Skye Amber Sweet: Carried by Soul

Posted on by Diversions LA

Intricate patterns, layered lines, and brilliant colors all draw the eye and heart to Skye Amber Sweet’s soulful work. Whether she is creating vast murals of fecund forests to lacy koi, mauve elephants, ruby roses, or explosively emotional human figures and faces, the artist captures the intensity and fleeting wonder of joyous, everyday magic in motion

She asserts that “Nature inspires me, from life to children, love and curiosity. Mostly it inspires me to be surrounded by energy in being and color from the aura of a human to the energy of an animal.”

Always prolific, working in a variety of styles ranging from abstract to impressionism to bold street art, Sweet not only works as an independent artist, but within the film industry as well, creating dynamic scenic images. She credits Hollywood for “giving me the
opportunity to create many styles and change as often as my heart allows me to. Growth!” she stresses.

Over the years life changes and simply the experience of “being” has changed her art and her approach to it. “The adventure in this journey [of life] has shown me ways of being resourceful and coherent in all passions of life from day to day and the mundane to the burning but adventurous,” Sweet says.

Her mediums are as diverse as her creations themselves. She is a sculptor, foam carver, prop maker, acrylic artist and spray paint artist. “I prefer acrylic for canvas, spray paint for murals and everything under the sun for scenic and props,” she notes.

Thematically,  she is focused on “going back hardcore to my canvas art, taking new commissions, and coming out with a new thirty canvas series which will be my first ever.”

Her current exhibition at Diversions Fine Arts is only her “second art show after purposefully taking a long break to pursue other artistic adventures.”  She firmly believes that “There is always something in store for me as I make things happen by being open, honest, and aware that art is life and life is love for the arts.”

She’s a genuine risk taker who believes that going forward, accepting risk is simply a part of her make up, a part of herself, her soul, and her inner being.  “I am awake; aware. I don’t quite understand how not to take risks. Since I was very young, through my DNA or just from the moments in time defining the survival in me, I find that taking risks is always [something that leads me] in a positive direction.

Sweet wants our readers to know that her work is “raw and real. I refuse to change for the viewer. I want people to be and see my emotion.” It is also beautiful, layered, and in many cases stained-glass-like in its absorption of light and circuitry of color.

Catch her soul-resonating work currently on view as one of three solo artists in Picnic Days now at Diversions Fine Arts in Manhattan Beach through June 28th.

The gallery is open Thursday-Sunday 12-4; there will be a closing reception and artists talk at DFA on June 28th from 1 -3 p.m.  Don’t miss the chance to see the intuitive and resonant work that Sweet creates.

Diversions Fine Arts is located at 1069 N. Aviation Blvd. in Manhattan Beach.

  • Genie Davis; images: Davis, and as provided by the artist

Karen Doyle: Life Landscapes

Posted on by Diversions LA

Whether creating lush landscapes en plein air or in her studio, Doyle shapes a visceral yet graceful experience, one awash in light and impressionistic color. Both delicate and daring, her works vibrate with the hum of sea, sky, forest, and desert alike, each brush stroke offering a rich luminosity.

According to Doyle, her passion comes from “The ochre hills of California, the dark green pines, the purple lavender fields of the Pacific Northwest, the ocean. When I am outdoors in nature, I soak up the colors, sounds, the breeze, and take it all in. I paint on location (en plein air) or from the many photos I take in an attempt to capture my the beauty I see. The landscape inspires me, but I do not wish to represent it directly. I heighten color, abstract what I see, and paint the impression and the feeling I get from the being in the landscape.”

In short, her work not only gives landscape imagery life, to her, the scenes she creates are life itself. In fact, she says that her earliest memory is of drawing. “I began learning traditional, representational oil painting and pastels at age 13, and continued painting and drawing in college. Later, in a post-baccalaureate program in Oregon, I was introduced to painting abstractly, with acrylic and encaustic mediums. Even when painting non-representationally, my work always came out looking like a landscape. This looseness and freedom impacted my oil paintings, and my landscapes in oil became more colorful, more intuitive, more abstract. That is what I love today – to interpret and abstract the landscape in oil.”

