Anne Marchand • Ellipsis • 2008 • Hyatt Crystal City: Clark Street

Christine Hayman • Fire • 2008 • Crystal Gateway Marriott: Eads Street

Anne Marchand • Prism • 2008 • 18th Street South

Designed to complement the bold mosaics of Radiance, located across the street, Prism takes on the quantum physics conversation of light as particle and ray. Interpreted as 35 colorful pieces of similar size and scope, Prism demonstrates the effect and impact of white light when passing through an actual “prism.” From monotone, comes vibrance - from concrete to color. The resultant facets of color add sparkle and interest to the pedestrian walkway and street at this key gateway to Crystal City.

Valerie Thebarge • Radiance • 2008 • 18th Street South

Drawing on years of mosaic experience in China, Hong Kong, India, Macau, and the United States, Radiance consists of vividly colored, dynamic forms which provide a bold contrast to this otherwise austere site. The mosaic’s twenty-five sections recall plant and cell structures or mandalas, circular patterns that symbolize the universe and aid in meditation. The polished mirrored tiles respond to shifting light and atmospheric conditions and capture the fragmented reflections of pedestrian and street traffic passing by. Special thanks to Shahin Shikhaliyev for his participation in creating this mural.

Matthew Best• Supernature • 2009 • 12th & Clark Streets

A self-described suburban forager, Matthew Best explores public spaces in search of wild, edible fruits and vegetables. He began sketching his discoveries - first as a means of documenting and identifying unknown specimens but later to collect natural forms he could incorporate into his artistic works. Supernature examines this act of foraging while offering an oft overlooked perspective of food - where it comes from and alternative ways in which it can be acquired. Together, the paintings of Supernature translate the act of searching into the language of painting. The changes and contrast in forms, colors, and patterns cause the observer to mimic the foraging process with movements of the eye in capturing the composition as a whole.

Michele de la Menardiere • Emerge • 2009 • Hyatt Crystal City: Crystal Drive

Susan Finsen • Circles and Rings • 2009 • Sheraton Crystal City: Jefferson Davis Highway

Susan Finsen makes marks. Big and little. Thick and thin. Dark and light. Smooth, bumpy, square, round, curvy, and straight. Drawing inspiration from everyday things and childhood memories, Finsen builds layers on her paintings, turning them upside down and sideways during the creative process and using color, line, shape, and plane changes until the painting achieves interest and excitement. The “Circles and Rings” collection includes details from paintings completed by Finsen between 2008 and 2009. These “paintings within paintings” embody the spirit, playfulness, and energy of the original whole pieces.

M.M. Panas • Lunar Scape • 2010 • 15th & Bell Streets

The Lunar Scape Series is best described as an experiment with limitations. M.M. Panas restricted herself to the use of only three specific elements in the creation of these works: simple shape, limited palette and swift application of paint. This series is composed of four images bound together with these common elements. The experiment yields a result that depicts the shape of the moon, colors of the night sky and the immediacy of brush strokes creating a statement of a moonlit night.

Tory Cowles • Azure • 2010 • Sheraton Crystal City: 18th Street

Tory Cowles creates a form of energy with interesting and unexpected juxtapositions of color and shape within her paintings. Her work begins with an initial layer of color that is painted quickly but then subsequently covered with new paint or scratched away. In the process, new colors are introduced and the relationships within the composition are completely changed. Shapes, lines, and colors and the spaces between them influence the viewer’s eye to travel around the canvas defining the nature of the energy and movement within the composition.

Ted Milligan • Mental Maps • 2010 • 12th Street & Army Navy Drive

Drawing from his geography background, Ted Milligan calls this body of work “Mental Maps.” According to Milligan, people form mental maps based on our experiences - from life altering events to the mundane moments in time. Individual mental maps are constantly redrawn helping to organize, relate, make meaning and learn from the experiences of life. Milligan uses painting to continue his own process of mental mapping. Stored within each of his pieces are memories, feelings and ideas expressed through intricate pattern and layers of vibrant color.

Janis Goodman • Emerald in Action • 2010 • Doubletree Hotel: Army Navy Drive

Janis Goodman’s large-scale oil paintings travel and negotiate the ripples and tides of estuaries and coves. They follow invisible energy paths connecting the dots between the observed, imagined and remembered. In her Exploding Garden series, colors forcefully expand in all directions suggesting chaos, impermanence and random activity.

Influenced by time spent hiking national parks and kayaking rivers in New England and mid-Atlantic, Goodman incorporates her fascination with natural disasters fueling the sense of the absurd and the possibility of chance.

When viewed together each painting reveals a new boundary and impulse that is part of a continuum of her language.

Sondr N. Arkin • Ecoscape • 2011 • 12th Street & Long Bridge Drive

Ecoscape explores the intersection of natural and man-made objects. The concrete of the bridge and roadway relate to the sky above in a way that reflects the nearby Potomac River only a few hundred yards away. Acknowledging the transient and temporal nature of bodies of water in constant and perpetual motion, Sondra Arkin incorporates these elements through encaustic painting, a technique that uses layers of pigmented, melted beeswax to create a textured, colorful, and luminous abstraction of this relationship. This organic conversation will continue to mature as the site transforms abandoned warehouses and overgrown fields into a large-scale County park and recreational facility that itself will meld both natural and unnatural elements.

