Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1987, Betty Antoine is an emerging artist with a strong affinity for needlecraft and traditional craft art.

Antoine’s family has a strong tradition of knitting, crocheting, and sewing; as such, these traditional crafts have been passed down through her family, and play a large role in Antoine’s work. In addition to her work with fabrics, Antoine also enjoys painting and drawing: she views her work as a highly meditative process, allowing her time for reflection.

Antoine’s fine art and crochet crafts have been recognized in many exhibitions throughout Massachusetts including exhibitions at the Gateway Gallery and Drive- By Projects in Watertown.

Debra Belsky was born in 1961 and has been working at Gateway Arts since 2007.

Belsky makes colorful, introspective work on themes dealing with her life and interests; often these are infused with her unique sense of humor and order.  Her deliberate choice of materials lends a certain playfulness to her work. Additionally, dark humor allows the viewer to realize the depth of the artist’s anxieties.  She illustrates her inner turmoil and desires in a primitive form of portraiture.  Brightly colored backgrounds bring one’s attention to the emotionally charged characters. Belsky often refers to these characters as ‘me’, making it apparent that the works are self-portraits.

Belsky has exhibited her work in Massachusetts at the Gateway Gallery, Drive- By Projects, the Fuller Craft Museum, Barneys NY retail outlet and the Mall at Chestnut Hill.

John Colby was born in the Boston area in 1955 and attended Gateway Arts from 1990 until 2017.

Colby is an interesting conversationalist with an unusual sense of humor. He has created poetry, drawings, paintings, and ceramic art.

Colby’s work has been shown at the Museum of Everything in London, England. In Massachusetts, his work has been exhibited at the Berenberg Gallery in Boston and the Gateway Gallery in Brookline. His work has also shown in the Outsider Art Fair in New York and at Creativity Explored in San Francisco, CA.

Maria Covino was born in 1969. She attended Gateway Arts from 1993 until 2016.

While at Gateway Arts, Covino enjoyed working in different art studios, although her work always presented a constant aesthetic. At Gateway, Covino would continuously carry two pens and a specific drawing. This drawing she held on to could take up to a year to complete; over time she would reinforce the piece with tape and found scraps of paper. Although this specific work is visceral, Covino’s primary body of work is quite structured and organized.

Covino’s artwork has been exhibited extensively throughout the northeast including at the Outsider Art Fair in New York, the Very Special Arts Gallery in Washington, DC, and the Sawhill Gallery in Harrisonburg, VA. Additionally, Covino has been represented throughout Massachusetts at the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, Drive-By Projects in Watertown, The Mall at Chestnut Hill in Newton, the Open Door Gallery in Boston, the Berenberg Gallery in Boston, and the Gateway Gallery.

Larry Edmiston was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1958, and currently resides in Lynn, Massachusetts.  He began attending Gateway Arts in 1998.

Edmiston enjoys making art because it is about personal expression as opposed to repression. He has particular aversion to repression because of the behavior modification schooling of his youth and his experiences with a fundamentalist religious group during high school. Edmiston attempts to transform bad memories of those experiences through his artwork, hence his interest in the use and misuse of various types of authority.  Edmiston has a strong fascination with certain women from his youth which he draws as he imagines them to be today.  They are often placed in fantastic and symbolic settings. Their poses reference, among other things, pin-up models and record covers. Larry also has a significant interest in the late actress Natalie Wood, who often populates his work in the form of a spirit roaming places which hold a certain biographical importance for the artist.

Edmiston’s work has been exhibited in the Gateway Gallery, and was represented by the Margaret Bodell Gallery at the Outsider Art Fair in New York City. He has also shown at the Berenberg Gallery in Boston, MA.

Mary Galgay was born in 1953 in Boston, MA. She is a self-taught artist.

Galgay’s pets are her artistic muses. Annie was her first cat named after an old therapist she had. Another was Suzie, whose name Galgay says just seemed to fit her. Currently she has Abe who is a hungry cat. Galgay has worked on commission, illustrating a variety of greeting cards, and has self-published a book entitled Spaceship Suzie, which she wrote and illustrated.

Galgay’s work is available in The Gateway Store.

Daniel “Dani” Kasinsky was born in Peru, and was raised in Cambridge, MA.  He joined the studios at Gateway Arts in 2016.

Kasinsky primarily creates 2-D works, using a variety of materials. Kasinsky enjoys creating works using imagery from his memory, in particular objects he likes and places he has visited. He occasionally works from reference images as well; however, his work rarely mirrors that from which he is drawing. Instead, Kasinsky will add colors that were not originally present, transforming these images in his own distinct style. His final compositions reflect his varied interests.

Kasinsky’s work has been exhibited at the Gateway Gallery.

Abdel Michel lives in Milton, Massachusetts. He has attended Gateway Arts since 2008 and is a highly gifted, self-taught artist.

Michel is interested in forms of transportation, especially public transit, and enjoys making very intricate drawings of the MBTA subway system. He prefers to work on a small scale, often overloading paper with marks made, erased, and redrawn. He then combines these elements to create a congested view of Boston landmarks. When working larger, he makes self-directed choices in regards to omitting data, leaving room for one’s eye to rest in the rendering of the work. Michel applies his detailed practice to jewelry making as well. He enjoys using a palette of vivid hues, combining beads of different colors and textures to create intricately strung designs.

Michel’s work has been exhibited at the Museum of Everything in London, UK, Barneys NYC,  Fuller Craft Museum, Concord Center for the Visual Arts, and the Gateway Gallery.

Sanders Paul was born in New York City in 1978.  He attended Gateway Arts from 2001 to 2019.