She worked in IT for Nike in Oregon before relocating to Southern California three years ago, where she was laid off and embraced her painting practice as well as teaching and volunteering in the arts full time.  Just a few days after the layoff occurred she “booked a 5-day workshop in Scottsdale taught by member of the Plein Air Painters of America. I increased my volunteer engagement in the Palos Verdes Art Center (PVCA) and joined the board. I started attending an Open Studio painting group which led to being invited to join the Experimental Artists South Bay (EASB) group and getting involved with Destination: Art in Torrance. Fast forward to today, and I am the President of Destination: Art, teaching art classes, painting, showing and selling my work, and hanging out with artist friends. It has been a fabulous transition!”

Her primary medium is oil “solvent free, on canvas or panels. I have incorporated cold wax or encaustic (hot wax) when oil painting, too. I also use acrylics to create photocollage paintings, make monotypes using a gel plate, or experiment with plaster or linocut printmaking. The latter are all a lot of fun. Oil painting is my ‘serious’ medium,” she laughs.

Since moving to SoCal in 2023,  she has focused on painting the beaches in Laguna, Newport and Rat Beach. A most recent move to the hills of Rancho Palos Verdes, has her planning to paint more at Point Vicente, Abalone Cove, and Terranea Cove Beach. I also have a lot of inspiring photos from a road trip down the coast, and want to do some paintings of the Redwood forests, Monterey, and Pt. Lobos.”

Her involvement with several different nonprofit arts groups has led to having work in several exhibitions currently, including two images at the Peninsula Center Library in Rolling Hills with The Pacific Arts Group, in Springtime on the Peninsula, up through June 18. “After that, the Associate Artists Exhibition will be hung at Destination: Art in Torrance. I expect to have a painting in that group show. I’m crossing my fingers that I will also be juried into The Summer Show 2026 at the Palos Verdes Art Center (PVAC), which is a very competitive juried group show. And of course, she has a solo show featuring some 20 works currently on view in Picnic Days at Diversions Fine Arts Gallery.

But more than exhibiting, simply painting is key for Doyle. “I paint for the joy of trying to capture that feeling of the landscape. Sometimes it is very hard work, and other times it just comes to me. I start with a vision, but then the painting takes on a life of it’s own. I do not plan my paintings – I do not draw them out first. I paint alla prima, all in one go, wet on wet, as much as possible, returning again and again as needed on larger works until they are finished,” she relates, adding, “I hope that my paintings inspire you!”

On June 13th, Diversions Fine Arts will be conducting curatorial walk throughs between 12-4, in conjunction with a tea service reception at the Manhattan Beach Arts Center, and there will be a closing reception and artists talk at DFA on June 28th from 1 -3 p.m.  Don’t miss the chance to see the shimmering landscapes that Doyle creates.

Diversions Fine Arts is located at 1069 N. Aviation Blvd. in Manhattan Beach.

  • Genie Davis; images: Davis, and as provided by the artist

Intense and Powerful Work from Painter Sharon Weiner

Posted on by Diversions LA

Explosive and spiritual, intense and meditative, Sharon Weiner‘s vibrant art is a sensory experience. Currently exhibiting her work at Diversions Fine Arts, as an abstract painter, Weiner says that sheidentifies with many of the postwar American transcendental abstract artists, like Mark Rothko and Ross Bleckner.

Her technique is entirely her own, building layers of poured acrylic paint and acrylic medium. The organic shapes she forms envelop the viewer before melding into the deep space of a smooth, shining surface. Her subjects are born from both her imagination and the natural environment, reflecting her own belief in the importance of having a voice in the world.

“I am inspired predominantly by nature: oceans, mountains, the cosmos. There’s this shape that just stays with me in my work that reminds me of a mountain or a wave,” she relates. Indeed, Weiner’s work has elements that appear both liquid and vast.

“I’ve always been an abstract painter. One thing that’s changed [recently for me] is the addition of working with Yupo paper. I work in a similar way on paper to my work on canvas, with very different results allowing me to express things that I can’t do with canvas, allowing me a certain freedom and lightness,” she explains.

Her mediums are acrylic paint, acrylic ink, and water based spray paint on both canvas and paper, and regardless of the exact medium she uses, she finds that she is “always excited to see what is going to develop in my work.”

She stresses that no matter what the specific subject, color palette, or size of her work – which ranges from small to vast, “my art allows me to connect to my spirituality and has given me a voice.”

Following her show at Diversions Fine Arts, Weiner will be a part of an exhibition at 515 in DTLA’s Bendix Building in June.

But as to her art itself, it remains a part of the universe, a celestial series that speaks to space, light, color, and the promise of a new worlds unfolding.

