The 39th Chelsea International Fine Art Competition
August 20 – August 27, 2025
Reception: Thursday, August 21, 6-8 PM
530 West 25th Street, New York, NY
Agora Gallery proudly presents The 39th Chelsea International Fine Art Competition Exhibition, the gallery’s longstanding cornerstone juried summer showcase, now celebrating nearly four decades of championing contemporary art.
This annual exhibition highlights exciting, fresh voices in painting, sculpture, and mixed media. Located in the heart of Chelsea, New York’s vibrant art district, the show offers artists a prime opportunity to share their work with a wider audience.
This year’s finalists were selected by a distinguished panel of jurors: Molly Scheu Boarati, independent curatorial consultant; Donna Harkavy, curator and Museum Advisory Board member at the Munson-Williams-Procter Arts Institute; and Nico W. Okoro, curator, writer, and founder of BLDG Fund, LLC.
The exhibition runs from August 20 to 27, 2025, at Agora Gallery, with an opening reception on Thursday, August 21, 6–8 PM.
The 39th Chelsea International Fine Art Competition
Jen Abbott
Richard Ambrose
Sanaz Arjmand
Narciso Bresciani
Ani Cuenca
Michael Donahue
Leonhard Förster
Catherine Jiwon Ghim (김지원)
Jay Hatfield
Jack Candy-Kemp
Natreka Kelly
Ralf Kunstmann
Diane Lee
Daeum Lim
JoAnn Lieberman
Linda Mickens
James Nazz
Athena Parella
JiHwan Park
Anna Rendecka
Kateryna Reznichenko
Saheed Art
Louis Staffieri
Nobuko Tsuruta
Sharmeen Uqaili
Marcus Venegas
Eddy Verloes
Ramona Zordini
Jen Abbott
Jennifer Abbott, an emerging artist based in Virginia Beach, is quickly making her mark with work that reflects on human connection in a pre-digital world.
A former graphic designer with a background in Media Arts & Design from James Madison University, Abbott turned to painting in early 2024.
Since then, her practice has gained rapid momentum: her work was selected for a virtual exhibition during the 2024 Miami Art Week and will appear in Where We Meet, an upcoming group show at the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art opening October 1, 2025.
Abbott’s art is inspired by old photographs and memories from the 1920s to the 1990s. She paints quiet moments—a family watching television, strangers riding a train—reminding us of a time when people shared space without the distraction of screens.
Her background in design shapes the way she uses color, space, and layering. Each painting entices the audience to pause and reflect on how we once related to one another. Through simple gestures and everyday scenes, Abbott offers a thoughtful view of the past that feels both personal and timeless.
Jitterbug, 2025
Acrylic on canvas
40” x 30”
Ric Ambrose
Ric Ambrose creates large-scale graphite drawings that examine the layered, often overlooked details of contemporary urban life.
Ambrose builds intricately structured compositions that feel at once immediate and reflective, offering a chance to navigate the complexities of cities, systems, and the human condition.
His drawings are not literal documents but carefully arranged reconstructions of time, memory, and space. By assembling fragments of streets, buildings, crowds, and signage, Ambrose presents a visual language shaped by tension, paradox, and motion.
His work considers how individuals function within broader environments, and how cities tell stories through their architecture and design.
With a BFA from Colorado State University and an MFA from the University of Oregon, Ambrose also brings over three decades of experience in arts leadership. He has curated hundreds of exhibitions across museums and art centers nationwide, a perspective that now informs his own studio practice.
Beach Bum, 2018
Graphiteon Arches Paper
32” x 120”
Farewell Ceasar, 2024
Graphite on Arches Paper
32” x 96”
Sanaz Arjmand
Digital Photography
A Tale Of Roots, 2024
18.5” x 11.5”
Colors Of Life Amidst Everyday Chores, 2024
Printed B&W Photograph with Pastel Colored Pencils
19.5” x 27.5”
Hues And Blossoms, 2024
Digital Photography, Art Prints, Pastel Pencils, and Needlework
35.5” x 23.5”
When Childhood Falls Silent, 2024
Digital Photography
14.5” x 10.5”
Narciso Bresciani
Italian sculptor Narciso Bresciani creates ceramic works that explore the emotional side of life and the delicate balance of human experience.
