The Artists
Neil Brooks
Neil Brooks grew up in New Hampshire and has been living on the north coast of San Diego since 1991, currently based in Fallbrook CA.
He works on site in drawing, watercolor, or oils, using these studies as reference for large-format oils in the studio. He enjoys plein air, but a decent painting often pulls him back inside to mix the motif with imagination and abstraction, sometimes working it into collage.
He doesn't work toward a "style" so much as a sensibility formed over time through work, museum visits, sketchbooks, and reading. That sensibility needs to be harassed a bit. He used to leave escape hatches open on the canvas. Now he takes pleasure in fighting out of a corner.
San Diego, CA
Isabel Araneda
Isabel Araneda grew up in the countryside of Chile in a large family, surrounded by siblings, parents, cousins, animals, and nature, and spent vacations and weekends near the sea. Her fixation on landscapes is likely rooted in the places where she grew up.
From a young age she watched her mother paint and was drawn to her oil paintings. She made drawings and paintings with pencils, giving them to friends as birthday gifts. She studied architecture thinking it offered a more secure future, but it was there she found her teachers and painting became more powerful.
She went on to study painting at Central Saint Martins in London and in Chile with various painters and artists. She currently lives in Reñaca, where she paints and raises her daughters.
Chile
Melody Emrani is a Los Angeles-based painter whose work explores the principles of essentialism in visual art.
Drawing inspiration from Mid-Century colors, her paintings focus on distilling subjects to their most essential forms. By honing in on a singular subject and stripping away excess detail, Melody's work emphasizes the core of the subject's identity, allowing the viewer to experience the power of simplicity and clarity. Each piece is meticulously composed to project only the amount of information necessary to recognize and appreciate the form, inviting a deeper connection to both the subject and the viewer’s perception.
Los Angeles, CAMelody Emrani
Kevin Perrault
Kevin Perrault creates sculptures that live at the intersection of permanence and play. Working with copper and stone, his practice centers on figures that are at once monumental and delicate, embodying calm, style, and timeless humanity.
His work explores archetypes that feel both familiar and universal, from surfers frozen in perfect flow to scenes of quiet companionship. Copper figures perch and balance atop heavy stones, each chosen for its own character.
Kevin studied design at UCLA and spent twenty-five years outside the arts before returning to sculpture with renewed purpose, bringing all of that life experience into work that invites viewers to see themselves anew.
Los Angeles, CA
Mark Lesser is a painter with over 30 years of experience whose work sits at the intersection of the emotional and the conceptual. Working primarily in oil and cold wax on large-scale canvas, his practice is built on a layered, risk-taking process, one that embraces accumulation, erasure, and the tension between structure and dissolution.
The grid is a recurring presence in his work, not as rigid architecture but as a field of relationships, something to push through, hide beneath, or let fall away entirely.
His career has taken him across disciplines and continents. He completed an artist residency in Morocco, a country whose light, color, and complexity have left a lasting mark on his sensibility, and has exhibited internationally.
In 2026, Mark and his wife Shellie co-founded Stephens Collective, a curated gallery based in Thousand Oaks, California, dedicated to making original art accessible to a new generation of collectors through monthly exhibitions and auctions.
Thousand Oaks, CAMark Lesser
Avi Boyko is a first-generation Ukrainian-American who grew up in Southern California surrounded by animation studios, fading murals, and Los Angeles art museums.
Heavily influenced by Philip Guston, Malcom Liepke, & Anselm Kiefer, Avi paints bold, colorful subjects with oils.
Avi is currently studying & being mentored by David Gallup. Previously, he has been under the late Chris (KUB) Moyen's wing, attended Jeremy Lipking's workshop in June Lake, studied figures with George Paliotto, and worked in Lorenzo Aguayo's studio.
Los Angeles, CA