View Weiner’s work at Diversions Fine Arts through May 3rd at 1069 N. Aviation Blvd., Manhattan Beach.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist

Connie Saddlemire: Mesmerizing Abstraction

Posted on by Diversions LA

Abstract artist Connie Saddlemire delves deep into intuitive, fascinating abstraction.  Saddlemire is currently exhibiting a body of her recent work at Diversions Fine Arts Gallery, work that is inspired by “Things that I see, either in nature, or man made— colors, textures, shapes and patterns, particularly linear patterns.  I especially like the look of manmade things that have been affected by time and weather.”

Her printmaking, photographic, and complete art process has shifted over time. “I switched from making representational images to doing abstraction when I was in college, in about 1968.  I was fully committed to abstraction by the time I started grad school for art, in 1976. In grad school my work became more minimal and I started making images made up entirely of lines drawn with a crow quill pen.  That was before I had ever seen Agnes Martin’s work.  People ask me if she was an influence on my artwork and I say ‘No, because I was already making my linear images before I saw her work.’ But I know that she was the pioneer who paved the way to make it ok for me to do what I do.  The work I do today is more complex, though, even if it appears relatively simple.”

Saddlemire’s work has evolved in part due to the circustances of her life, as well as “happenstance, such as meeting master printer, Sue Oehme, who introduced me to Solarplate printing.  Solarplates are metal plates with a photosensitive coating.  The artist exposes black and white images— that are either photographic or drawn by hand— onto the photosensitive plate and that image on the plate is inked up and printed the same way etchings are inked up and printed,” she explains.

According to the artist, around that same time, she was invited to take a class with a friend in altered photography, something she pursued for awhile, realizing that she could “expose some altered photos onto Solarplates.” This is the process she now currently has on display.

Saddlemire reveals that her prefered medium is printmaking. “I fell in love with printmaking when I was in college, in my junior year.  Things just came together in my work like they hadn’t done before.  I really feel that printmaking chose me… that I was made to be a printmaker.  It’s how I think and what I love to do,” she attests.

“Thematically the images I’ve been making since 2020 started with a photo of corrugated Corten steel and are very linear.  But I’ve recently purchased a new set of 5 plates that are also photosensitive but they’re a different brand of plate that is higher quality than Solarplate and captures more detail.” Saddlemire adds that “The most significant difference is that they’re almost 4 times as big as my Solarplates were.  So I’m now working bigger and the images I’m creating have more 3D dimensionality. ”

Her images are still made from photos of corrugated Corten steel and still linear, however she is now printing both horizontally and vertically to create plaid.  “Crazy I know, but I’m going on 78 years old and I’ve reached the slightly rebellious ‘why the hell not?’ stage of my life… and the plaid images are really pretty fascinating, especially with the 3D thing going on. Continuing this new exploration is what excites me for the near future.”

Also exciting are upcoming plans for an exhibition in Maine, and in Basalt, Colorado, after her show in Manhattan Beach.

Her work is technically and visually innovative. “I don’t know anyone else who has been making prints from altered photos for the past 6 years. There have also been other techniques that I’ve ‘thought up’ on my own over the years.  It’s part of my particular way of being creative,” she says.

Another part of her creative process is based upon how much she loves working with color. “I started layering translucent colors years ago and I love the unique and often surprising effects that I get from doing that.  It’s my biggest reason for  using the altered photos of corrugated Corten steel.” She notes that “I altered the photos to make plates with ‘lines,’ and spaces between the lines of varied widths, so when printed in sequence, with inks of different colors, the lines don’t land squarely on top of each other. The effects of that can be quite fascinating.”What inspires me?  Things that I see, either in nature, or man made— colors, textures, shapes and patterns, particularly linear patterns.  I especially like the look of man made things that have been affected by time and weather. Seeing the work of other artists also inspires me…  usually when it’s similar to the kind of imagery that I make.

These exciting works are especially striking in person. Saddlemire relates that “An artist friend of mine told me that she loved the way my work is very wabi-sabi.  I took that to primarily mean the embracing of imperfection, with the irregularity of the widths and spacing of the lines.  There’s an earthiness, as when both natural and manmade things show the wear of time and the elements.  I call it intentional randomness and happenstance, with the hope of serendipity!  And that, to me at least, can be seen as a metaphor for life.”

It’s a valuable and lovely metaphor indeed when visualized by Saddlemire. Her work at Diversions Fine Arts is on view April 11 through May 3rd at 1069 N. Aviation Blvd. in Manhattan Beach.

  • Genie Davis; photos provided by the artist and by Davis