In 2023 YAA held an exhibition in honor of a member who bequeathed YAA with a fund from which awards of merit are given. This year, we celebrate our winners of last year’s (2023 Rottler Selection Exhibition) for their high level of achievement. This group invitational is an opportunity to let their work shine.
The public is invited to a free opening reception of our Rottler Winners exhibition. Five award winners from 2023’s prestigious Rottler Selection Exhibition are sharing a group invitational display of their work.
Our 2023 winners are: Philip Colgan, Vijay Dontu, Jeannine Dabb, Carmela Melchiorre, and Anita Williams.
Enjoy refreshments and the camaraderie of fellow artists and art lovers. The reception is Sunday June 9 from 2 to 4 pm. It is a free event and is open to the public.
Meet Our Rottler Winners
Vijay Dontu
Vijay Dontu is an aspiring artist using oil painting as his main medium of choice. He has been a resident of York, PA for the last 22 years and works at York Hospital as a Physician serving his local community. He enjoys playing badminton, running, spending time with his two daughters, traveling, and gardening. He has been drawing and painting his whole life but started seriously painting over the last 4 years as a hobby and a form of escape. He has been studying art and oil painting from Mrs. Janice Godfrey and enjoys learning water color painting from Mrs. Patricia Dohrman. Both are a tremendous inspiration to his art and he admires them not only for their talent and dedication to teaching but also for their life achievements.
Artist Statement Life brings many challenges and along with that, many opportunities. I started dedicating much of my free time to consistently practicing painting 4 years ago. It was a way to keep myself calm and focus my thoughts in a positive way after the biggest loss of my life — losing my wife after a long battle with cancer. She has been the greatest mentor and inspiration of my adult life and molded me to be a better human. I aspire to capture her light through my paintings and to continue to honor her and her ability to bring a smile to anyone’s face. My goal is to be able to give a sense of joy and happiness to others through my paintings. My first passion is and always will be taking care of my patients in a humanistic and compassionate manner, but I am glad to be able to share my second passion of art with my community.
Jeannine Dabb
Jeannine Dabb Is an artist residing in York, PA. After twenty-two years of owning a small business in the medical aesthetics industry, she recently returned to college to study painting. She graduated from York College of Pennsylvania, in December 2020 with honors and received her bachelor of fine arts with a minor in art history. After graduation, Jeannine became the 10th Appel Fellow and is now the Artist in Residence at Marketview Arts in York, PA, a part of York College of Pennsylvania, and specifically the Center For Community Engagement. She has her studio space located with the Artists Underground at Marketview Arts. Jeannine’s art has been purchased and commissioned by three hospitals, including Penn State Hampden Hospital, Penn State Lancaster Hospital, and Women’s and Babies University Health Systems of San Antonio Texas. She has consistently gotten into local and international juried shows and has won numerous awards, most recently receiving a grant from the Cultural Alliance of York, to help get her 5th solo show,” High Tides” to Hood College in Frederick Md. This spring she is attending Mt. Gretna School Of Arts, followed by Wilson College to complete her MFA graduate studies.
Artist Statement
Layering the narrative, capturing the tension between the dualities in my life, in motion and stillness. These works are a continuation of earlier stories about the world around me. In a post-pandemic world, what does it look like for a mid-life female, MFA student in an interdisciplinary cohort of writers, dancers, choreographers, and visual artists? I am capturing the juxtaposition and dualities of my everyday biosphere; the ephemeral world as I see it. I am trying to understand a strange world in a strange time, where nothing and everything makes sense and no sense all at once. This work will combine painting and collage.
Anita Williams
Nature, movement and color have long been Anita William’s inspiration. Anita seeks to find the magical element in nature, whether it is in trees or flowers, waterways or twisting vines. She hopes to transfer her sense of beauty to her audience.
Anita grew up in on the New Jersey shore. She met her husband while living as a young adult in Philadelphia and moved to York County in 1984. She earned her Bachelors in Art Education at Millersville University. Anita taught Art at Spring Grove Area School District for 15 years. While teaching, she earned an M.S. in Education from Wilkes University and an MFA in Visual Arts from Wilson College in 2017.
When she retired from public school teaching in 2019 she began painting in her studio above the Handsome Cab restaurant in York. She currently teaches painting at the York Art Association and the Adams County Arts Council.