A graduate of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, Bresciani has been shaping his artistic voice since the 1990s, working mainly with clay and rich colors made from natural oxides.
His sculptures often feel like they are caught in motion, carefully arranged, sometimes unsteady, reflecting the way people move through the world, full of tension, beauty, and change.
For Bresciani, sculpture goes beyond form and becomes a way to express emotion. His pieces reveal quiet stories, moments of thought, and the subtle complexity found in everyday life.
Bresciani has exhibited his work across Europe and in the United States. He has received several awards and honors, including recognition at international ceramics competitions in Spain and Portugal.
Untitled N.52 Cycle, 2024 Semi-refractory Oxides and Enamel
18.5” x 14” x 15.5”
Ani Cuenca
Brazilian artist Ani Cuenca creates subtle yet influential works that explore memory, structure, and the traces we leave behind.
Born in Rio de Janeiro and now based in São Paulo, Cuenca brings a background in architecture into her artistic process, shaping space and material with careful intention and emotional depth.
After years of working as an architect, Cuenca now focuses fully on her visual practice. Her work combines everyday materials such as old family napkins, sandpaper, thread, and metal. She layers, weaves, and suspends these fragments into thoughtful compositions that speak to intimacy, loss, and transformation.
Cuenca often works with items that hold personal history. A napkin becomes a site of memory; sandpaper, a surface where time and touch have left their mark. Through these materials, she creates a tension between softness and strength, absence and presence.
Untitled Edge Of An Old Napkin And Scraps Of Fabric, Which Were Going To Be Discharged, Glued To A Metal Screen
27.5” x 23.5” x 1.5”
Michael Donahue
Michael Donahue is an artist, educator, and historian with a creative career spanning more than four decades.
Based in Texas, Donahue has taught art at Temple College for 46 years, serving as the gallery director for 40 of those years. His lifelong commitment to the arts and education will be permanently recognized when the college names its new gallery in his honor on August 15, 2025.
Realism and trompe l’oeil, often infused with wit, wordplay, and layers of meaning, form the foundation of Donahue’s artistic practice.
While some works reflect playful humor, many address powerful social and political issues, from gun violence in schools and reproductive rights to historical injustices like local lynchings. His recent Women Warrior series serves as a powerful tribute to the resilience of women who bear both visible and invisible scars.
Donahue has exhibited in over 50 regional, national, and international shows and holds multiple degrees in fine arts. His accolades include the Piper Professor Award, naming him one of Texas’s top educators. He’s also a published author and longtime park ranger at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.
Carolyn With Peacock, 2025 Oil on canvas 24” x 12”
Leonhard Förster
Leonhard Förster is an Austrian visual artist deeply engaged with the human figure in his evolving practice.
Trained as a graphic designer and a graduate of HTL1 Linz in Graphic and Communication Design (2025), Förster brings technical precision and emotional nuance to his work.
Over the past seven years, he has developed a distinct approach to portraiture, initially grounded in realism and now increasingly tethered to abstract and structural elements.
His primary mediums include colored pencil, graphite, and pastel on paper, chosen for their sensitivity and precision.
Förster has recently started using abstraction to look at vulnerability, fragmentation, and the complicated nature of identity in modern life. His work strikes a balance between being clear and being vague, giving it both emotional depth and visual depth.
In 2017, Förster was awarded the young@art Talente OÖ prize for emerging artists in Upper Austria.
His recent selection for the 39th Chelsea International Fine Art Competition in New York signals a significant step forward in sharing his voice with a global audience. He currently lives and works in Austria.
Portrait 1, 2025
Colored pencil on paper
9” x 12”
Portrait 2, 2025
Colored pencils on paper 9” x 12”
Portrait 3, 2025
Colored pencils on paper 9” x 12”
Portrait 4, 2025
Colored Pencils on Paper 9” x 12”
Catherine Jiwon Ghim (김지원)
Catherine Jiwon Ghim (김지원) is a self-taught visual artist blending cultural memory, irony, and identity into bold and thought-provoking imagery.
Before turning to art, Ghim studied journalism at New York University and earned her master’s degree in international economic policy from Columbia University.
Ghim draws on her background in human rights, journalism, and economics to explore the hidden layers of modern life.
