(1966-1995)

When Cathy Anderson died in December 1995 she was only 29 years old.

As a person with autism, she had probably spent her life trying to reconcile the differences between her personal experience of the world and the generally agreed upon reality to which most people subscribe. By modifying her behavioral responses through her observational skills, Anderson came a long way toward functioning successfully in society. Observation also played an important part in her life as an artist, and through her work she was able to communicate in ways that she could not communicate verbally. She had found her voice.

Her approaches to art were fascinating to observe. She enjoyed experimenting with color and creating spatial illusions with an intuitive form of perspective drawing. If Anderson needed more surface area to complete a work in progress, she would add more paper. Or, if she wanted to change an image, Anderson might have glued a piece of paper over the original image. Sometimes she would attach tape or other materials to her work just for the delight she found in their tactile qualities.

She attended Gateway Arts from 1993-1995. Her work has been exhibited at the Clark Gallery and Brandeis University in Massachusetts. In New York her work has been shown at the Outsider Art Fair and Bridges and Bodell Gallery. She has also shown at the Very Special Arts Gallery in Washington, D.C. In 1996, her work was featured in an exhibition at the Fuller Museum of Art called From the Outside In.

Nina Aronson is originally from California. She now resides in Newton, MA and joined the studios at Gateway Arts in 2017.

Aronson’s work is diverse and she enjoys utilizing a variety of media, both 2- and 3-dimensional. She primarily creates drawings, embroideries, and beaded jewelry. Aronson’s works are whimsical, often including playful depictions of animals and people.

Aronson’s work has been exhibited in The Gateway Gallery.

Neri Avraham was born in 1990 in Israel, and currently lives in Newton with his family.

Avraham has a natural curiosity which is present in art, is very motivated to create artwork, and even has his own studio in his home where he creates colorful large scale paintings. He enjoys working with clay, acrylic, watercolor, pastels, and pencils.

Avraham has shown his works of art throughout Massachusetts, including at the Gateway Gallery in Brookline; the Chestnut Hill Mall in Newton; the Good Purpose Gallery in Lee; the Belmont Gallery of Art in Belmont; the Copley Mall in Boston; and the Boston Children’s Museum.

Julie Dapper grew up in Rochester, New York.

As a child, Dapper filled large canvases with imaginative scenes influenced by Greek myths, fairy tales, and classic literature. At age 17 she created a series of pen and ink drawings for an anthology of Sicilian Poetry titled The Golden Conch. Her art is rooted in childhood experiences; places and objects, epiphanies and terrors, visions and dreams. Dapper’s experience as a stage actor, poet, and composer also influence her art. In 1980, Dapper graduated from New York University. She went on to study Anthroposophy and Waldorf Education at Emerson College in England. The arts are integral to Waldorf philosophy, and through her continued study Dapper explored visual and performance arts. Following her schooling, Dapper remained in Europe for several years. Living there, she absorbed the art, landscapes, and cultures of Britain, Italy, Austria, Germany and France. Dapper works in many mediums, including oils, watercolors, pastels, and mixed media. She enjoys experimenting with materials. Dapper creates mixed media collage applying layers of paper, paint, crayons, vintage handkerchiefs, playing cards and an assortment of found objects. She is currently exploring the directness of acrylics as a means of expression. Dapper completed the Artist Training Program, and continues to work in Studio A.

Dapper has exhibited her work in The Gateway Gallery, and Belmont Art Gallery.

Donna Esolen was born in 1963 and lives in West Roxbury, Massachusetts. She has attended Gateway Arts since 2001.

Esolen is a talented artist whose work continues to evolve in its scope and vision.  She especially enjoys creating woven pieces and other fiber works.  Although her artistic vision is clear she is always open to new suggestions and directions for her work. Esolen’s understanding of color theory is remarkable and she is able to create a visual tension through her use of space and color tones and values.

Esolen’s art work has been featured in group exhibitions at Drive- By Projects in Watertown, the Mall at Chestnut Hill, the Children’s Museum, Doric Hall at the State House in Boston, as well as the Gateway Gallery.

Beatrice Farah was born in 1991 in Boston, MA.

Having lived in Colombia for several formative years during her childhood, Farah is fluent in both Spanish and English. Before her time at Gateway, Farah studied at Rhode Island School of Design, developing techniques in fashion rendering, figure drawing, and charcoal. At Gateway, Farah has expanded her artistic horizons, exploring sewing, weaving, jewelry making, and painting as mediums for the development of her artistic vision.

