styles and mediums. The creative process has seen her paintings evolve from photo realism to a mix of realism and a more painterly and expessive statements. By incorporating feathers and found objects, the viewer is able to bring their own interpretation and memories to her visual story. Her jewelry combines many bead techniques reminiscent of Native American influence.
“As time passes, I hope to share what I see as my spritual journey through the Nebraska landscape.”
Gregory Matthew
Gregory is an abstract artist based in the Midwest. When possible, he loves to find discarded canvases and inject them with new life. His artistic journey began as an internal search for creative outlets, self-exploration, and fulfillment, which he found through the physical act of painting and the visual result of his actions.
Gregory’s art is a visual exploration of the interplay between space, texture, and movement. He uses the fluidity of paint, bold brushstrokes, dynamic forms, and an array of colors to create pieces that are both expansive and intimate, spontaneous, and intentional. He is fascinated by the way textures and shapes can transform a two-dimensional canvas into a three-dimensional world, evoking a sense of depth and complexity that seeks to draw the viewer in. When he’s not painting, you can find Gregory traveling with his wife or perfecting his amazing Detroit-style pizza recipe, which is his other passion and work of art.
https://www.gregorymatthewart.com/
Holly Tharnish
Holly Tharnish lives and works in Omaha, Nebraska. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Nebraska-Omaha with a minor in art history in 2019. She attended UNO with a Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation Scholarship. During her time at UNO, she was featured in multiple student exhibitions, earned a Bertha Mengedoht Hatz Memorial Scholarship for Artistic Excellence as well as a Wanda Ewing Memorial Scholarship. She was the 2018-2019 Vice President of the UNO Art Club and curated student exhibitions for the organization. In 2018, Holly helped create Benson’s Oceanside Mural near the intersection of Maple and 63rd streets. Holly’s first solo exhibition at the Florence Mill Museum and Art-Loft Gallery commenced in September 2019 as the year’s recipient of the Conner Meigs Art Award. The show focused on her own self-realization within the scope of her vast family history.
Her work examines themes of history and heritage, introspection and identity, womanhood, memories, and the contrasts between the world we live in, the stories we tell, and the narratives we keep inside our minds.
https://hollytharnish.wixsite.com/portfolio
J.J. Carroll
J.J. Carroll graduated from Parsons School of Design. He spent two decades working on animation for both television and film, later concentrating as the artist on licensed cellular phone video games. In 2005 a commercial project for Wendy’s that he produced won a London’s D&AD award. J.J. currently owns and operates CHOICE custom framing & gallery in Benson.
Judith Snyder
Ceramic art soothes my soul. A sense of calm settles in as the wheel spins and my fingers play. Like writing, pottery is a way to express my creative self. Now that I have more time to dig my fingers into clay and play with fire, I find it addicting.
https://www.ceramicartbyjudith.com/
Julie Wolter Jenowe | Spirit Earthy Jewelry
Within the sphere of nature, I create works of art in observation of our innate and sacred connection to it, a necessary bond for our humanity. My drawings are narratives with nature, I am the scribe recording my perspective of the stories relayed. Using plant and animal symbols such as the ginkgo leaf and turtle, universal and ancient symbols like the labyrinth and the heart shape, and sacred geometry such as the spiral of life, I design modern day totems within paintings, sculpture, jewelry, and clothing to have and also to wear as personal empowerment and inspirational healing tools which serve as reminders of, tethers to, our individual and collective place in the journey through this life.
Karen Klein
I find my joy in seeing and photographing abstract design in nature. The patterns and textures and edges and juxtapositions fascinate me. I revel in the magic light creates – reflections, backlit glow, highlights, and shadows.
My favorite photos are often touched by other-worldliness, where light and dark create an ethereal, pensive beauty. Photos that reveal a place of wonder and possibility, and reflection. My style relies on realism, with only minimal editing.
I want my art to inspire people to give their attention to the natural world around us; to look deeply, to foster curiosity and creativity. I want them to look and to wonder. How did this come to be? What process made this shape or pattern?
My interest in photography and nature as art began during my studies in Landscape Architecture. After a career in city planning, I became a Nebraska Master Naturalist, where fellow naturalist photographers encouraged me to further pursue my own work.
Kathleen Van Lieu
Combining abstraction and realism came naturally to me. Realism indicates the inspirational source; abstraction conveys what is not physical. Light, wind, humidity, and seasons change. Society, politics and climates change, and the collective subconscious shifts. A little abstraction helps. So much is a mystery; I paint to find answers.
Painting is essential to my sense of well-being. I had given up artistic pursuits for many years until my innate drive to paint again became needfully apparent. Like most endeavors, it requires attention and practice. I started with my children’s crayons; pastels became my logical next step. Next came watercolors, so clean and compact, until my critique group and gallery sales strongly suggested oils.
Style is elemental and uniquely personal, comprised of many things. My work has been described as mystical, defined as allegory for what transcends intellectual understanding. Landscape fulfills that purpose as the longest lived thing I can find with a story to tell.