Her art reflects on the way we consume, desire, and define value, often using irony, pop culture, and memory as visual tools.
She is particularly interested in how identity and belonging are shaped by social forces, yet remain deeply fluid and personal.
Her debut solo exhibition opened at Gallery Mugen in Tokyo in early 2025, with a second show planned for October. This exhibition marks her first in the United States, offering a fresh and thought-provoking perspective through work that is both visually striking and emotionally resonant.
Adderall XR 30mg Color pencil on paper 24” x 18”
Adderall XR 30mg Color pencil on paper 24” x 18”
Jay Hatfield
Jay Hatfield is no stranger to resilience. A Gulf War veteran, Marine, and cancer survivor, he has lived a life marked by service, survival, and transformation. Today, he channels all of that into his ceramics—sculptures that speak quietly with power about trauma, healing, and the human cost of war.
After earning a BFA in Ceramics from Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Hatfield put his art aside for over a decade. In 2007, he was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Recovery gave him a second chance—and eventually, a return to clay.
With the encouragement of his wife Mara, Hatfield enrolled in the MFA program at Florida Atlantic University and recently debuted his thesis exhibition, War Abstracted, in Boca Raton, Florida.
His work is raw and honest, abstracted figures shaped by memory and emotion. Each sculpture reflects a life deeply lived and a voice that refuses to stay silent.
Now fully focused on his studio practice, Hatfield is actively seeking gallery representation and is ready to bring his work to new audiences across the country.
Figure With Blue And A Red Window, 2024
Stoneware Slip Glaze Steel Epoxy 18” x 4” x 4”
Figure With Green And A Red Window, 2024 Stoneware slip glaze steel epoxy 15” x 5” x 5”
Trajectory, 2024
Stoneware, steel, silk screened slip, slip 16.5” x 9” x 4”
Jack Candy-Kemp
British artist Jack Candy-Kemp brings a distinct perspective to contemporary painting, focusing on the emotional and physical residue of travel.
Based in Surrey and having completed his Master’s degree in Painting at Wimbledon College of Arts in 2018, Candy-Kemp explores the overlooked spaces between destinations - the corridors, terminals, and quiet moments that sit in the margins of movement.
Candy-Kemp steers away from postcard views and idealized destinations, choosing instead to explore the quiet, often unnoticed spaces that surround the act of travel.
His paintings echo the familiar look of travel photography while revealing the fatigue, disconnection, and quiet introspection often hidden beneath the surface.
His paintings have appeared in London exhibitions such as FBA Futures (2019), where he won the Visitors’ Choice Award, The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition (2023 and 2024), and most recently at the Copeland Gallery and New House Art Space in Guildford.
Candy-Kemp also works as a scenic artist for the British film industry, a role that further informs his sensitivity to atmosphere, scale, and visual storytelling.
Derealisation
Acrylic gouache on canvas
35.5” x 47.5”
Dust
Acrylic gouache on canvas
35.5” x 47.5”
That Sinking Feeling, 2024
Acrylic gouache on canvas
35.5” x 47.5”
Natreka Kelly
Born in Mississippi and now based just outside Houston, Natreka Kelly, known in the art world as TrekaMae, is a rising voice in contemporary portraiture.
A self-taught artist and U.S. Navy veteran, Kelly brings a sense of focus, purpose, and personal truth to every piece she creates.
Her hyperrealistic acrylic portraits highlight the inner lives and quiet strength of Black individuals, drawing inspiration from memory, emotion, and the stories we often carry in silence.
Her acclaimed Boundless Hearts series, which shows Black children holding shiny heart-shaped balloons, speaks to innocence, resilience, and hope in the face of grief and unrest.
Kelly’s art has been exhibited nationally in juried shows like Nostalgia at District Arts (MD) and Women in Art with Las Laguna Gallery (CA). Kelly uses her brush to express what words cannot, whether she’s painting a moment from the past or a reflection of the present.
A 90s Family, 2022
Acrylic on canvas
30” x 40”
Ralf Kunstmann
German artist Ralf Kunstmann finds the quiet beauty in the worn edges of city streets, Mediterranean alleyways, and forgotten corners. With his brush, he turns these “lost places” into intricate, hyperrealistic paintings that invite viewers to slow down and look more closely.
