Massachusetts still life painter Ted Polomis appears to craft the arrangements of objects for his compositions with as much care and skill as he paints them.

His subjects include vintage metal and wooden toys, the time-worn surfaces of which he renders with intimate fidelity, and “classic objects”, vases, glassware, fruit and vegetables, painted with exacting finesse.

One is tempted to label Polomis as a “realist”, but such labels tend to shut our eyes rather than open them. In his apparently faithful rendering there is an affection, an emotional dimension to his appreciation of the objects he paints.

To me there is an emphasis on the “still” in “still life” in Polomis’ work, with a sense of stopped time. He extends an invitation to engage the objects in a contemplative way, lingering on the simultaneously soft and sharply defined edge of a fruit, looking more deeply into the reflections on a glassy vase, or seeking out the negative shapes carved out of the background by the objects in his arrangements.

The color harmonies of his compositions are also notable, and obviously the result of careful thought. Serene blues are set off with bright oranges; golds, greens and grays are laid gently against one another; and white objects, notoriously difficult to handle, are given a muted sheen of color, a range of subtitles within the surface tones.

California based plein air painter Calvin Liang was born in Canton, China, studied at the Shcnghai Academy of Fine Arts and went to work designing and creating sets for the Canton Opera Institute.

Liang moved to the U.S. and shifted his attention to animation, working for Walt Disney Studio and Nickelodeon. He became interested in painting the California countryside and gradually transitioned into landscape painting.

I haven’t found a dedicated site for Liang, but he is represented with a bio and online gallery of both sold and available works on the Greenhouse Gallery of Fine Art.

Whether painting the California hills and missions, traveling in the American West or in Europe in Florence and Venice, Liang brings his scenes to life with a crisp, economical notation, defining structures with geometric shapes, lost and found edges and muted earth tone palettes.

Many of his brush strokes can bee seen as discreet chunks of color with a physical presence, laid down with apparent abandon, but blending into a unified composition.