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ABN be happy and touched by my art—for it to evoke emotions they may not even understand." BIA DUARTE www.blicencaspoeticas.com.br Bia Du- arte, the chair of licensing company B Licenças Poéticas, has made it her mission to integrate art, commerce and culture in a creative way, spreading Brazilian culture around the world by li- censing the work of Brazil-born, -bred or -inspired artists and designers. Among the artists represented by her company are Alessandro Jordão, Anna Guerra, Federico Guerreros and Kobra, one of the country's best-known street artists. INAM www.inamgallery.com With his landscape oil paintings, this Pakistan- born artist has found both creative and commercial success. "My collectors have experienced that the value of their art in the last fi ve years has doubled," explains the artist. Still, Inam determines the value of a piece not by how much it makes but by its emotional resonance. "When an artist's inner feelings are outwardly expressed, true art is born," he says. "A work of art which did not begin in emo- tion is not art." KEN KEELEY STUDIO, INC. www.kenkeeley.com For the past two years, Ken Keeley has maintained a regular 50-hour work week, which has resulted in the pro- 46 duction of more than 20 new images, including four large-format newsstand paintings and 18 varied smaller subject images. Keeley's studio has also created three-dimensional versions of some of these images, personally designed by Keeley's wife, Grace. T ey will be dis- played at Artexpo Miami along with original paintings and giclees. Ceaco Puzzle Company and Ravensburger USA represent Keeley's work and have sold tens of thousands of these images worldwide to the general public. VIRGINIA KNAPP www.virginiaknapp.com Educated in New York City—she is an alumni of NYU and T e New School for Social Re- search—Vir- ginia Knapp's art is inspired not by the bustle of the Big Apple but by the beauty of the natural world, whether it takes the form of a brilliant sunset, an untamed forest or a windswept beach. Her style has developed over the years to be contemporary and conceptual with elements of fi gurative abstraction. TIM LOTTON www.timlottonglass.com A third-generation glass blower, Timo- thy Lotton was mentored in his craſt by family members throughout his teen years. Aſt er starting Berlin-based artist Mari Mssare works with a variety of diff erent media, creating everything from oil paintings to abstract batik pieces to sculptures craſt ed from metal, textiles and wood. But all of her pieces have one thing in common: T ey are inspired by the world of dreams. "Dreams determine how I see reality," says the artist, whose work has appeared in exhibitions across Europe. "And then dreams transform into art." MELANIE PRAPOPOULOS www.melanieprapopoulos.com For painter Melanie Prapo- poulos art is a means of con- necting creator to viewer—and yet it is her belief that an artist cannot, and should not, control that connec- tion. "Too oſt en an artist infl uences the interpretation of a work, and I believe WINTER 2012 with smaller pieces and moving on to create large fl oral vases, Lotton has more recently focused his attention on free- form sculptures. When working with glass, "each piece is in itself representa- tional of capturing [a single] moment's energy, frozen in time that can never be recreated," explains the artist. "T at is why I love working on my new freeform sculptures: Every piece is something new and exciting, diff erent from the last." MARI MSSARE www.marimssare.com