Anita has participated in many juried exhibitions and won several awards. In 2020 she won an “Award of Excellence” for the Healing Power of Art from Manhattan Arts International. She also won “Best of Show” at the Yorkfest Adult Juried Exhibition. In 2023 she won the Landscape Award at the Adams County Arts Council’s Annual Juried Exhibition.
Carmela Melchiorre
Carmela Melchiorre is a Lancaster, PA mixed media abstract artist. Over the past 19 years she acquired her art knowledge and skills through numerous workshops, art programs, and college accredited courses, as well as through self-study and experimentation. She started as a representational watercolor artist and then moved into creating acrylic works. For the past 9 years, she has concentrated on developing mixed media and abstract works of art.
She uses Yupo synthetic paper, canvas, Claybord and watercolor paper. Her artwork ranges from heavily textured to light and flowing ink and acrylic applications. Impressions are done with brushes, brayers, and other non-painting tools.
Her work has been shown in local and regional juried exhibitions at the Lancaster Museum of Art, the Lancaster Art Association, and the York Art Association. She has received several first place and other awards, and the Rottler Exhibition Award for Excellence in the Visual Arts from the York Art Association in 2023. In March of this year, she presented a Power Point slide presentation on her process of painting and a demonstration at the Lititz Art Association members meeting. Carmela is a member of several local art organizations.
In her former work career, as a corporate communications director, Carmela collaborated with artists in the creation and production of brochures, advertising, and other corporate communications materials and publications. She holds a Business Administration degree with a major in Marketing.
Artist’s Statement
“I create through an intuitive process, not from a photo or observation. The elements in my artwork develop from working in a spontaneous fashion. Each line, shape, and color are my design guides through the multiple stages of creating. Sometimes paintings are abstract. Other times representational elements are developed. Because every painting is an experiment waiting for a happy ending it can take many months to a year or more to complete. For me, my art process is fun, fascinating, and extremely challenging. Hopefully, you will find my art intriguing.”
Philip Colgan
Born to a family of artists, Philip D. Colgan studied his craft as a boy and won his first portrait commission at the tender age of 12. He has created art steadily since, building a name for himself nationally for his oil paintings, portraits, landscapes and restoration work. The eponymous founder of Philip Colgan Art Studio, he also has 28 years of experience as an art teacher. Mr. Colgan attended the York Academy of Art and studied the Old Masters in Western Europe. He is affiliated with The Art School and Galleries of Mechanicsburg and The Art Association of Harrisburg.
Teaching students on the fundamentals of art through the next 21 years led to further instructing at the Mechanicsburg Art Center and at the Harrisburg Art Association, with life classes in figure drawing and others in painting.
With decades of experience as an artist, instructor, portraitist and restorer, Philip Colgan creates oil-based portraits, landscapes, still-lifes and various other subjects of traditional realism. Portraits, as a specialty, are often accepted on commission; other subjects are sold through galleries. Restoration of antique paintings is another area of Philip's expertise. His amazingly beautiful oil paintings have been shown in some major galleries from coast to coast in the U.S. and Canada. By invitation of the Speaker of the House of Representatives in Pennsylvania, Colgan exhibited his works in the State Capitol Building, the largest display of one artist's work ever held there.
The artist now resides on the west shore of the Susquehanna River, in Etters, Pennsylvania, a scenic area of rolling hills and pastures that continue to provide inspiration for much of his work. Colgan became involved in his profession because of his artistic talent, and he attributes his success to his perseverance and motivation to achieve his goals.
Local treasure, Carole Oldenburg will be featured in the Sally Little Danyo Members' Sales Gallery.
Carol Oldenburg was born in Ridley Park, Pennsylvania in 1955. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from Kutztown State College, Kutztown, Pennsylvania. Oldenburg highlights the beauty in images she sees on a daily basis; both gardens and farmland have been recurring themes in her paintings. She applies, rubs in, scratches through, and layers paint to achieve the subtle effects, described as dreamlike, that are evident in her work. Portraits, which have been a mainstay of her business since 1976, are included in both corporate and private collections nationwide.
Her paintings can be found in the permanent collections of The State Museum of Pennsylvania, The Harley Davidson Motor Company, Glatfelter Insurance Group, Wellspan and Penn State University among others. Carol currently lives in York, PA where she has established OMG STUDIOS along with her daughter, Kara Oldenburg-Gonzales, in the Royal Square District of downtown York.
