Featured Artists

My name is Laura Thurbon (Ortega), I am originally from Lima, Peru. I have worked for more than 25 years as an artist, a marketer, graphic designer, public relations representative, educator, and independent business owner. I have created multiple pieces of art throughout the US, South America, Europe, and India of throughout the years. From large scale murals and canvas art for home and businesses, public and privatemural and graffiti art to book illustrations. I bring to the table my marketing skills, project management/ coordination, and knowledge of cultural diversity, applying these as vehicles with which to engage clients and the community.

I have been the curator and host of public fund-raising events, Art exhibitions, media events, in parallel to being an art educator for all ages, in school, private and college, and Fine Artist.

I am very active in the community and with philanthropic initiatives that led me to participate in numerous events and projects through the valley. I have a heart striving for compassion and kindness. A few representative projects are: City of Scottsdale – Paiute Neighborhood Center – Park Embellishment; St Vincent du Paul – Champion for the Homeless – Planned and painted two large scale murals and participated in numerous events ; Child Crisis Arizona – Donor of various art pieces for fund raising; Harvest Compassion Center - Planned and painted multiple beautification projects for various centers; The New Foundation – Planned and painted large mural to beautify facility, Numerous other projects for Churches, Temples, Schools, Children, Women and Animal shelters.

As a small business owner, I am proud to say the best achievement is fulfilling my customers’ expectations.

As an educator and Art Therapy Coach, I use art create powerful changes in people and the community. I believe at my core that humans need the deep-rooted expression of the arts to be able to realize their own humanity, to heal, to experience and understand beauty, to develop patience and grow in their compassion, confidence and even their own consciousness.

I am creative, energetic, fast, conscientious, resilient, assertive, motivated, and a fast learner. The core values that rule my existence are Creativity, compassion, kindness, service, responsibility and honesty.

I look forward to speaking with you to discuss how my experience and abilities match your needs. Please contact me at art@laurathurbon.com should you have any questions.

Thank you for your consideration

Douglas Clarke is a regional designer based out of Phoenix.

Born and raised in Arizona, he earned his BA in Theatre and BFA in Art from Arizona State University. After internships at Kalamazoo Civic Theatre and Phoenix Theatre, he earned his MFA in Theatre Design from University of Maryland.

Douglas received a regional award for End of the Rainbow at Phoenix Theatre, and nominations for Night Mother and Rabbit Hole at Vintage Theatre, and Calendar Girls at Phoenix Theatre.

Douglas designed New York premieres of Coffee and Biscuit for Fallen Swallow/Laughing Pigeon and Unity 1918 for Project: Theater and assisted Connie Furr-Soloman on The Christians at Playwrights Horizons and Dan Conway on By the Way, Meet Vera Stark at The Juilliard School.

He continues to design in Maryland, North Carolina, Nebraska, Colorado, and Arizona, primarily designing contemporary plays, musicals, and theatre for youth. Member of USA 829.

During these uncertain times, one can feel overwhelmed.

In order to focus on hope, I started creating these watercolors.

Please enjoy! Brighten your or a loved one's home with these indulgent distractions.

David Slivinski resides in Phoenix AZ, with his husband, Mike.

David is a transplant to Phoenix, growing up in Miami, FL and having a professional career in Interior Design spanning over a decade in New York, NY.

A recent brain cancer survivor, David keenly sees the beauty in all of nature and tries to capture its spirit in his art. Since 2001, he has fine-tuned his ink technique, which he learned from his mother, who was an artist herself. He is known for his use of brilliant color, fluid super-natural landscapes, and abstract forms.

"I want the viewer to experience my paintings as if they are leaping into nature. Just as an impressionist painted the spectacle of light, I too hope to achieve a visual sensation that captures the essence of nature."

Rock, lava, sand, water, rain, sun, clouds, all compellingly beautiful on their own, play out fantastic stories on the paper and in the viewers' imagination.

This is David's second time showing his work at Exposed, his first being a contestant in the 2021 Phoenix Pride Art Contest. He is humbled to show his art at Exposed this year and hopes to continue to spread joy and beauty through his unique artistic vision.

Keely Finucane is from Philadelphia, PA and currently resides in Phoenix, AZ. She received a BFA in painting with a concentration in glass from Tyler School of Art at Temple University.