Based in Nuremberg, Kunstmann began his creative career as a display designer in the 1970s, later working as a freelance illustrator for advertising agencies and magazines. Over time, his focus shifted toward fine art.
Kunstmann’s work has been exhibited across Europe and the United States, including digital showcases at the Venice Biennale Artbox Expo and ArtExpo New York. His commitment to craft and vision has earned him recognition in the DOCMA Awards and a nomination in the 2024 Metropolitan Melodies competition.
Kunstmann paints with intention, drawing inspiration from his extensive travels through Italy and his experience of German urban life. He creates each image layer by layer, establishing a sense of presence and depth that transcends the realm of photography. His images are timeless, eliciting respect for memory, stillness, and place.
At its core, Kunstmann makes everyday structures into soulful portraits of time, light, and human experience, anchored in realism but filled with quiet emotion.
Nr. 3195a, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
15.5” x 23.5”
Careless, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
15.5” x 15.5”
The Red Door, 2023
Acrylic on canvas
15.5” x 15.5”
Diane Lee
Born in Busan, Korea, Diane Lee began her career as a junior high school art teacher before moving to the United States, where she continued to shape her practice at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is currently completing her MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts at Columbia College Chicago.
Rooted in the traditions of textile art, Lee’s recent work explores family memory, emotional inheritance, and the subtle weight of loss.
In her pieces that blend black-and-white family photographs with hand-stitched color, Lee reflects on the quiet complexities of grief and remembrance, especially memories of her mother and father. Fiber, in her hands, becomes a timeless medium that connects generations, culture, and self.
Her work has been recognized with awards from the Chicago Cultural Center and the Lancaster Museum of Art and shown in solo exhibitions, including In A Day—Journey at Zhou B Art Center and In & Out at the Chicago Cultural Center. Beyond her studio, Lee serves as president of Art Korea of Chicago, fostering cross-cultural artistic exchange.
Farewell - 1962, 2024
Photo print on canvas, embroidery stitch 12” x 16”
Umma, 2024
Photo in canvas, embroidery stitch 16” x 12”
Daeun Lim
Daeun Lim is a South Korean ceramic artist and educator based between the U.S. and Korea. Originally from Busan, she earned her BFA and MFA from Ewha Women’s University, then completed a second MFA in Ceramics at the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.
Her work moves between traditional craft and contemporary design. By utilizing industrial processes such as 3D modeling, printing, and mold-making, Lim crafts objects that defy the distinction between usefulness and unfamiliarity.
Through her practice, she explores how objects reflect human experience, especially in the context of identity, belonging, and change.
Lim has taken part in residencies in Mexico, South Korea, and across the United States. Her work has been exhibited in Germany, China, Korea, and the U.S. As a maker, she sees herself as a designer of “misfit” objects, forms that ask questions, challenge norms, and invite new ways of thinking about the everyday.
Affording, 2025
Porcelain
5.5” x 22” x 1.5”
Helmet Blind, 2024 Stoneware, fringe curtain
15” x 15” x 6”
JoAnn Lieberman
JoAnn Lieberman brings over four decades of creative experience to her evolving body of mixed media work. With a background in textile design for the fashion and home industries, Lieberman’s career has taken her from the fast-paced studios and fashion houses of New York and Los Angeles to a more personal and reflective creative path.
Now focusing solely on her studio practice, Lieberman turns to her original pattern designs as well as vintage prints she’s gathered throughout her career.
Her recent work embraces collage as a way to reimagine these materials, combining them with figurative imagery to form lively, layered compositions filled with rhythm, personality, and unexpected detail.
Lieberman displays a playful and expressive use of pastels, watercolor, acrylics, and meticulously cut paper components in her works.
Her work reveals a lifelong fascination with color, surface, and pattern, influenced by her years spent living in creative cities, traveling, and observing people in their everyday moments— blending past and present experiences in visually dynamic ways.
Based in the United States, Lieberman continues to push her practice forward, turning her experiences into new visual stories, one composition at a time.
Tea Time with Rowan, 2025
Mixed media and acrylic on stretched canvas 36”
x 24”
Linda Mickens
Linda Mickens is a Connecticut-based sculptor and multidisciplinary artist whose work brings together memory, materials, and meaning, rooted deeply in the African-American lived experience.
