Arc of Colors — A Celebration of World Pride 2025
The Byrne Gallery is proud to announce its first pop-up gallery in Washington, D.C., celebrating the 50th Anniversary of D.C. Pride during World Pride D.C. 2025! As an official World Pride event partner, the gallery will be exhibiting its artists’ work at City Ridge in northwest D.C. for three weeks, from May 17th through June 8th.
“Arc of Colors” will feature fun, color-driven paintings by Craig Arnold, Miguel Diaz, Jeffrey Kibler, Joe LaMattina, Anne Manley, Regina Miele and Thomas Wharton. These artists’ paintings are perfect for celebrating pride in the summertime, featuring the joy of life and the happiness of color.
Craig Arnold
Craig Arnold is currently retired from the University of Maryland, College Park, having worked there as an assistant director and academic advisor for its School of Music. While having enjoyed his administrative work at the university, his passion has always been for painting and drawing, which has occupied his spare time over the years in addition to running marathons and traveling the world. He has shown his work at The Byrne Gallery in 2023, Artomatic’s May 2009 show and at Touchstone Gallery’s August 2013 Minisolo show. Mr. Arnold earned two bachelor’s degrees from the University of Maryland: a B.A. in General Studies in 1981, and a B.A. in Studio Art in 1990.
Miguel Diaz
Venezuelan American artist Miguel Diaz’s work is found in private collections in the United States, Latin America and Europe. Miguel grew up in Caracas, and since boyhood, he has spent hours sketching his favorite subjects on paper, especially nature and the human figure. He enrolled in the Studio of Maestro Antonio Galeandro to study composition and portraiture and later joined the Studio of Maestro Pedro Centeno Vallenilla, a recognized figure of the 20th century visual arts scene in Venezuela. In 1998, Miguel studied under internationally-known Maestro Peter Von Artens.
Miguel earned top honors in two international competitions and has been awarded prizes in local community exhibits in Middleburg. He has exhibited in Caracas, Miami, Puerto Rico, Atlanta, and New York City, in addition to Middleburg and Leesburg. His work hangs in the permanent collection of the Museum of Fox Hounds and Hunting of North America – with special thanks to the patronage of Mrs. Jaqueline Mars.
Jeffrey Kibler
Jeffrey Kibler is an award-winning designer who has been in the graphic arts field for 47 years. He graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh in 1975. Jeff worked at ad agencies and design studios in the New York metropolitan area before moving to Washington, D.C., in 1994 to work as a senior art director with The Magazine Group. Retired since February 2020, he is now focusing on his fine art, which is primarily oil paintings in a contemporary realistic style.
Two years ago, he painted hi first flower, an iris from his garden. He loves Van Gogh’s iris paintings, so this was a natural start. He has since continued to paint more paintings concentrating on the intricate details of each flower. Flowers are short lived and beautifully delicate with many variations in color and texture … a painting captures that image in time forever, he says.
Joe LaMattina
Joe loves to experiment and play in developing the “sense of lightness and fluidity” in his colorful abstract works, he says. Much of his current work is mixed media, with paint, collage, and unusual, non-traditional materials. He views art as a journey, and, regardless of subject matter, he says he loves to present works with “open-ended narratives” and leave the affect and feeling to the viewer.
Anne Manley
Anne’s work includes paintings ranging from small, intimate works, to large format pieces because she believes the kind of beauty she tries to capture feels different when viewed across this extensive scale, she says. Sometimes beauty reveals itself to us in small simple forms … at other times in a vast and broad spectrum of color, light and shadow. All are a gift.
Since deciding to work full time as an artist in 2005, she has had a number of very successful shows with Gallery Plan B in Washington, D.C. In 2013 and 2014, her work was selected for the Choice Art at the Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, Missouri. After moving to Cleveland in June 2018, she exhibited her work with the Erie Art Museum in Erie, Pennsylvania, and Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, Ohio. She produced a body of work for two solo exhibitions with BayArts in Cleveland, Ohio: Uncharted, in July 2020, and most recently, Pause, in July 2024.
Commissioned works by Ms. Manley are held in private collections throughout the United States as well as England.
Regina Miele
Regina Miele is a classically trained painter with a highly disciplined focus on representational landscapes. Exploring the fundamental tenets of order and place, her collection showcases the vastness of Virginia’s forests and waterways. A rich tapestry of colors and texture define the flowing waters of the Shenandoah Valley, and the cloud covered mountains of the Blue Ridge.
Regina attended the Catholic University of America and, in her junior year, studied abroad at the Scuolo Lorenzo di Medici in Florence, Italy. The experience of intensive studio concentration in painting, drawing, sculpture, and theory, in the birthplace of the Renaissance solidified a commitment and passion for a career as an artist. Her work is on display in both national and international venues and has been featured in multiple art publications.
Thomas Wharton
Thomas Wharton studied at The Art Student’s League of New York, The New York Studio School, The New York Academy of Art, The Grand Central Academy, Parsons, School of Visual Arts, and The National Academy of Design. His work has won many awards, including The West Virginia Governor’s Award, The Georgie Read Barton Award, The Katlin Seascape Award (twice), the Windsor Newton Award, and the Richard C. Pionk Memorial Prize for Painting. He has been included in the Art Renewal Center’s Annual Salon, and his portrait work has been awarded a Certificate of Excellence by The Portrait Society of America, where he now has been given Signature Status. He has shown at the National Arts Club in New York,, The Wausau Museum of Contemporary Art, the RJD Gallery, Ille Arts Gallery, the Christine Frechard Gallery,The Salmagundi Club, the Dacia Gallery, The West Virginia University Museum of Art, The West Virginia Cultural Center, Tamatack, Stifel Fine Arts, ETC., the Bloomfield Richwood Gallery, Paragon Fine Arts, 33 Contemporary in Chicago, and the Nutting Gallery.
His work is included in the Cultural Archives of the state of West Virginia, and his children’s book art has toured museums throughout the United States, and is included in the permanent collection the Mazza Museum of International Children’s Book Art. His paintings have been included in many publications, including American Art Collector, Fine Art Connoisseur, International Artist, and Poets and Artists magazines, as well as the book, 21st Century Figurative Art: The Resurrection of Art. His work can be found in private and institutional collections throughout the United States and Europe.
In addition to his work as a fine artist, he is a published children’s book author and illustrator (Farrar, Straus and Giroux), and had a distinguished and successful career as a designer, illustrator, art director and creative director in New York City. His clients included Cambridge University Press, Citibank, MasterCard, Princeton University Press, the New York Stock Exchange, Lifetime Television, Starwood Hotels, Clarins, Shiseido, Simon & Schuster, and New York University.
The Byrne Gallery DC is located at 17 Ridge Square N.W. in Washington, D.C. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Contact The Byrne Gallery for more information at (540) 687-6986 and byrnegallery@aol.com.