Finucane specializes in oil paintings. She is an advocate for the arts and co-founder of Finucane Design Group. Finucane has been an educator for ten years in the valley and currently teaches middle school students and adults. She was the appointed muralist for three Valley Partnership Community Projects and received the “Healing Through Art” Award for her mural design at St. Vincent de Paul in 2017.

Finucane has her work in private collections across the US, including celebrity collectors!

Trained as a ceramic artist Robert "Bob" Booker is fascinated by both the intended mark and the accidental mark, his work remains true to his experience as a potter incorporating chance into his work.  Minimal in content yet often decorative in design, his work reflects a respect for the color field painters and the modern minimalist sculptors and architects. 

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Much of his work reflects the colors and images of the Southwest and popular culture which continues to influence his work. Often pieces use a combination of commercial colored tissue paper, Japanese and Korean handmade paper, and simple iconic images of lemons, birds, and flowers in acrylic. 

Booker often creates suites of work, related to each other in style, color and meaning. 

Through the use of handmade and colored papers, his work contains a luminosity and depth not found in his earlier minimalistic paintings which involved oil soaked canvas, rich pigment, and asphalt.

“You have to look at things from the inside out to capture the essence of something”, a pearl of wisdom that the artist (maybe even unknowingly) has applied to so many areas of her life, not only design.” As a Phoenix native, Dawn Bowman has always been drawn to the arts – from theater and painting to music and design – She was a 4-Star Thespian in Theatre Arts at Cactus High School, which led to her winning the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts, Promising Young Artist Award. She was also awarded The Regent Art Scholarship from The University of Arizona where she studied Fine Art and Illustration. Her career began in Set Design and Prop Construction where she built large-scale props for special events and productions for companies such as John Cline Art Gallery, APS City of Phoenix and many private and commercial special events. Dawn has also participated in the early days of Art Detour in downtown Phoenix as a musical performing artist and continues to perform at festivals, restaurants and clubs throughout the Phoenix Valley and Scottsdale. In the year 2000 she continued to start her own custom decorative painting business, Dawn Bowman Design and has been in business for 18 years. Focusing on interior custom painting, architectural plasters, decorative finishes, restoration finishes and murals. She has been featured in Phoenix Home and Garden, Arizona Foothills Magazine and The Arizona Republic for her work in interior design and painting. She is very active in the community of Phoenix, Arizona and has 18 years of volunteerism as manager and stage production with the Phoenix Pride Festival, Rainbows Festival, Desperado Film Festival, Aunt Rita’s Foundation, American Red Cross, The Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS and Central Arizona Shelter Services. She was recently honored by Echo Magazine and inducted into the 2017 Hall of Fame for her volunteer work in the arts.

I realized that after 42 years as a restaurant owner that my newly acquired passion for painting outweighed my good sense.  Mostly self-taught with a tremendous desire to try new media, I endeavored to experience many forms of Art. I find that moving between the various modes of expression keep me excited at finding new styles and techniques. At age 73 I have determined that Color holds depth, emotion and fascination for me. Different palettes of color are a form of therapy as well as joy, mixed together with apprehension and the courage to go on. I have traveled extensively in France, Spain, Portugal and Morocco to pursue my education and exposure to art around the world.  

Education

University of Southern California, B.S Finance

USAF, Undergraduate Pilot Training

Scottsdale Artist School and YouTube Workshops 
 
Exhibitions

Numerous restaurant galleries…The Collins, Wally’s Pub, Twisted Groove, Grass Roots and McIntosh. 
 
Credits/ Appearances/Awards

2014   Paintings featured in New Times article.

2014-18   Paintings featured for auction for The Hemingway Look-Alike Contest, Key West, FL 
2019   Coming…Sheraton Hotel, Downtown Phoenix. 

Chuck Cooper graduated from Arizona State University, College of Architecture with a Bachelor of Science in Design. He has worked for some of the premier architecture and design firms in the state Arizona; practicing commercial and residential design. Mr. Cooper completed a Master of Arts in Education in 2003. For the past 16 years he has taught interior design at Scottsdale Community College and is currently the Program Director.