After a 30-year career as a neonatal intensive care nurse, Mickens turned her full attention to art, building a studio practice grounded in compassion, reflection, and the stories everyday objects can tell.
Primarily self-taught, Mickens works with reclaimed wood, vintage washboards, paper, and found metal, transforming these materials into layered sculptures that explore resilience, loss, and collective healing.
Drawing from her own life experiences as a Black woman in America, her work honors cultural memory and uplifts narratives that have been overlooked or forgotten.
Since embracing her practice full-time, Mickens’ work has been exhibited across the U.S., including at the Southampton African American Museum, City Gallery in New Haven, Martha’s Vineyard, and the Black Girl Art Show in Brooklyn. Her pieces are also part of the permanent collection at the River Road African American Museum in Louisiana.
A 2024 Bitsie Clark Fund and Mellon Foundation grantee and a 2025 MOCA Fellowship recipient, Mickens continues to create with intention, producing sculptures that are not only visually striking but also emotionally resonant, historically grounded, and deeply human.
Mother As First Teacher, 2023
Mixed Media
39” x 28” x 28”
James Nazz
James Nazz is an American artist and illustrator recognized for his successful commercial illustration career and deeply personal sculptural works.
Nazz combines storytelling with a distinct visual language that invites reflection and emotional connection.
His illustrations have appeared in major publications such as Time Magazine, Newsweek, Forbes, Psychology Today, and Fortune.
In the 1980s, Nazz began experimenting with 3D dioramas - tabletop scenes that merged sculptural elements with photography, marking a shift in his creative direction.
While continuing his commercial work, Nazz discovered a new artistic medium by chance: eggshells. What started as a pile of discarded shells during his egg tempera painting process evolved into sculptural forms that now define much of his personal work.
These pieces explore universal themes of love, loss, family, transformation, and the quiet moments in between.
To Nazz, the egg represents life: fragile, familiar, and profoundly human. Through this humble object, he crafts powerful metaphors for emotional vulnerability and resilience. His sculptures encourage viewers to reflect on what breaks us, what heals us, and ultimately, what holds us together.
Canned Egg
Mixed media
6” x 5” x 3”
Failure
10” x 8” x 13”
7” x 7” x 12”
Success
Mixed media
10” x 8” x 13”
Athena Parella
Athena Parella creates drawings that speak through stillness. Working primarily in charcoal, she explores the emotional weight of memory, longing, and absence through carefully chosen objects and interior spaces.
Her images are quiet yet charged, suggesting presence without showing the body, and inviting viewers to lean into the tension between what is seen and what is felt.
Born in the United States in 1995, Parella holds a BFA in Studio Art and Theater from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She completed over 4,000 hours in a competitive scenic painting apprenticeship in New York, later working on Broadway sets, television productions, and now with the Metropolitan Opera.
Alongside her scenic work, she continues to build a strong studio practice that has gained national and international recognition.
In 2024, Parella completed a residency at NG Creative in France and was featured on The Flying Fruitbowl podcast.
Her drawings have received multiple juror awards and appeared in exhibitions across the U.S. and abroad. Through haunting, carefully observed compositions, she invites viewers to pause and reflect on the emotional echoes found in everyday forms.
Cavity, 2025
Charcoal on paper
16” x 14.5”
Memory House, 2025
Charcoal on paper
15” x 13”
Mud Cake, 2024
Graphite & pastel on paper
16” x 16”
JiHwan Park
JiHwan Park is a South Korean oil painter who finds meaning in life’s quiet, everyday moments.
Through soft brushstrokes and thoughtful scenes, his work brings overlooked experiences into focus - moments that are deeply personal yet strikingly familiar.
For Park, painting is not just an act of creation; it’s a way to start a conversation and build an emotional connection with the viewer.
Having studied at Idyllwild Arts Academy in California and at New York University, Park has developed a practice shaped by both Korean and American cultures.
His artistic journey has taken him through solo and group exhibitions across South Korea and the U.S., allowing him to connect with diverse audiences who find their own reflections in his art.
Park’s paintings focus on the simple things: a glance, a memory, a fleeting feeling. These moments often pass us by, but in his hands, they become powerful reminders of shared human experience. Inspired by personal encounters and everyday interactions, he uses art as a space for reflection, healing, and growth.
