Remodeled and returned to its original use in 2002, First Studio is home to several of the Valley's most creative entrepreneurs and the birthplaces of the iconic Wallace and Ladmo production that has become synonymous with Phoenix.

First Studio Gallery was born from this creative passion.  Over 15 years, the gallery has featured  original art by local artists.  Receptions are on the first Friday of each month. 
For more information email Firststudiogallery@gmail.com

Kristine has been defined as a painter, a sculptor, and a ceramist, but no single word can describe this multifaceted artist. Her art reveals an eclectic blend of styles, techniques and mediums purposefully chosen to best express the art at hand.

"Artistic expression is therapeutic. I hear my own voice most clearly through paint, collage, texture and words hidden deep in the layers.

Using primarily acrylic paints with my fine art, I frequently incorporate found objects such as tickets, fortunes, coins and keys to imply meaning or for simple sculptural value. My paintings explore the relationship between surface and depth, literal and metaphorical.”

Kristine is a Valley Leadership Alumni,  has donated her time and talents for nearly 20 years to work with the youth and serve on the Board of Free Arts for Abused Children of Arizona.  She is a two-time Governors Arts’ Awards nominee and recipient of the 2014 Phoenix Mayors Arts Award for her public art.

Ellen Nemetz is a contemporary artist based in Phoenix, Arizona.   Nemetz studied Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Madison, Wisconsin. As a military wife, Nemetz traveled extensively until settling in Arizona. She studied art at the Maricopa County Community Colleges from which she has twice received the League of Innovation Award.

Everywhere Nemetz has lived, water has influenced her emotions. Her paintings of water reflect not only the beauty of water, but the necessity of water in our desert environment for our health, recreation, and happiness.  So much of our enjoyment of the outdoors in Phoenix involves water: in pools, floating down the Salt River, boating on the reservoir lakes that ring Phoenix. Here in the desert, water is more precious than in any other location. 

Nemetz’s art has been exhibited widely in the southwest in solo and group shows including the Phoenix Sky Harbor Museum and a solo show at the Shemer Art Center and Museum.  Nemetz is actively involved in the Arizona arts community. Nemetz is a former member of the eye lounge artist cooperative, the co-curator of the First Studio Gallery space, and an active member of several arts organizations.  Her works are in public and private collections in Europe, New Zealand and throughout the United States.

Born and raised in Texas, Marnelle had an inner sense of artistic expression from an early age.  Strongly encouraged and influenced by her mother, an accomplished artist and natural teacher, she made art the focus of her life. She studied art at the University of Texas at Austin earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree and specializing in life drawing. Marnelle continued her education at the Glassell School of Art at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, TX and the Art League of Houston. Along the way, she has studied under several notable artists including Robert Burridge, David Manje, Rheni Tauchid, Lori Richards, Polly Hammett, Arthur Turner, David Deming and Nina Beall. She is currently a member of the Arizona Artists Guild and has works in many private collections around the country.

Marnelle has maintained a love of figure drawing over the years and keeps the figure a prominent subject in much of her work. She finds drawing and painting the figure to be one of the most challenging subjects for artists that nature provides. Her diligence to anatomical correctness gives her abstract figures a fluidity and motion unique to her style.

Having lived many years in both Texas and Arizona, Marnelle travels frequently between the two. She has been influenced by both the rolling hills of the Texas Hill Country and the rugged, arid landscape of the low desert of Arizona. She finds inspiration wherever she travels.

Marnelle and her husband, Eddie, live and work in Phoenix, AZ. They have two grown children. She and Eddie enjoy traveling, biking, gardening and hiking with their dogs on South Mountain.

Tess Mosko Scherer’s work emerges from a lifelong engagement with the unseen dimensions of human experience. Raised as the daughter of a first-generation Irish American, she grew up in a cultural landscape where the visible and invisible worlds coexisted naturally, and where the idea of soul carried the same presence as the body. This sensibility continues to inform her practice, where the ethereal becomes tangible and the quiet connections between inner lives are revealed.

Her artistic practice explores themes of voice, grief, and love—universal human experiences approached through contemplative making. Central to her work is an ongoing inquiry into solitude and silence as places of insight and revelation: spaces where the soul speaks and the inner landscape becomes visible. Through layered materials and thoughtful processes, Scherer invites viewers into a reflective encounter with the subtle emotional and spiritual dimensions of life.

Based in Phoenix, Arizona, Mosko Scherer holds dual citizenship in the United States and Ireland. Her more than four-decade career spans both the for-profit and nonprofit arts sectors. As an artist, gallerist, advocate, author, and mentor, she has devoted her work to advancing the transformative potential of the arts. She currently serves as Executive Director of the Arizona Art Alliance and is a member of the curatorial team at First Studio Gallery in Phoenix.

Mosko Scherer’s work has received numerous awards and is represented by Van Gogh’s Ear Gallery. Her artwork has been exhibited throughout the United States and is held in private collections internationally.