Josie Morway’s oil paintings are striking representations of the natural world, typically adorned with some combination of wild animals, symbols, text, or abstractions. With her bold subjects and engrossing lighting, she offers reflections on beauty, the universal language of flora and fauna, and messages that are less clear upon first inspection.
“I’ve been painting for most of my life, and this is what’s been coming out of me lately.” she’s said. “My paintings are often described as ‘fragmented narratives.’ I draw inspiration from the bits of word and phrase that bombard us daily in the form of faded ad murals, snippets of overheard conversation, the near-illegible promises of old signage. Stories defined as much by the info they lack as by what they present. Using animals as the main characters in my narratives, I’m able to explore gestures, postures and expressions that are both familiar, universal and still sometimes as ambiguous as those partial verbal messages.”
Morway is a self-taught artist, and her work has been shown across the world. Recent shows have taken her portraits to Philadelphia, Boston, London, and beyond.
Conveying elapsed time and bombastic energy, Mitchell Villa’s process involves long strokes and motions that use his entire body. The self-taught painter depicts scenes that range from Biblical allusions to horror to intimate domestic portraits. Works like the triptych "Dinner Party" show the artist’s penchant for controlled cacophony.
Oil painter 
