MEET THE DIWM 2021 JUDGES
Larry started freelancing at home after his years in the service and was published in a few magazines, including Heavy Metal and National Lampoon. Eventually, Larry was contacted by TSR Inc., the company that produced the role playing game Dungeons & Dragons, where he worked from 1981 to 1987. While at TSR, he helped set the standards of gaming art in the RPG genre. Besides creating covers for D&D, AD&D, Star Frontiers and other gaming books, he also created SnarfQuest Tales for the company’s Dragon Magazine. He may be best known for his cover work within the world of Dragonlance. Since 1987, he has worked for other publishers such as BAEN books, Bantam, Warner Books, Doubleday, Del Rey and many others.
A painter, lecturer, entrepreneur, and world traveler, Bryan Mark Taylor is a true renaissance man. As a painter, Bryan has won numerous top awards in national and international shows and his work has been shown in museums across the world. He has been regularly featured in Fine Art Connoisseur, Plein Air, Southwest Art, American Art Collector, Imagine FX, and American Artist Workshop magazines. Bryan has also had many successful one-man shows and won a gold medal at the California Art Club’s annual show. Bryan is currently represented by galleries in California and Utah and his work is found in private, corporate, and museum collections around the world.
From J.R.R. Tolkiens' The Lord of the Rings to Botticellis' La Primivera, Donato balances modern concepts with traditional realism in his paintings to bridge the worlds of contemporary and historical figurative arts. He teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, the Illustration Master Class in Amherst, MA, and mentors online through the SmArt School. During his career, Donato's list of clients has grown to include major book publishers and collectors in New York to concept design firms on the West Coast: notables include The UN, LucasFilm, National Geographic, CNN, DC Comics, Microsoft, Wizards of the Coast , Scholastic, Simon & Schuster, Tor Books, Random House, and more.
Deon has a graduate degree from The Art Institute of Chicago in painting and post-modern critical theory. Ten years ago she happened to have an unexpected opportunity to sculpt from the figure, and had the epiphany of her life. Prior to that she had spent twenty-five years working as a painter but never felt the spark, the most important and potent ingredient for passion. She knew within the week that she was a born sculptor. It took her four years to achieve the technical fluency necessary to begin to create the art that she envisioned. It took another year to hone in on subject matter and composition. The images shown here form only a kernel of what will be her lifetime’s body of work.
Tasha Bleu is a global photographer and licensed drone operator. She is the founder of Treu Bleu Media Incorporated. She is passionate about diversity and disability. Tasha Bleu’s Photography has been featured in entertainment publications including CNN, Elle magazine, WWD, Teen Vogue, and Forbes. She was featured in the Air Max Bible for Nike, she was featured on a billboard for Jordan, and she was featured in a video game for the NBA. Tasha Bleu was the official stills producer for the entire Adidas 747 Warehouse Street event during NBA All Star 2018. And obviously, her beautifully edgy photography speaks for itself.
