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Iren Schio was born in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1952 and studied at the Arts School of Kunstgewerbeschule, Zurich. Since 1976 she has been a resident of Santa Fe, New Mexico, notably as a longtime artist-in-residence at the Little Earth School in Santa Fe. She currently teaches children and youth in Abiquiu, NM. Schio specializes in mixed media, including books, prints, paintings, sculptures, and particularly monotypes, which she embellishes with collage elements to build up a layered texture. In an artist statement, Schio offers a succinct description of what inspires her: “I am interested in creating visual poetry. The visual act of assembling the found objects is important to me. I play, work, and turn them, until the whole means more than the sum of the parts.” Her work can be seen in many private and museum collections, including the Albuquerque Museum in New Mexico and The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC.

Lucas Samaras was born in Kastoria, Macedonia, Greece in 1936. He came to the United States in 1948 and was raised in West New York, New Jersey. He became a naturalized American in 1955, the same year he entered Rutgers University, New Jersey. There he studied under Allan Kaprow, graduating in 1959.  From 1959 to 1962 he took classes in art history at Columbia University under Meyer Shapiro, majoring in Byzantine art. During those years he became actively involved in the emerging Pop Art scene and participated in “happenings” with Jim Dine, Claes Oldenburg, and Allan Kaprow at the Reuben Gallery.  After some early work in pastels and oils, he began a series of boxes. His autobiographical imagery first appeared in his environment at the Green Gallery in 1964, a recreation of his bedroom in New Jersey. Two years later he created his famous Mirror Room. Since his retrospective exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 1971 and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in 1972, Samaras has been the subject of numerous exhibitions. Today he is recognized as one of the most distinctive and protean artists of his generation. His highly idiosyncratic art, which includes assemblages, figurative sculpture, manipulated autobiographical photographs, box construction, pastels, cut-paper drawings, prints, and books, eludes easy categorization and interpretation. Signature traits include a penchant for mirrors and reflections, a taste for soft and prickly textures, and intense, spectral colors, as well as materials such as beads, jewels, and foils.

*Excerpted from Tools as Art: the Hechinger Collection, published by Harry N. Abrams Inc.

Vladimir Salamun was born in New York City in 1942. He attended Rutgers University for his undergraduate degree, and then received an M.F.A from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York in 1976. After completing his degree, Salamun developed a style of “calculated incongruity” with influences such as H.C. Westermann. Salamun’s work triggers a whimsical mentality in the viewer, but then makes them consider the deeper aspects of his uncommon juxtapositions. Vladimir Salamun has participated in many solo and group exhibitions throughout his career, his work has been exhibited throughout New York and in neighboring states.

Debra Sachs was born in 1953 in Worcester, Massachusetts.  She received her B.F.A. in painting in 1975 from Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and her M.A. in 1978 from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico.  She has participated in many group and solo exhibitions in the country and abroad.  She has received numerous awards, including two New Jersey State Council on the Arts fellowships, and a National Endowment of the Arts regional fellowship through the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.  Her work is included in many private, museum and corporate collections as well as the US embassy in Thailand.  Sach’s sculptures are represented by browngrotta arts in Wilton, Connecticut.  She also works in partnership with Marilyn Keating on public art and studio projects at The South Jersey Museum of Curiosities.  According to the artist’s statement, it is important that what she creates “appears simple, no matter how complex in form; beautiful, no matter how unadorned; and fully present even though inanimate.”

www.debrasachs.com/