One of the walls at the Green/Flash gallery with samples of the artist's work.

“La Sirena” (Mermaid in Italian) is an all female surf art show which opened on Saturday, July 17th at the green/flash gallery in Cardiff-by-the-Sea, California. The show highlights today’s top female surf artists who are forever inspired by the sea…

A brief description of each artist in “La Sirena”:

Serena Mitnik_Miller/Artist:
Based in San Francisco…Serena is one of the pioneers of modern surf art in it’s most underground form…..her
delicate, ethereal watercolors depict the eclectic seaweed shapes under the sea.  The ocean provides a constantly changing environment vast enough to contain her spirit….

Ash Francomb/Artist:
Based in Del Mar, California…Ash creates dreamscapes
Inspired by the feminine spirit in natural elements saturated by pure, intense color.  The source of Ash’s vision comes from early days growing up at Windansea in La Jolla, Callifornia….a famous surf spot of mysterious myth and legend.  Ash Francomb trained at the San Francisco Art Institute and Oakland’s College of Arts & Crafts.  Ash often  screen prints on silk chiffon and creates cerebral, metaphorical imagery with hints of hidden messages. Her art is a surreal expression of the ocean, the tropics and life’s adventure .....

Kassia Meador/Photographer:
sponsored by Roxy, Quiksliver, Kassia is a professional longboarder who learned to surf in Malibu.  In her own words-she finds inspiration from “the gritty subculture” of free surfing…all board lovin hip cats”.  Kassia has chosen the Polaroid transfer style to capture the natural rawness and bring to life the feeling she gets from the surfing subculture that she is so drawn to. 

Julie Goldstein/Artist:
Julie’s art practice draws inspiration from the natural environment, the sea, surf culture, and experiences from her travels. In multimedia works on paper and fabric, she mixes lithographic and woodcut printmaking techniques with sewing, embroidery, and other traditional “women’s arts”—the result is a hybrid, contemporary style with urban motifs and lively depictions of friends and family.  In her own words: “As a visual artist and printmaker, I create works that “document” the people, memories, activities, interests, and surroundings that inform my personal life. My practice is closely linked to the natural environment of my seaside home on Long Beach Island, as well the experience of having lived and worked in New York City for many years. Distinct contrasts in settings, relationships, colors, and material textures all find their way into my work and my production methods.

Susan Wickstrand/Artist: 
Susan graduated from the University of Southern California  with a BAFA degree.  In her work, light plays a primary role in portraying the character of each piece…this focus of light is further emphasized by her addition of a layer of translucent beeswax to the surface of many of her paintings and all of her collages.  In “La Sirena” Susan collaborated with  world reknowned Jeff Divine on emotional pieces depicting the Queen of Makaha “Rell Sunn”.  In each collage,
Susan weaves an intricate story through her layering of imagery telling an emotional story behind each of her works of art.

Liz Lantz/Photographer:
Liz, presents her series “Sirens” in “La Sirena”, a collection of portraits of surfer girls and the world that surrounds these girls that love the ocean.  Featured in “Surfer’s Journal”, Liz describes how her portraits have a formal quality.  Her subjects are usually in their natural environment and she likes her ‘sirens’ to have a little edge or attitude.  Liz  shoots with a Hasselblad in available sunlight.  Liz is as innocent as the moments that she captures  in time with an realistic emphasis on what we perceive as the “perfect” California day…

Heather Brown/Artist: 
Heather received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Oahu with an emphasis on printmaking.  As an ambassador for Foam Magazine and “Artist of the Search” for Rip Curl, Heather proudly represents women surfers and artists.  Most of her vision comes from her love  of the sea, nature, popular surf breaks and the beauty of the islands.  Her minimal, graphic style is influenced by the graceful, flowing feminine form.