Susan Finsen • Engage • 2011 • Crystal City Metro Plaza

Susan Finsen makes marks. Big and little. Thick and thin. Dark and light. Smooth, bumpy, square, round, curvy, and straight. Engage is a series of seven paintings inspired by the movement of people through this Crystal City plaza. Using layers of color, line, shape and plane changes, Finsen has used her marks to create a playful and spirited universe of spatial phenomena winding through a rhythmic and undulating landscape.

Bud Hensgen • Sunburst • 2011 • 26th Street & Crystal Drive

Bud Hensgen’s Sunburst series depicts the dynamism and movement of color representing experiences in our contemporary world. Layering acrylics, charcoals, and oil pastels, Hensgen yields depth and builds tension within the paintings’ powerful and colorful forms. The resulting compilation suggests speed and motion that evokes feelings and experiences deep within the viewer that may have been forgotten, but are yet familiar to everyday American life.

Greg Minah • Sparkle • 2011 • Radisson Hotel & Jefferson Davis Highway

To create his work, Greg Minah thins out acrylic paint before pouring it onto the canvas. He then tilts, turns, and spins the canvas; adding and removing layers as the paint begins to cure. When looking at Minah’s paintings the viewer sees shapes, colors, series of lines, and the remnants of abandoned ideas and directions. His paintings suspend a moment in time and ask the viewer to observe that movement closer, revealing their significance in each unique encounter.

Maryann Pranulis • Passion • 2011 • Sheraton Crystal City: 18th Street

Maryann Pranulis creates paintings about the web of life where connections with others and the universe strengthen, energize and give us a sense of purpose. The “Passion” series depicts the energy that drives us through our daily lives. As the paintings evolve they reveal intense emotions that, like the earth’s molten core, lay buried under the surface of calm and purposeful actions. When channeled by reason and logic, these emotions keep us moving forward – out of the depths of exhaustion and despair. But when reason and logic are lost, chaos prevails. Bold strokes and saturated hues capture the intensity and strength of this driving force in the web of life.

Marsha Staiger • Rhythm & Balance • 2011 • Courtyard Marriott: Crystal Drive

With music as her inspiration and muse, Marsha Staiger playfully integrates the musical genre of Rhythm and Blues and her artistic concepts of Rhythm and Balance into the aptly titled R&B Series. Staiger establishes rhythm by using her body as a means of artistic expression - the distance between the tip of her thumb to the heel of her palm is the primary unit of measurement within the pieces. Each stroke using this measurement adds layers that interact and converse with others in accidental ways yielding new colors or drips. The new relationships influence Staiger’s subsequent actions in a way that incorporates her cognition and awareness into the painting in addition to the scale of her body. Though hidden within the layers, the energy, connection, and consciousness of the artist are clearly evident.

Camilo Sanin • Confluence • 2012 • 12th & Clark Street

Camilo Sanin uses line, color, and form to produce geometric abstract paintings that challenge preconceived visual ideals. Overlapping grids create formal structures that denote self-imposed visual boundaries that are then subverted by the artist through a synthesis of cultural materials and personal experience. While painting, Sanin becomes aware of his own self, of the distance and space between forms, and of the unity found in the face of fragmentation. He is interested in achieving visual equivalences through opposites, the relationship of the center to the periphery, surface development, and in the delineation of inclusion through exclusion.

Leslie Johnston • Harbor Lines • 2012 • 26th Street & Crystal Drive

Leslie Johnston finds the inspiration for painting from her professional and personal journeys. During her voyages, she seeks to influence human actions to protect and conserve the world’s biodiversity. Having traveled the world, Johnston incorporates into her work a vocabulary relating to nature and its organic structures. Painting gives her the freedom to creatively express her thoughts and feelings, and then share them with the individual viewer.

Camilo Sanin • Epiplagic One • 2013 • Crystal Gateway Marriott: Driveway

Camilo Sanin uses line, color, and form to produce geometric abstract paintings that challenge preconceived visual ideals. Overlapping grids create formal structures that denote self-imposed visual boundaries that are then subverted by the artist through a synthesis of cultural materials and personal experience. While painting, Sanin becomes aware of his own self, of the distance and space between forms, and of the unity found in the face of fragmentation. He is interested in achieving visual equivalences through opposites, the relationship of the center to the periphery, surface development, and in the delineation of inclusion through exclusion.

Marsha Staiger • Currents • 2013 • Doubletree Hotel: Driveway

This triptych is an example of Staiger’s interest in intuitive and playful mark making and use of color. As new marks and paint are added, layers of color build and interact creating a balance between warm and cool colors that create a cadence through the work. The challenge of this artistic style and process is achieving a completed work with a physicality, looseness, and order.

Marsha Staiger • Acoustic Landscape • 2013 • Crystal Gateway Marriott: Jefferson Davis Highway

Staiger’s restrictions on scale, format, and color selection allow for the exploration of new techniques of making marks in the ten pieces included in Acoustic Landscape. Throughout all ten pieces, subtle color variations and a narrow palette reveal new perspectives on color that might be missed in a more colorful work. Despite the restrictions, each mark creates a new beat revealing the rhythm of the song painted within each individual piece.