Mike Shultis is an artist but you would be accurate if you called him a theatrical set designer, an architect, an antique dealer, an editor and a story teller. His paintings are three dimensional, better known as assemblages.

Mike likes to say his art productions are ancient story lines repeating itself to show the cycle of history. He edits the message.

There are not that many artists who create assemblages and I am happy to say that my husband and I are owners of one of Mike’s magnificent masterpieces. We bought it on an art trip to Detroit with Fountainhead Arts. We walked into the Library Street Collective, Detroit’s premiere art gallery, and spotted Mike’s work immediately. Gallerist Melanie Baer Schwartz was absolutely terrific explaining Mike’s work and all of the objects featured. Artist Alison Zuckerman curated the entire show so we knew Mike’s work was very special.

Mike’s new body of work can be seen right now at a very progressive NYC gallery, Morgan Presents—537 W 27 Street. www.morgan-presents.com

The exhibition, “Rome,” employs historical compositions as an armature for societal critique. Utilizing a range of source imagery, from classical mosaics to baroque painting, Mike draws a parallel between the hedonism, avarice and ultimate collapse of a storied Roman age and our own contemporary reality.

Mike (b. 1987, Albuquerque, NM) lives and works in Philadelphia, PA. He received his MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale School of Art and holds a BFA in Painting

from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

Mike has had solo exhibitions at Morgan Presents, New York; Ashes/Ashes, New York; Diane Rosenstein, Los Angeles. His work has been included in group exhibitions at Library Street Collective, Detroit; Carl Kostyál, Stockholm; The Bronx Museum of the Arts; and Rizzuto Gallery, Palermo, Italy.

In just one podcast interview, Ombretta Agró Andruff, the founder and executive director of ARTSail Residency and Research, gave me a renewed interest in the ocean. Ombretta understood immediately why I wasn’t keeping up with all of the changes that are happening in the ocean that most definitely impact our climate. NYC does that to you.

Now that I look at the ocean every day in Miami Beach, I hope to help Ombretta with marketing.

Ombretta was born in Italy. She is a Miami Beach and Turin based freelance curator and ocean warrior. She brings more than 25 years of curatorial expertise with an international practice across non-profit institutions, commercial galleries, and art advisory pursuits with private clients.

Since her move to the US in 1998 she has curated solo and group shows in Europe, the US and Asia collaborating with museums, art festivals, commercial galleries and art fairs, as well as the 2006 Winter Olympic Games.

Ombretta is an avid swimmer, diver and kiteboarder.

The minute I met Grace Hopkins at the Berta Walker Gallery in Provincetown, MA, I knew I wanted to interview her for Art Lovers Forum. She is deeply involved in the art world, and I felt she could teach me so much. I was so right.

For most of the year, Grace is the director of the Berta Walker Gallery, one of the most respected in PTown. She loves working for Berta who has a strong understanding of art, and the business of art, after working for the Whitney Museum, Marisa del Re, and Graham Modern Galleries.

Grace is an artist who creates very unique art by using photography to create square abstract images. Grace details how she manages to produce work that focuses on objects that often go unnoticed. She really has an amazing story.

Grace is the daughter of noted artist Budd Hopkins, who was also an author and ufologist. He was a prominent figure in alien abduction phenomena and related UFO research. Her mother, April Kingsley, was a respected art historian. Grace’s parents were friends with art world luminaries like Franz Kline, Mark Rothko, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning, et al.

Grace lived most of her life in the art communities of Manhattan and Outer Cape Cod (Provincetown, Truro, Wellfleet).