Daize Shayne/Photographer:
Growing up in Waimanalo Hawaii, Daize taught herself how to surf when she was just a kid, and ever since then has been one of the torch bearers for female surfers all around the world.
Daize Shayne landed several highly coveted endorsement deals with companies like Roxy, Vans, Peavey Guitars, Jee Vice, and now staying with Hurey.  Her band played shows internationally and her albums were heard all over the world. Daize paves the way, full of faith and completely unafraid.   Daize’s photography records a “day in the life” of all of her adventures around the globe and the inner circles of the surfing worlds of the North Shore of Hawaii.

Daize Shayne’s intriguing ability to combine beauty, strength and talent has made her a role model for all ages, which enhances her allure as “someone to watch.” Her mantra, “Live Your
Dreams,” inspires us all to get off the sidelines and jump into the ocean called ”life”.

Kris DeGrazio/Photographer: 
Kris DeGrazio has always been fascinated by ‘back in the day” imagery…perhaps most inspired by the super 8 footage of local La Jolla surfers conquering waves at Waimea in the early 1960s.  Growing up near Windasea beach in California contributed to her style today-color saturated modern portraits of surfers in the dawn of a new era-century 2000.  Kris received her photography training at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara and she plans on documenting surf tribes up and down the California coast and the Polynesian islands one day soon…

Meegan Feori/Artist:

Meegan Feori, a Southern Californian artist, who is inspired by where the land and the ocean meet, by the moments that take place in its transitory environment. Her aim is to impact people in a positive way by revealing what is overlooked or difficult to express.  Surfing, in this context, is a series of beautiful ephemeral moments. Experiencing one for a short while, letting it go and then finding it in another wave in a different moment.  Painting crystallizes these moments of surfing and life that are fleeting, making them tangible. Meegan began this series of artwork while traveling in Bilbao and Biarritz, later completing them in San Diego. She received her BA from University of California, San Diego.

Elizabeth Pepin:
Northern California surfer, photographer, writer, and filmmaker Elizabeth Pepin has been focusing her lenses on women’s surfing and environmental issues since 1997. Her images have appeared in numerous museums, galleries, newspapers, and magazines, and in five books on women's surfing including: Surfing: The New World Order (Duke University Press 2010) and Surfing: Women of the Waves (Gibbs Smith Publishers 2008). Elizabeth’s first book as an author, Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era was published by Chronicle Books in 2006. She also has won five regional Emmy Awards, and numerous international film festival awards for her documentary film work.

Unlike most photographers these days, Elizabeth still mainly shoots B&W and color film, and works in a darkroom to create her prints. In the past few years she has strayed away from conventional photography and has begun to explore alternative film stocks and processes such as cross processing the film on the legs photograph, and the lith print method used to create her Mavericks images in this show.
 
Lith Printing is an alternative printing process done in a dark room where a black and white negative is heavily overexposed on photographic paper and then only partially developing the paper in a highly diluted lith developer. This is a very creative printing process and is very hard to reproduce, so no two prints look alike, even when using the same negative.

Elizabeth is constantly fascinated by water and the people who are attracted to it, which is reflected in her films and photographs. The ever changing light and mood of the water, the unique connection people have to the ocean, the challenges of shooting in such environments; she could film and photograph near water every day for the rest of her life and be very happy.

Gina Sinotte/Photographer:
The organic beauty which exemplifies California’s rugged Northern Coast, inspired Gina Sinotte to consider a career in Photography while growing up in Carmel.

Naturally talented, Sinotte soon found her self enrolled in Santa Barbara’s esteemed Brooks Institute, where she pursued a Bachelor of Arts in Professional Photography. Gina now resides in San Diego where she produces work for editorials and advertising publications and is operating her wedding photography company called True Love Images.
 Her work is noted for pinpointing sublime abstractions of the natural world, which also affords her opportunity for activities, like surfing, snowboarding, dancing, yoga and loving life.
 Known for her stylistic diversity and wide array of lighting techniques, Sinotte’s images are mirrored reflections of life interpreted through her green eyes, and she consistently strives to capture the essence of her surroundings.