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Chuck Cooper is a professional member of IDEC; Interior Design Educator Council and ASAI; American Society of Architectural Illustrators. He has been teaching design graphics to students and professionals for over 20 years. He works in a verity of mediums including pencil, pen, marker and watercolor. In addition to the classroom he has conducted workshops in sketching, perspective drawing and color markers. In 2011 Chuck Cooper published his first book; Quick Color Marker.

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As a fine artist Chuck Cooper has works in Phoenix Children's Hospital and in a number of private collections. He works in two and three dimensional forms and a myriad of mediums.

Gregg started out as professional photographer in 1991. Throughout the years he has photographed multiple covers for Echo Magazine and Arizona Business Magazine. He has published works in Compete Magazine, Frontiers Magazine, Out Magazine, GENRE Magazine and many more. Gregg also has many clients from architects, commercial developers, realtors, artists, retail stores and special event photography. Through the years he has donated his time and specialty to many nonprofits.

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Gregg loves photographing during his travels and loves the bright, bold and pastel colors of flora and fauna. In the past few years he has decided to expand into painting, mixed media, graphic design, event planning and writing.

With a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Art, emphasis in watercolor, mosaics, and clay sculpture, and over thirty years of experience, John has woven aspects of his travels and his eclectic careers in education, the US Air Force, and the Intelligence Community to bring you unique and impassioned artwork.  While John appreciates traditional painting styles, he often paints with watercolor and acrylics in a style reminiscent of mosaics or stained glass.  He does this to present the idea that, like those works made from broken pieces of clay or glass, even if a person is broken by loss or tragedy, he or she can be put back together into something beautiful.  If you have suffered loss or tragedy, or know someone who has, John invites you to view his work with this in mind:  you may never be quite the same again after loss, but you can be whole, functional, and find joy in your life again.  

John has taught high school art and Spanish, adult technical classes for the US Air Force, the Intelligence  Community, and Law Enforcement, and painting classes to children and adults.  John is exploring a variety of media, styles, and subjects to connect the viewer with scenes from Colorado and the Southwest, Canada, the California Central Coast and Napa Valley, seascapes, the Texas Hill Country, Washington DC monuments, still life, animals, and portraits. 

John makes his home in Southern Arizona where the mountains, desert, and brilliant skies inspire him every day

You won’t find any bowls of wax fruit in still life painter Jason Hugger’s studio. What you will see are boxes bulging with jagged metal machine parts, pieces of pipes, an assortment of rusted bolts and various other obtuse objects rendered utterly abstract in their various stages of dismemberment and decay.

These are the subjects of his paintings, sometimes arranged, Frankenstein-like, into model settings propped next to his canvas, where they will eventually become their own little worlds in his imagination and finished works. Hugger’s paintings showcases his carefully curated recycled objects in desert landscapes. But while the landscapes remain mostly barren, the skies behind them have turned bluer, more vibrant, and sometimes sprayed with sunset colors.

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Hugger started drawing in perspective and realism when he was a teenager and received a scholarship to attend the Columbus College of Art and Design, from which he graduated cum laude in 1995. While he was finishing his college education in Ohio, he participated in a group show at the 11 East Ashland Gallery in Phoenix, where an exciting local art scene was emerging.

“It was during the springtime and I fell in love with the desert,” Hugger says.

“The city of Phoenix was also very appealing. I drove out to the desert and found the landscape to be surreal. The plants, the cactus, the saguaros – all of it was weird and beautiful to me.”

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His bond with the desert deepened while he was stationed in Iraq in 2004 as a member of the Arizona Army National Guard. “The desert was much more desolate than the Sonoran desert, but had a stark beauty of its own,” recalls Hugger, who lives in Glendale with his wife. “I made a lot of sketches during my tour and they definitely had an influence in my landscapes. I don’t paint cactus but they do inform my imagination when I put together a set up for a still life.”

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Painting is an exploration for Hugger, who uses extremes in scale and perspective and color and light to create drama. “When I paint a still life, I am not just describing the objects in front of me,” he says. “I am also exploring the scene as if I were going there in person.”

Artists are like dentists. Both want to get you to open your mouth. The dentist, of course, to inspect your (hopefully) pearly whites, evaluate your dental hygiene, and intervene as necessary. The artist, on the other hand, is driven to create a reaction in the viewer, from pleasure, to astonishment, to empathy or even anger.

