Agora Gallery is pleased to present Puls of Abstraction a group exhibition that brings together the work of Zivi Aviraz, Ermina Avramidou, Marisa Bernotti, Sharon Brill, Rivka Fuchs, LeeAnn Gorman, Jessica JCK, Tamera Lee, Satoshi Mima, Pagliuca, Gerd Rautert, Donna Shaffer and Yana Yami. In Pulse of Abstraction, artists demonstrate the power of dedication to ideas, techniques and art overall through pieces which inspire and fascinate. Combining meticulous planning and judicious preparation with spontaneity and an appealing openness to circumstance, these works resonate with all levels of experience and understanding.

Israeli-American artist Zivi Aviraz creates engaging mixed media images depicting all the wonders that can be seen in figures, flowers, cityscapes, and abstract elements. Aviraz’s artwork reflects her passion and willingness to explore new media, subjects and techniques. Each painting is an exploration of the endless facets that are contained in a singular form. Colors are bright and bold, and contribute to the emotive elements of each piece.

Greek artist Ermina Avramidou likens her color-filled and dramatically lit abstract paintings to obscure maps, and certainly their crisscrossing lines and dripped dots do suggest mysterious landscapes.

Marisa Bernotti's extensive palette informs her works with joy and frivolity. Through details such as large ears that seem to hear, but perhaps do not listen, and eyes that look but may not see, Bernotti grasps the confusion inherent to our fast-paced society. She paints abstract figures who witness the world, and each other, with a skewed yet keen eye. The works are inspired by dreams; she invigorates fantastical figures with their own life force, forcing the viewer to question their notions of reality.

Sharon Brill’s mesmerizing forms combine a clean, meticulous sense of form with a dynamic spontaneity and openness. The artist’s finely developed eye for line and balance, as well as her ability to render shape using a variety of surfaces, result in works that are at once sensuous and ethereal.

Rivka Fuchs’ innovative and appealing mixed media practice incorporates a wide array of mediums, including oil, acrylic, encaustic, watercolor, collage, colored pencil, pastel, ink and melted crayon. Using a variety of materials as a base – wood, canvas, paper, slate, cigar boxes, mirrors and books, to name a few – Fuchs’ expressionistic abstraction explores the secret life of color, line and form. Fuchs' works are also characterized by their vivacious use of color and the artist’s insistence that the viewer take a participatory role in the completion of the work.

LeeAnn Gorman paints abstract landscapes using acrylic on canvas. Her bold, refreshing use of color, shape and line reveals the solid, exuberant backbone of the countryside – elements that suggest but do not reveal, that capture emotion without relying on realism.

Jessica JCK paints moody, ethereal abstracts in acrylics on canvas, utilizing line, organic shapes and curves, and twisting shadows to draw upon deep, hidden emotions. Occasional touches of mixed media and found objects add texture and interest, and are occasionally the inspiration for a piece. The dark side of human emotions fascinates this artist.

Pulsating, vibrating and alive with color and soul, the work of American painter Tamera Lee starts first and foremost with music. From there, she builds her frame and stretches her canvases in order to paint, letting the music organically breathe into the work with natural, gradual ease. Using biomorphic, almost surrealistic forms, Lee takes us deep inside her psyche in order to bring us closer to our own.

Japanese artist Satoshi Mima creates fantastical, mesmerizing images as simple in subject and form as they are complex in meaning and significance. Working in acrylic paints, sculpture and photography, Satoshi uses both the left and the right hand to ensure that all of his self has been infused into each piece. When painting with acrylics, the artist often includes additional media such as pieces of glass or hairspray to add texture or create an unusual visual effect. Inspired both by the beauty of nature and the profound rhythms of music, Satoshi creates a virtual dream world through his art.

Argentinean artist Maria Soledad Fernandez Pagliuca creates enticing abstract paintings using a broad range of media including wine and coffee. Her use of these drinks as pigment, usually mixed with acrylic and collage elements, is profoundly evocative. The play of contrasting and layered textures makes Pagliuca’s paintings seem both ages-old and extremely new, with yellowed paper clippings juxtaposed with fresh, earth-toned splashes of coffee and scarlet daubs of wine. This melding of materials, simultaneously familiar and fresh, fosters a visual experience not unlike the buzz given by coffee or wine.

To encounter the Expressionist paintings by German artist Gerd Rautert is to come face to face with all the emotionality and struggle that seem to define the human experience. Human figures and faces are set in stark contrast to a lively symphony of colors, lines and forms in acrylic and ink. Words are scrawled across the canvas as well, positioned amongst images that seem to trace the journey we all must take in the never-ending search for self.

Donna Shaffer makes sculptures that incorporate materials found in the environment, shows a strong affinity for nature’s forms. The shapes of leaves and flowers are a recurring motif in her work, but those shapes become components in more abstract patterns. Shaffer takes the elements of nature and places them in a new and different light, giving them an aura that carries traces of a dreamy interior world. Part of that dreaminess comes from the delicate outlines that Shaffer gives her images, creating a sense of haziness and mystery.

Russian-born artist Yana Yami is drawn to the rich thickness and color of oil paints. Relying heavily on the impasto techniques she creates with her palette knife, she paints impressionistic visions of cities and women, together with some more abstract work. Her work is distinguished by several key features: heavy contrast, often occurring between brushstrokes to make each stroke stand out; lights that shimmer and dance across the canvas; and a chaotic, yet connected, sense of movement.