Farah’s work has been shown at the Gateway Gallery and at Blick Art Materials-Fenway in Boston.

Maria Field was born in 1974 and currently lives in Waltham, MA. She’s been an artist at Gateway Arts since 1996.

Field’s expressive mark making creates consciously designed abstractions, often reflecting upon or representing emotions she has difficulty expressing. She enjoys using bold color and incorporates mostly letters and vertical lines across the picture plane reflecting her interest in language. Field continues to observe and contemplate the work she creates and is able to reflect upon her progress.

Field’s work has been shown in Massachusetts at the Gateway Gallery, Barneys NY in Boston, the deCordova Museum in Lincoln and at the National Down Syndrome Society Luncheon Exhibition & Sale in New York, NY.

(1956-2020)

Donna Johnson was born in Miami, Florida. She began making art in 1995 when she started attending Gateway Arts.

Johnson had a special affinity for art materials and used color and repetitive motifs very effectively. Over the years her abstracted drawings developed into cohesive large expressionistic paintings. Johnson’s work is visually stunning and through her use of color, she created a unique sense of depth. Her work was executed with strong design elements and a keen appreciation for color.

Johnson’s work has been shown at the Gateway Gallery, the State House in Boston, the Mall at Chestnut Hill, the Fuller Craft Museum and a solo exhibit at Duffy Rare Violins in Florida.

Robin Jones is a native of Arlington, MA.

Jones first started making art as a very young child, taking lessons throughout her childhood and school years. Through her years of study Jones worked in a variety of mediums and styles. Today she prefers to work in bright colors and black ink, creating whimsical designs. Collectors have responded well to her work.

Jones’ work has been exhibited in the Gateway Gallery. In 2019, Jones was selected by the Arlington Chamber of Commerce to paint a temporary mural in downtown Arlington, MA.  

d. 2017

Annita Lombardi was born near Rome, Italy and came to the United States when she was ten years old. As such, she was fluent in both English and Italian. She attended Gateway Arts from 1975 until 2016.

Lombardi, a very talented painter with a unique style, painted on a variety of mediums including paper, pottery and fabric. Her subject matter harkened back to her early life in rural Italy: she enjoyed drawing natural motifs such as rabbits, donkeys, cows, birds, and flowers. Furthermore, Lombardi had an intuitive sense of color and design; she worked meticulously, spending long hours on each piece.

Lombardi’s artwork has been represented nationally and internationally. Her work has been exhibited at the Gateway Gallery, the Fuller Craft Museum, the American Visionary Art Museum in Maryland, and the Outsider Art Fair in New York, among other places. Additionally, she exhibited at and won two awards from the Ebensburg Center in Pennsylvania and MENCAP in London, England.

Ruby Pearl was born in Weymouth, Massachusetts in 1949 and currently lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Pearl is a self-taught artist who won her first art award at age four, and has considered herself an artist ever since. Pearl uses collage and paint to create worlds that she would like to inhabit.

Pearl struggled for a while with homelessness, but has managed to turn her life around. Pearl paints from the inside out and is drawn in and mesmerized by the artistic method through which the imagination is visually realized. She is inspired by poignant and tender thoughts and emotions rather than rational ideas of what to paint.  Her color palette and sense of light capture the life, mood, and feelings of her subject, which hypnotize her as it reveals something that cannot be expressed in words.

Gateway Arts helps Pearl to maintain her artistic equilibrium, and her work has been widely exhibited and admired.

Pearl’s work has been exhibited at The Berenberg Gallery, Boston, MA, The Gateway Gallery, NAEMI Conference Exhibition, MA, Inside Outsider Art II, AOL, The Diversity Gallery, MA,  Barney’s NY, Chestnut Hill, MA, Brandeis University, MA, and the Bayside Expo Ctr., Boston, MA. Pearl’s work has been reviewed by The Boston Globe, Boston Magazine, Yankee Magazine, Brookline Tab, Brockton Enterprise, Wilton Bulletin, and Boston Herald.

Lyubov Rozenfeld was born in 1984 and has lived in Allston, Massachusetts since her family came to the United States from Russia.  She has attended Gateway Arts since 2005.

Rozenfeld works primarily in weaving, pottery and fabric, making beautiful pieces using a needle and thread. She enjoys working with the other artists at Gateway and assisting in studio maintenance.

Rozenfeld has exhibited her artwork at Barneys NY in the Chestnut Hill Mall and Copley Place Mall in Boston, as well as at the Gateway Gallery.