Glamorization Of Our Past, 2023 Oil on canvas
35.5” x 35.5”
Hidden Fracture, 2025 Oil and plaster on canvas
16” x 12.5”
Up All Night, 2022
Oil on canvas
35.5” x 35.5”
Anna Rendecka
Polish artist and art historian Anna Rendecka is gaining international recognition for her innovative approach to memory, loss, and identity through print-based installation.
A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Rendecka’s work is grounded in strong academic training and a personal, research-driven practice.
Her project Disappearing, a large-scale silkscreen installation on sticky notes adhered to foamed PVC, blurs the boundaries between printmaking, conceptual art, and installation. Using everyday materials in unexpected ways, she visualizes the fragility of memory through repetition, impermanence, and gradual erosion.
Rendecka’s work has been featured in major venues such as Zachęta Project Room, the Royal Łazienki Museum, and the International Poster Biennial. Her diploma project won the top prize at the 14th National Exhibition of the Best Diplomas in Gdańsk, and she continues to exhibit across Poland and internationally.
Rendecka often uses her own experiences to make reflective, minimalist works that talk about both collective and personal forms of disappearance. Her work often explores the emotional and psychological weight of neurocognitive disorders.
Disappearing, 2024 Silkscreen-printed on post-it sticky notes
70.5” x 49.5”
Kateryna Reznichenko
Liquid Dream, 2024 Oil & acrylic on canvas
36” x 60”
Saheed Art
African Queen
Charcoal pencil on FBB paper
50” x 36”
Louis Staffieri
Based in Everett, Massachusetts, Louis Staffieri is a 26-year-old Italian American artist working at the intersection of painting and assemblage.
His practice draws from the textures and realities of working-class life, using found wood, metal, fabric, and paper as a foundation for building raw, expressive compositions.
A recent graduate of Montserrat College of Art, Staffieri earned his BFA in painting along with the 2025 Painting Merit Award and Best in Show at the Senior Showcase. His work has been shown throughout the East Coast, and he is an active member of the New Hampshire Art Association and the Rocky Neck Art Colony.
Each piece Staffieri creates begins with observation of his environment, of himself, and of the social and economic forces that shape daily life. His materials are chosen not just for texture but for meaning. He takes discarded and everyday objects and transforms them into layered works that hold emotional significance and visual impact.
Staffieri’s art doesn’t aim to impress; rather it aims to connect. His goal is to expand his reach, grow through collaboration, and continue building work that speaks honestly to experience.
Found material on wood panel
(Pulp) Collage 00.16, 2024
60” x 30” x 1.5”
Nobuko Tsuruta
Nobuko Tsuruta is a Japanese fiber artist whose work blends quiet introspection with bold exploration.
Based in New York City, her art is rooted in the philosophy of SAORI weaving, an approach that embraces freedom, spontaneity, and the beauty of imperfection.
With each piece, she lets go of rigid structure, weaving not with tools but with her hands, allowing the fibers to guide her.
Originally from Kamakura, Japan, Tsuruta first worked in the fashion industry before studying haute couture in New York. Over time, her creative path shifted toward fiber art, where she found a deep connection between material and self.
Her process is entirely intuitive; she does not plan her pieces. Like a musician improvising a melody, she lets the moment shape the form.
Tsuruta’s work moves between woven textiles, sculpture, wearable art, and performance. She uses natural dyes, handmade silks, and even agar-coated fibers to push the boundaries of her medium.
Internationally recognized, Tsuruta’s art invites viewers to slow down, listen deeply, and discover something quietly powerful in the threads she leaves behind.
Before Transformation, 2024 Handwoven paper
58” x 35”
Charming Devil, 2022
Handwoven linen, silk, and cotton on canvas. The canvas is covered with hand-dyed antique kimono silk.
20” x 10”
Monochrome, 2015
Handwoven cotton on canvas 20” x 30”
Sharmeen Uqaili
Sharmeen Uqaili is a Pakistani American artist whose work blends sacred geometry, cultural memory, and personal spirituality into layered visual narratives.
Uqaili bridges her heritage with a contemporary lens, creating shaped wood panels painted in gouache and ink that act as portals into imagined, sacred spaces.
Her work draws from Islamic art, Persian textiles, and Sufi philosophy, yet resists traditional symmetry. Instead, she fractures and reorders patterns, allowing structure to shift into motion.
