Our new Group exhibit, People and places, opens on May 20, 2026 and will run through September 2 at the Elisa Contemporary Art Riverdale Gallery.

The exhibit has an uplifting summer theme with landscapes focused on water scenes and several poolside figures, as well as artworks with bright yellow elements. We are thrilled to include new work by Betty Ball, part of her Land & Sea series, as well as new gallery artist, Sherry Karver.

The featured artists are: Connecticut Artist Betty Ball, Hawaii artist, Carol Bennett; California Mixed Media Artist, Sherry Karver, Texas Pop Artist, Mitch McGee, New York Mosaic artist, Dean Moore. and California Minimalist, Jeffrey Palladini.

Betty Ball received her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and has been working as a designer and fine artist ever since. She brings her design influences to work in fine art compositions capturing light and color in the world around her. Light is a key element of her work, and she creates art that is “observational, beautiful, sensuous and open to interpretation.” According to Ball, “Light defines what we see. Light’s purity and transcendent qualities are at the heart of my work.”

Her artwork has been exhibited and collected throughout the US and Internationally in Hong Kong, Germany, Ireland, Spain and Denmark.

Carol Bennett is one of the few artists I know who really captures what it's like to be in...and move through the water. She is a native of Los Angeles, who has spent the last 20 years living in Hawaii in Kaua'i. Her work is a meditative journey through both the water and through life. She is intrigued by how life continues to flow and change, being both in the moment and timeless. The viewer will experience being in a state “flow” – where the currents of the ocean suspend life and self, and the unexpected floats to the surface.

Carol’s fascination with the swimmer imagery began when she was living in Los Angeles and swimming at the LA Athletic Club. According to Carol, “The floor beneath the pool, with its ethereal skylight, was an underwater observation room...used by Olympic coaches in the 1920's. I would feel like a voyeur, watching the swimmer's private time and drawing in their beauty. I became the swimmer I observed in the images I later created.”

Carol's work has been featured in many solo and group exhibits throughout the US. She has been featured in Architectural Digest, Hamptons Cottages & Gardens, Ocean Home Magazine and the New York Times. She is in public and private collections throughout the world.

Sherry Karver is "not a 'traditional' artist." Her work pushes the parameters of photography, painting, narrative text, and resin surface by blending them to create a new hybrid. Most recently, she has incorporated jigsaw puzzles into her art.

Her work has been featured in over twenty-five solo exhibitions including the Sasse Museum of Art in Pomona, CA, the Oceanside Museum of Art, Oceanside, CA, The Morris Graves Museum, Eureka, CA, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art in Santa Cruz, CA, and the Peninsula Museum of Art, Burlingame, CA, as well as over 175 private, corporate, and museum collections.

The influences for Texas artist Mitch McGee came from the style of Pop Art legend, Roy Lichtenstein. According to McGee, "Lichtenstein with a Red Bow was the first piece that started me down this rabbit hole. In an almost tongue-in-cheek fashion I wondered how I could take one of his pieces and recreate it in another medium." From that start, McGee began to create his own style and establish his unique voice.

Today, his creativity exists in that space between painting and sculpture. In his Birch series, McGee uses pieces of wood, each illustrated, hand cut and stained or painted to create dimensional pieces. Each painting is filled with thick layers and subtle shadows. There is a warmth created by the imperfection of the birch and its grain that creates an emotional connection. Each painting is a labor of love, taking 40 to 50 hours or more to complete.

His work is public and private collections throughout the world including TV journalist Serena Altschul, and the Feld Family (Ringling Bros) and actress Carice Van Houton (game of thrones).

Dean Moore is a New York City based emerging artist. Being self-taught, Dean has experimented with various mediums and finds deconstruction to be a consistent theme in his work. Currently focusing on mosaics, Moore meticulously hand cuts ceramic tile, porcelain tile and glass into thousands of fragments—shaping and filing each piece precisely before thoughtfully positioning them together to create impactful mosaics. In the past, he used cereal boxes to create collages of popular sneakers. He has undertaken personal commissions for NBA clients including Payton Pritchard (Boston Celtics) and Ty Jerome (Cleveland Cavaliers).

Jeffrey Palladini’s unconventional portraits evoke feelings of sensuality and euphoria. While the San Francisco-based artist studied at California State University, it was in Florence that his true creative spirit was pulled forth from the beauty that surrounded him. Now his modern figure paintings breathe life with vibrant colors and flowing brush strokes. Unlike many portrait paintings, Jeffrey minimizes the amount of detail and information allowing the viewer to gain intense suggestions of emotions in an instant. The simplicity is reminiscent of Alex Katz.

Jeffrey’s works have been exhibited in galleries across the United States and is in public and private collections worldwide. In 2012, Asterisk SF Magazine's Art & Design Issue named him one of San Francisco's top 20 artists. In 2013, one of his paintings was added to the art collection of the Four Seasons in Hawaii.