I use texture, layering, line, and blending with a lot of palette knife work until the ineffable something emerges, satisfying my interest in the original idea. This is why I like oils; the medium is so very pliable. I paint with traditional oils and am as environmentally careful as possible with cleanup and product choice.
https://www.kathleenvanlieu.com/
Madison Tharnish
Living in a big city has given me a great appreciation for natural and untouched spaces. Those places are a space of meditation and relaxation from the hustle and bustle that can come with city life. Within my art, I create a space for others to feel relaxed and comfortable in that makes them stop and slow down, if only just for a moment. My art has heavy imagery of nature and ways humans interact with nature. I always try to bring my art back to my own wellbeing and enjoyment. Developing anxiety in my teen years, I was always looking for spaces that allow me to feel tranquility, so it only felt natural to make art that fills that space. My art is a place for meditation on nature and the interactions between living and non-living things. It is all about plants and humans and happiness.
https://madisontharnish.wixsite.com/portfolio
Margaret West
Raised in an artistic family, I was the oddball, reading Shots Withought Guns in elementary school and studying the Periodic Table at a young age. But I grew up surrounded by art, wandering the museums from and early age, had a camera (film) in hand when I was young, turn our apartment bathroom into a darkroom in my teens, and even won a photography award at age 14. School and life then took me down other roads. But art is deep in the should, everyone’s should. I rediscovered photography in 2017 and taught myself the ways of cameras, lenses, software- all changed over the years.
Photography is an absolute passion; a window on the world through my eyes and others. It is hard to express the feelings of lying on the ground shooting upwards into and elephant’s eyes, or the glory of a brilliant field of canola dapples with shadows of sun and clouds. Wishing each photo is a meaning unique to each individual. Is photography the truth? The truth is how you see it.
I love photographing landscapes, but the beauty of flowers, the mystery of night, a person’s expression intrigue me as well. I hope you enjoy my photographs!
Nathaniel Ruleaux
I’m an artist currently located on the unceded land of the Umónhon & the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ in Nebraska.
I like to paint and draw with whatever materials I have on hand. Those usually include inks, acrylics, pastels, watercolors and spray paint on watercolor paper and canvas.
I also enjoy carving on wood and lino blocks to create original prints in my home studio.
My work is an expression of my combined anger at our nation, a love of the people and the land, and dreams of what kind of world I want my child to grow up in.
I’m a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation. I often use bison as a symbol of the Lakota spirit, the power of our endangered natural world, and a righteous, powerful force for what America should be. I regularly combine other traditional Native images, like the ones used by my grandfather Donald D. Ruleaux, with images of current issues facing indigenous peoples and the world today.
In addition to creating visual art, I’m also a classically trained actor. I received my MFA in Theatre from the University of Houston’s School of Theatre and Dance after I finished my BA in Theatre Performance at the Johnny Carson School of Theatre & Film at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.
Peggy Krist
Peggy Krist has a talent for expressing the beauty occurring in our natural world that moves our senses to feel the interconnectedness we all share with the Earth and all within it. Whether it be a simple pair of cardinals gracing her backyard or a moonlit landscape of majestic mountains, Peggy captures the feeling of that moment so gracefully with her oils and canvas.
Sedra D'
Daniel Castaneda, known as Sedra D’, embodies the role of a universal observer and Pachamama warrior, transcending boundaries as a multifaceted self-taught BIPOC artisan and urban artist.
My art serves as a mirror to my perception of nature, dreams, roots, and indigenous culture. From vibrant graffiti walls to serene landscapes, my work symbolizes the profound connection with communities. I extend my creativity beyond painting, recycling spray cans into intricate sculptures and embracing elements of hip hop culture and poetry.
Utilizing an array of materials such as wood, metal, clay, fabrics, and even the human canvas for body paint and tattoos, my creations span both traditional and digital realms. I seamlessly integrate technology, experimenting with sounds, beats, and augmented reality in my murals and designs.
Exploring taxidermy as a means of giving creatures a second life, I explore the interconnectedness of all beings within the fabric of creation. My art plays with textures, colors, and shapes, igniting the imagination and imprinting symbols on the subconscious. Through my work, empty streets transform into vibrant canvases, conveying messages of beauty and emotion.
From the essence of creation to my mind, from my mind to my hands and from my hands to the world, I channel the divine to craft a visual symphony that resonates with all who encounter it.
Stephanie Sleeper
Stephanie Sleeper has been a graphic artist for longer than she is willing to reveal. Think pre-Apple. With the encouragement of an artist friend and her husband Steve, she began painting in February of 2020.
Stephanie works in watercolor, acrylic, ink, as well as collage materials. Her artistic influences include Georgia O’Keeffe, Paul Klee, Nicholas Wilton, Louise Fletcher.
Stephanie and Steve have two daughters and three grandchildren. She is excited to be part of the MoonRise Family.
Wes Galusha
I was born in LeMars, Iowa, but have lived much of my life in Omaha, Nebraska. My pottery training began in the College of Art and Technology in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, England.
Upon my return to the United States, I studied ceramics at Northwest Missouri State University under Russell Schmaljohn, then at the University of Nebraska at Omaha under Henry Serenco, graduating with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree.
I entered a career in public education with the Omaha Public Schools and spent 30 years teaching, and in the administration of the school district. During this time, I continued my love of pottery, working and developing my skills, showing in national and regional shows and selling ware in retail outlets, craft shows and independently.
I currently work from my studio located in Omaha. This has allowed me to take in independent study students and to rent space for others to work in my studio. I have expanded my opportunities by traveling to enter into shows and sell my ware in Colorado, Iowa, and Nebraska.
https://crescentmoonpottery.com/