Most artists tend to be introverts. In their never-ending search for meaning, they poke and prod the interiors of their experience, looking for something important to share with their viewers, operating on the assumption that what moves them will move you, as well. Whether music, cinema, sculpture, poetry, painting or photography, the artist’s goal is achieved when they have made a statement that resonates with their audience.

Landscape photographers have it easy – after a fashion. With the entire world to choose from, they simply have to decide what to leave out. Imagine the Grand Canyon captured at sunrise after a massive snowfall. Or, aspens turning to a field of gold high on the slopes of the San Francisco Peaks. Perhaps the silent majesty of a sun setting across a Sahuaro studded desert, pushing the spectrum into mauves and purples. Nature provides an always changing smorgasbord of views to choose from. Unlike painters, who decide what elements to put in their composition, photographers have to decide what to leave out.

Not everyone will have the chance, or the inclination to lug a heavy backpack full of camera gear miles into the wilderness, or get up hours before the sun, or slog through vast reaches of desert, arroyo, mesa and wash and then wait patiently for hours or even days for the “light to get right.”

The images I am sharing here represent a broad cross-section of my work, both urban and rural. My website is broken down into portfolios, each of which is curated to show a more diverse collection of each particular subject. My hit rate is about one percent. By that, I mean that for each image that you see in a portfolio, there are ninety-nine that didn’t make the cut. I sincerely hope you enjoy them. Facial expressions are welcomed, but not required!

nota bene: I print all of my own images on archival paper using a 12 pigment ink, 44” Canon ImagePrograf printer. In consultation with Robert Hilton, our gallery director, we select the appropriate matting and framing for each piece. The work is framed By Ron Marshall, the head of our framing department.

As a Phoenix native, Vikki Reed's vibrant watercolors of desert botanicals evolved from her love and appreciation of the desert's ability to produce tender beauty in the midst of harsh conditions.  The mandala series which began in 2004 resurrected an innate knowledge that mandalas are a primordial tool for centering and healing.  In 2017, a new medium (acrylic) and fresh style emerged, as Vikki yields more to "what wants to be seen” and negotiates with what is emerging as each painting develops.

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Vikki studied in the 1980s with watercolor greats Irving Shapiro and Paul Kuo, and began exhibiting at the outdoor shows in Arizona, Nevada and New Mexico after Paul's encouragement.  This led to gallery representation with the Wickenburg Gallery and Work of Artist's Gallery. Vikki also exhibited at the Celebration of Fine Art for eight years.   Before taking sabbatical to act as caregiver for her father in 2010, Vikki was featured in a one woman show at the Northern Trust Bank in January 2008 and was selected to create an ornament for the White House Christmas Tree that same year.

John Rinehart is a retired Optometrist who has lived in Arizona for over 40 years.  A college classmate introduced him to photography and the love affair began.  John’s favorite subjects are old buildings, old cars and wildlife.  You can often find him traveling back roads looking for new (old) subjects to capture.

My life as an artist begins with a deep sense of gratitude to God who inspires me to give of my self love through creativity. My journey began through the loving mentorship of Ana, a woman who loved nature and the beauty of the outdoors. Her mentorship guided me in developing photography and painting. When I became a young man, I learned the trade of culinary art; decorating wedding cakes and food art as an expression of taste, composition and color.

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Over time I have developed a variety of artistic products from paintings, tile mosaics, glass art in all forms, media, craft art, fragrance oils, and a clothing line. I have an encompassing style that is eclectic with elements of fantasy and yet whimsical in its expressive form. I enjoy living in the desert southwest sharing my vision of a world full of color and texture with melodies of peace and joy.

H. Geo. Unti, BFA, has been working in the Southwest for the past 50 years. Born in California he studied art at California State University, Fresno and architecture at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo.

Unti’s early work of portraits evolved into abstract landscapes of storms in Arizona. His work searches for the emotion of thunderstorms he experienced while exploring the Grand Canyon. His current show explores abstracts of light through windows.

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Sometimes playful in his abstracts he paints his pet beagles, as in the painting “Beagles Descending a Staircase.” As an architect, he has designed numerous residences and commercial buildings across the US. Unti’s art has been shown in juried shows in Arizona and California. In addition to art and architecture, he is a theater-set designer.