Paul enjoys playing the drums, loves the Beatles, and is very devoted to his Jewish heritage. Paul’s most recognizable works are his drawings of people from his life, all standing in a row and engaged in dialogue. These seem to be a way for Paul to comprehend and critique everyday realities. He also draws animals, Israeli flags, and visual chronicles of his annual trips to Israel. He also applies his imagery to ceramics and clothing, weaves scarves, and makes jewelry.

Sanders has shown his work at the Gateway Gallery, the State House in Boston, the Mall at Chestnut Hill, the Outsider Art Fair in New York,  and the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, among other places.

Carl H. Phillips lives with his family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  He began working at Gateway Arts in the summer of 2002.

Phillips is an extremely affable young man. He uses layers of paint to create vibrant saturated canvases that give a new life to images he’s exposed to through contemporary marketing advertisements. Part of the appeal of his work is the attention and time he allots to images and objects so apparent and integrated in our everyday lives.

Phillips has shown his work in the Gateway Gallery, Drive-By Projects in Watertown, and the Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton.

Rebecca Bella Rich, born in 1960 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been enriching Gateway with her lively imagination since 1990.

Rich’s unfettered creativity is present in the books she writes, illustrates, and publishes. The themes of Rich’s work often include reflections on feminism, sexuality, friendship, and dreams. She is a spirited woman who happens to be a terrific dancer.

Rich’s work has been shown nationally and internationally at the Berenberg Gallery in Boston and Brandeis University in Waltham, MA; in New York at the Outsider Art Fair and in London, England where she won a MENCAP award. Rich’s work has also been shown in Massachusetts at the Gateway Gallery, Arsenal Center for the Arts, Barneys NY, the DeCordova Museum, the Mall at Chestnut Hill.

Maria Schlomann was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1981. She lived in Pennsylvania and Connecticut before moving back to the Boston area in 1993.

Schlomann’s artwork mixes the psychological with dark humor. It is often imbued with personal references and deals with the experience of living with mental illness.

Schlomann has exhibited at the Gateway Gallery, and at Barney’s NY at the Chestnut Hill Mall in Brookline, MA. Her artwork has also appeared in Art New England magazine.

Josie Sosa was born in 1973, and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has attended Gateway Arts since 1996.

Sosa is a unique artist who fills surfaces with drawings of distorted human forms often wearing what she identifies as ‘large hats.’  Sosa’s compositions develop texture as she forcefully applies pen to paper, layering her marks which together build recognizable forms of people and text.

Sosa has participated in exhibitions in the Gateway Gallery, and Copacabana and Pier 60 at Chelsea Piers in New York, NY, and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanawaza, Japan. Sosa was the recipient of the 2015 Yohei Nishimura Award from BiG-i Art Project in Osaka, Japan.

Dominic Tufo was born in 1945, and has been attending Gateway Arts since 1994. 

Tufo enjoys process-based art making, including both three- and two-dimensional works. His sculptures vary from soft weavings and embroidered forms, to wrapped metals and painted wood assemblages. His paintings are much more gestural and impromptu, while Tufo’s drawings are focused and allow him to create structured compositions.

Tufo’s work has been shown at the Gateway Gallery, the New England Outsider Artists with Disabilities Exhibition in Boston, Barney’s NY in Boston, the Federal Reserve Bank Gallery in Boston, The Fuller Craft Museum in Brockton, MA, the Margaret Bodell Gallery in New York, NY, and the Goldhaber-Fend Fine Arts Center Gallery in Johnstown, PA. Tufo has received an award for Excellence from the Ebensburg Center in PA, a MENCAP award from London, and an award at the 6th National Juried Art Exhibition for People with Learning Disabilities. In 2018 Tufo was selected to to be featured in The Gateway Gallery’s annual solo exhibition. The solo exhibition is a career accomplishment celebrating the artist’s development of a significant body of work and distinct artistic point of view. View the solo exhibition here.

Jeffrey Wales began working at Gateway Arts in 2017.

Wales has a keen interest in geometric forms and solids, spatial relationships, and patterning. His work spans drawing, painting, soft sculpture, jewelry, and two- and three-dimensional design. Of particular interest are Wales’ brightly colored deconstructed cubes made of felt and embroidery floss, which he sews in three-dimensional space, and whose corners and edges he then reduces to produce new forms.

Wales’ work has been exhibited in the Gateway Gallery.

Valerie Walker was born in 1938. She attended Gateway Arts from 1989 until the mid-2000s.

While at Gateway, Valerie found sewing a social and relaxing activity. Valerie developed her own embroidery technique which she used to create beautiful, sculptural pieces.

Her work has been shown in several locations, including the Gateway Gallery, the Massachusetts School of Art and Design, Brandeis University, the Brookline Public Library, and Barney’s NY in Boston.

(1934-2004)

Bohill Wong was born in Hong Kong. He came to the United States in 1934 and began attending Gateway Arts in 1979. Wong drew almost constantly and interprets his impressions of life through his art. The work he created is unique and entertaining.

Wong had many fans in the Boston area and completed numerous commissioned works. His work has been shown widely in the U.S. and abroad at the Berenberg Gallery in Boston; the Fuller Museum of Art in Brockton, MA; Very Special Arts Gallery in Washington, D.C.; and at Cavin-Morris Gallery, the Outsider Art Fair, the Cork Gallery at Lincoln Center and Margaret Bodell Gallery in New York City. Wong’s work has been reviewed in the Boston Globe, on WBUR radio by Lynda Morgenroth and in ArtsMedia, a Boston publication. A biography on Bohill Wong, produced by Marty Ostrow on WGBH’s Greater Boston Arts, won a New England Emmy in 1997.