Ray Salter was born in 1945 in London, England, and currently resides in Salem, MA.

Salter originally studied Drama at Emerson College in Boston and was an actor throughout his twenties and thirties. During the Vietnam War Ray served as a photographer in the Armed Forces. Salter began studies at the Butera School of Art in 1979, followed by training at Boston’s School of the Museum of Fine Arts in 1982.  His interest in portraiture, in part due to his work as a photographer, led him to apprentice under Warren Prosperi in Newton, MA. Salter has been greatly influenced by the work of Toulouse Lautrec, Edward Hopper, and Mucha. He prefers to paint his portraits on paper or board isolating within the edges of the surface and stray paint smudges.

Salter has exhibited his work locally in libraries in Salem, MA, Lynn, MA, Cambridge, MA and at the Gateway Gallery. Several of Salter’s works are owned and internationally exhibited by the Museum of Everything in London, England.

Carmella Salvucci was born in Brighton, MA in 1951 and lives in Brookline, MA.

As a child, Salvucci amazed those around her with her drawing ability.  The facility she possesses for reproducing images and photographs in great detail was evident even then. Interestingly, when she works from her imagination, Salvucci produces simple pictures of houses, flowers, trees and animals.  The thread that runs through all of her work is a love of color.  Bright colors make her feel good and are what she loves most about making art. Though shy and retiring, she is always actively observing the world around her and the patterns in nature. Salvucci has created many commissioned pieces and many of her works have been reproduced as cards and posters.

Salvucci has exhibited at the Berenberg Gallery in Boston, the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, MA; and at the Cork Gallery in Lincoln Center as well as at the Margaret Bodell Gallery and the Outsider Art Fair in New York. In 1995 she was the Massachusetts representative in the Once Around America exhibition sponsored by the Very Special Arts Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Born in Miami, Florida in 1990, this gifted young artist produces skillful designs that are rich with content.

Polite and soft-spoken, Sanchez imparts a caring quality to all his work. Sanchez worked in the studios at Gateway Arts from 2013-2019. In a relatively short span of time, Sanchez established a reputation for creating fine quality folk art in fiber, paint, wood, and practically all media available to him. Sanchez derives inspiration for his art from numerous sources such as music, movies and other pop culture media, yet remains grounded in his Dominican and Latino background and family life.

Sanchez’s art work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, the Open Door Gallery in Boston, MA, Drive-By Projects in Watertown, MA and the Gateway Gallery.

Brenda Sepulveda was born in Puerto Rico and moved to Boston when she was 8 years old. She has been an artist at Gateway since 1996.

Sepulveda excels in all mediums, and often helps other artists get acquainted to their studios. She is bilingual in Spanish and English, loves to study words, and often incorporates the English language in her work. Her work has a graphic quality; her compositions become visually flattened with her intentional use of outline and color.

Sepulveda has shown at the Gateway Gallery, the Chestnut Hill Mall in Newton, and the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton.

Roger Swike was born in Boston in 1962. He currently lives in Revere, MA, and has attended Gateway Arts since 1995.

Swike has unique interests and abilities as an artist. At any point of the day he can be found with a pen, paper, and crayons in hand. Swike typically works on no less than three pieces simultaneously moving rapidly, looking off to the side and mapping out the composition with his fingers in the air. Basing his work off a grid, Swike envisions the entire piece before making a single mark. He is fascinated by numbers and has created representational colors and images for the ten numerical digits. Swike has an uncanny visual memory and replicates pop cultural icons, as well as television character names and product logos in his artwork. Once pieces are complete, Swike will arrange multiple drawings into a distinct order, creating new compositions.

Swike’s work has been shown nationally and internationally at the Berenberg Gallery in Boston and the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, MA; and at the Outsider Art Fair, the Margaret Bodell Gallery and the Phoenix Gallery in New York. Swike also won a MENCAP award in London, England. Read about Swike on the online journal ‘Disparate Minds’ here.

Edgardo Vasquez was born in 1978 and lives in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He attended Gateway Arts from 2000-2019.

Vasquez’s interest in geometric shapes and bold colors lends itself to a variety of media, including weaving, pottery, drawing, surface design, and jewelry. Throughout his body of work Vasquez’s geometric forms take on personable characteristics, creating graphic and abstracted portraits.

Vasquez has participated in group exhibitions locally at Barney’s New York at The Mall at Chestnut Hill and the Copley Place Mall, as well as the Gateway Gallery. He has also participated in group exhibitions for the National Down Syndrome Society Luncheon Exhibition and Sale in New York City.