The result is meditative and tactile: paintings that speak to spiritual longing while remaining grounded in the everyday. Subtle human elements, like hands or feet, emerge in her compositions to tether celestial motifs to physical experience.
Having completed her MFA at Southern Methodist University in May 2025, Uqaili has exhibited across Texas, including at Dallas Contemporary and Craighead Green Gallery.
Her work offers an invitation to pause, to consider the thresholds between memory and belief, between the seen and the sensed.
Portal, 2023
Gouache, ink & ribbon on plywood 18” x 30”
The Void, 2024 Gouache on plywood 40” x 30”
Marcus Venegas
Marcus Venegas is a Mexican-American artist from Laredo, Texas, whose work explores the emotional weight of memory, identity, and queer experience.
Currently based in New York, he is pursuing his MFA at the New York Academy of Art after earning his BFA from the University of Texas at Austin. His work has been featured in international art publications such as Artistcloseup, International Art Market Magazine, and Friend of the Artist, and shown at respected venues including the Tribeca Ball and Visual Arts Center in Austin.
Venegas creates expressive, black-and-white drawings often layered with handwritten text. He draws from his personal history to examine themes of love, trauma, longing, and impermanence. His process includes the use of symbolic materials such as cannabis, cigarette ash, and even fire to emphasize emotional intensity and transience.
Influenced by psychological theories of memory, Venegas positions his art as both selfreflection and quiet activism.
His visual language is poetic but grounded, sincere but conceptually sharp. With each piece, he invites viewers into intimate, vulnerable spaces, turning personal storytelling into a broader reflection on identity and connection.
Deer in Headlights, 2025
Graphite, pastel, fire and cannabis ash on paper
18” x 18”
Helium, 2024
Pastel, graphite, fire, cannabis ash on paper 30” x 22”
Verleos
Eddy
Eddy Verloes is a Belgian photographer, curator, and director of Gallery Louise Linthout in Brussels. Known for his poetic and symbolic imagery, Verloes creates visual narratives that blend realism with surrealism.
Trained in photography at CVO Louvain, Verloes approaches everyday moments with a spontaneous yet thoughtful eye, turning the ordinary into scenes filled with emotion and meaning.
His images often reflect a quiet sense of wonder, exploring themes of solitude, connection, and human vulnerability. His celebrated series Losing Our Minds has received widespread distinction and multiple international awards.
Verloes has exhibited in over 20 countries and earned top honors from the Siena Creative Photo Awards, Muse Photography Awards, and Black and White Spider Awards.
In recent works, he explores traditional photographic printing techniques such as gum bichromate and cyanotype, adding a timeless, textured quality to his images.
Nostalgia, 2024 Hahnemüller photo rag
40” x 60”
Ramona Zordini
Ramona Zordini is an Italian visual artist and photographer based in Italy. Her work is rooted in personal experience, often unfolding through a quiet tension between vulnerability and control.
Zordini builds her practice through a mix of analog and tactile processes, combining photography with cyanotype, sewing, engraving, and drawing. This layered approach allows her to break away from the traditional frame, expanding the image into something physical and intimate.
Her work has been shown in major Italian museums such as Museo S. Giulia and MACS in Catania, and featured in Hi-Fructose Magazine, Analog Forever, and other international publications.
Zordini’s projects are often shaped by autobiographical experiences, offering raw, intimate narratives about family, loss, trauma, and healing. Her award-winning series was recently recognized by the Fine Art Photography Awards and the Experimental Photo Festival in Barcelona.
Zordini’s cyanotypes, often layered and pierced, speak to the complexity of human experience, holding stories of pain, survival, and rebirth.
Experimental Portrait 15, 2025
Collage, Coffee-tinged single-color cyanotype layered on Green tea and coffee-tinged carbonated single-color cyanotype.
8” x 5.5”
Gallery hopping in New York
Agora Gallery is located within the heart of the Chelsea Arts District with available hours from Tuesday – Saturday 11 am - 6 pm.
Opening receptions are held once a month, giving you the opportunity to meet the artists and view a variety of original artwork. Visit our website and subscribe to our mailing list to stay up to date on all events and happenings – www.Agora-Gallery.com/mailinglist
