Grey Cube Gallery proudly presents the first Skies online art show for the month of June 2020. The show encompassed a range of artistic styles and mediums (photography, digital, mixed media, collage, oil on canvas, acrylics, oil on linen, watercolor and pastel). Each submission has been judged based on the following elements of artistic expression: orginality and quality of art, overall design, creativity, interpretation of the theme, demonstration of artistic ability and usage of medium. Out of all entries, 105 artworks were shortlisted for inclusion in the show. The competition attracted entries from many countries across the world: USA, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Portugal, Romania, Australia, Spain, Canada, Singapore and Finland. Enjoy the show and thank you for expressing an interest in our competition.

Simone Arrigoni is a classical pianist, multiple Freediving World Record holder, and an awards-winning photographer with: - 134 awards in the most prestigious International Photo Contests - publications and worldwide exhibitions (China, Crimea, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Russia, Scotland, Singapore, UK, USA) - FIOF Italian Photography Ambassador in China 2017 & 2019 - Underwater Photography Festival Ambassador Fascinated by the beauty of Nature and the opportunity to immortalize it in his shots, Arrigoni began to create two photographic projects - "InvEarth" and "STARt" - in which he interprets several elements of the earth, the underwater world and the starry sky with an absolutely original artistic key, playing with the black & white dichotomy or painting coloured astrophotographies. In his series he turns natural subjects into artistic images, shaping a point of convergence between science and creativity, so that the intrinsic beauty of reality becomes itself Art.

Catherine Pennington-Meyer (MA, MSc) is British but has lives in Germany for over a decade. She is an award-winning artist and photographer and has runs her own gallery, ‘White Space’ which sells her own work exclusively, in the historic city of Augsburg, near Munich. She has a prestigious customer base, spanning many countries, and including royalty. Catherine sees her art as a kind of language, translating what she feels or experience to those viewing it. She is innately drawn to create raw, emotive, expressionist pieces, which distil a subject down to its feeling. Over time, as her work has developed, she has learned to trust her instincts more, and has been increasingly compelled towards abstraction, through which she feels able to communicate an energy which is untethered by the constraints of realism. Sometimes, she simply seeks to communicate a mood or a feeling through the medium of paint, or photograph. She enjoys playing with light, depth and movement in her art to give it immediacy and to pull a viewer into the composition.

Mr. Diephouse is a primarily self-taught photographer who migrated to digital photography about fifteen years ago. This transition marked a qualitative shift in both his interest level and satisfaction with the results, due to the advantages of digital over traditional film photography. The ability to take a large volume of images without the expense of film and the ease of edits in the “digital darkroom” has encouraged John to experiment and expand his skills significantly. After retiring from a professional management career, Mr. Diephouse has taken advantage of his time in retirement to more fully explore the technical and creative sides of this media more fully. At this point in his development, John seeks to share images with which he has a strong and instinctive personal connection. Images may be simply documentary, invoke a sense of time and place, or resonate as an abstract blend of color, shape or form. Others provoke an indefinable question that does not readily yield answers without further study and reflection. His creative process follows an intuitive yet patterned path, from capturing a digital image through the process of interacting with and refining the image, searching for the combination of elements that produces an instinctive but undeniable connection. Most often the images that provoke the strongest connection are those that do not produce an immediate reaction but provoke a response through repeated contact and consideration over time. Mr. Diephouse has exhibited widely in local and regional exhibitions and have been published in Nature Photographer and Black & White Magazine. His photographs have won over 50 commendations for merit ranging from Honorable Mention to Best in Show. John’s photographs were also selected to hang in the Michigan Governor’s Mansion as part of a year-long exhibition highlighting the State of Michigan.

I am concerned with communicating a sense of harmony, balance, order and spirituality. We are all confronted on a daily basis with the fragmentation of our non-linear lives, trying, as in a puzzle, to make the pieces fit together to make sense of it all. My paintings, works on paper and sculpture depict imagery of personal and global events and psychological issues. They are a reflection of the world we live in, expressed through geometric shapes, color, light, space, texture, edges and movement, each interplaying with one another engaging the viewer to participate. The multi-dimensionality and multi-layering of my work reference what one must uncover to penetrate the illusions of reality in order to reach the mystery and essence of the soul. In my body of work entitled Elements of Peace, I embarked on a series of white paintings (in addition to the black paintings and paintings in color) that abandoned my signature bold palette. The white paintings pay homage to people who have been affected by war. White is soft, quiet, spiritual, unadorned and full of infinite possibilities. My intention was to create an architectural space for rest, retreat, connection, reflection and identification. The love of my family, gardens, ballet, music, and a profound interest in world issues have always found their way into my work. In my new interactive body of work 7 Finely Tuned, in progress, I have decided to formally bring back color and embrace music in my paintings.