Community of Saints: Artists' Biographical Information
Dana Ellyn
Dana Ellyn is an American contemporary artist known for her bold and thought-provoking paintings. She has been a Washington, D.C., resident since 1989 and a full-time painter since 2002, when she left her corporate job to pursue her passion as a painter. Her work often focuses on social and political issues, delivering powerful visual messages.
Dana maintains a downtown studio in the District of Columbia, where she both paints and lives, and is one of D.C.’s most successful established artists. Her work is widely collected by history buffs, animal rights activists, and a growing number of art enthusiasts of all tastes around the world.
Dana’s inventory of current work can be seen online on her Website.
Elise Ritter
Elise Ritter, an award-winning artist who divides her time between Arlington, Va., and Portland, Ore., paints luminous landscapes, seascapes, and mystical images. Her goal for her art is to elicit emotional responses and awaken memories.
A juried member of Studio 10 Artists, Potomac Valley Watercolorists, and Arlington Artists Alliance, Elise exhibits her work regularly at Sterling Framing & Gallery and Gallery Underground, both in Arlington. She also sells her paintings on Fine Art America.
Elise’s work has been published, featured in articles and on covers of many books and magazines, purchased by New York curators, and collected internationally — in Ireland, New Zealand, China, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Puerto Rico, and Canada.
Elise began her watercolor studies while living in the Chesapeake Bay region, painting seascapes, boats, beaches, and seabirds. After returning to her beloved Arlington/Washington, D.C., she expanded her portfolio to include acrylics and collage, filling her canvases with mystical imagery, transcendent landscapes, and colorful abstracts. Her work has been juried into Virginia’s Best Artists and Virginia Watercolor Society shows, and her paintings have been on view in the Richmond State Capitol Building.
In her previous career, Elise was director of editorial resources at Time-Life Books, production manager at New Republic magazine, and a counselor at The Women’s Center. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism and a M.S.W. in clinical social work.
Christopher Santer
Christopher Santer has made drawings of more than 100 different saints and figures from the Gospels, bringing them to life with a realness that gives you the sense that you could encounter these holy people on the street.
Christopher has exhibited works in galleries and museums across the country, including Los Angeles, Seattle, Minneapolis, Boston, and Miami. He has shipped prints of his work, available at pacemstudio.com, to all 50 states and 12 foreign countries.
Christopher is a recipient of the 2004 McKnight Foundation Fellowship (Minneapolis, MN), and his work has been featured in the bi-monthly publication “New American Paintings” (#47).
A graduate of Ohio University, which awarded him a master’s in fine art degree, and the University of Dayton, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in fine art, Christopher is an art instructor at Providence Academy, Plymouth, Minnesota. He continues to work out of his studio in St. Paul. His full body of work can be seen at christophersanter.com.
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Kathleen Stark
Kathleen Stark has been an active artist for more than 35 years. She studied art at The Corcoran School of Art and Design, The University of Hawaii, and privately in the many countries where she has lived. She is a member of The Fairfax Art League (FAL), The Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts, and The Episcopal Church Center for The Visual Arts.
Stark has shown most recently at a Fairfax Art League group show at the Ice House Gallery in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia. She was accepted into two Art Impact International juried shows, “The Pandemic” and “Joy Within,” in the summer and fall of 2020. In addition, she was accepted in The Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts October 2020 juried show, where she received an Honorable Mention for her painting “Open Heart.” In February 2020, Stark exhibited with other regional and national artists in the Lenten show “Contemporary Artists Interpret Stations of the Cross”, at St. Michael’s Episcopal Church, Arlington, Virginia.
Kreg Yingst
A painter and a self-taught printmaker, Kreg Yingst received his bachelor’s degree in studio art from Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas, in 1983. While teaching, he finished his master’s degree in painting, awarded in 1996 by Eastern Illinois University. Kreg, who lives in Florida, makes his living solely from sales of his work.
Kreg’s art can be found in numerous private and public collections, including those of Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana; The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, South Carolina; College of Lake County, Grayslake, Illinois; Pensacola State College, Pensacola, Florida; and Janus Corporation, Denver, Colorado.
Kreg has exhibited his work, which encompasses a remarkable music series, in many venues, from commercial and noncommercial art galleries, to museums and arts centers, to art fairs and art festivals throughout the United States, including Alabama, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Missouri, New York, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin, Washington, D.C., and British Columbia, Canada. He is especially active in Pensacola, Florida, where he has had both group and solo or two-person shows. He boasts a long list of awards and honors.
Among other publications that have featured Kreg’s art are Sunshine Artist magazine, The California Printmaker, The Evanston Review, News Sun, and South Bend Tribune. The online arts magazine Escape Into Life presented selections from Kreg’s music series in May 2022. In addition, Kreg created the illustrations for Christine Valters Paintner’s Birthing the Holy: Wisdom from Mary to Nurture Creativity and Renewal (Ave Maria Press, 2022). Some of Kreg’s own books are The Psalms in 150 Block Prints (2016), Light from Darkness: Portraits and Prayers (2014), Psalms, Poems, and Prayers (2008), and The Blues in Black and White: A collection of block prints (2006).
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George Ziobro
George Ziobro’s career has been anything but that of an artist: he was a food chemist. When an opportunity came to him to learn how to paint icons, which have fascinated him since early childhood, when he saw them in various churches where he grew up, George jumped at it and has pursued it as a hobby ever since.
Now both artist and world traveler, George has taken courses from teachers from Russia, Belarus, France, England, and the United States.
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