New Visionary Magazine: Contemporary Art + Professional Development - Issue 15

NEW VISIONARY

CONTEMPORARY ART + PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Our mission at Visionary Art Collective is to uplift emerging artists through magazine features, exhibitions, podcast interviews, and our mentorship programs.

Contact + Submission Guidelines

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We post all submission opportunities to our website and social media pages.

EDITOR’S NOTE

VICTORIA J. FRY Founder of Visionary

Art Collective +

Editor in Chief of New Visionary Magazine

As summer arrives with its vibrant energy, we’re excited to share this special issue with you.

We’re honored to have Etta Harshaw, founder of Harsh Collective, as the curator for this edition. Etta’s dedication to supporting emerging artists in New York City and beyond inspires us, and partnering with her has been a true joy. Her bold spirit and fearless vision perfectly reflects the spirit of our community.

We’re also thrilled to participate again in the Affordable Art Fair this September alongside Warnes Contemporary, our Brooklyn gallery that opened two years ago. This milestone reminds us that dedication and belief in art’s transformative power are at the heart of all we do.

As you explore this issue, we hope you feel the momentum of artists who continue to break boundaries and shape the future of contemporary art. Every step forward contributes to a larger story of resilience, innovation, and hope.

Thank you for being part of this journey. Together, we’re building not just a community, but a legacy.

Meet the Visionary Team

VICTORIA J. FRY she/her Editor in

Chief

Victoria J. Fry is a New York City-based painter, educator, curator, and the founder of Visionary Art Collective and New Visionary Magazine. Fry’s mission is to uplift artists through magazine features, exhibitions, podcast interviews, and mentorship. She earned her MAT from Maine College of Art & Design and her BFA from the School of Visual Arts.

victoriajfry.com victoriajfry

EMMA

HAPNER she/her

Director of Business Administration + Writer

Emma Hapner is a New York City based artist and educator working primarily in oil on canvas to create figurative works that reclaim the language of classical painting from a woman’s perspective. She graduated from the New York Academy of Art with her MFA in 2022.

www.emmahapner.com emmagracehapner

VALERIE AUERSPERG she/her Graphic Designer + Artist Liaison

Valerie Auersperg is an artist, illustrator and designer living in Auckland, New Zealand.

She describes her work as a dose of optimism with a sprinkle of escapism. When she is not painting on canvases or walls she works as a graphic designer and illustrator for companies in New Zealand, Switzerland, Austria and the U.S.

valerism.com iamvalerism

BRITTANY M. REID they/them

Writer

Brittany M. Reid is a visual artist, creative strategist, and educator based in Upstate NY. Reid’s work explores the wide spectrum of nuanced human emotion through paper collages and acrylic paintings. When working with clients, they bridge the gap between art and technology, helping artists build digital fluency and develop sustainable creative practices.

brittanymreid.com brittany.m.reid

CHUN PARK they/them

Writer

Chunbum Park, also known as Chun, is an artist/writer, who received their MFA in Fine Arts Studio from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2022. Park’s main area of interest or focus lies within figurative painting, but they are also enthusiastic about all types of art, including performance and photography. Park wishes to promote emerging and mid-career artists who pioneer strong, original visions and ideas.

www.chunbumpark.com chun.park.7

SUSO BARCIELA he/him

Writer

Suso Barciela, an art historian and critic, specializes in curating and coordinating exhibitions. He was trained at the University of Seville and the NODE Center in Berlin. His expertise in art criticism and cultural dissemination is reflected in his collaborations with national and international magazines. He has worked with international artists and is renowned for his blog “El Espacio Aparte” where he analyzes art and exhibitions in Seville and Madrid. elespacioaparte.com forms.follow.function

ARTIST JENNIFER AGRICOLA MOJICA

Things Kept Falling (detail), oil on canvas, 30x40in

VISIONARY INTERVIEWS

As part of our ongoing interview series, we chat with artists, curators, entrepreneurs, authors, and educators. Through these interviews we can gain a deeper understanding of the contemporary art world.

Balancing Art, Business, and Vision: Inside the Evolving World of PxP Contemporary and Alicia Puig

www.pxpcontemporary.com pxpcontemporary

www.aliciapuig.com

In this candid follow-up interview, PxP Contemporary co-founder shares the rewards and realities of running a nomadic, online-first gallery in today’s shifting art landscape. From celebrating over six years of connecting collectors and artists to navigating the ongoing challenges of sustainable growth, she reflects on the power of adaptability in creative entrepreneurship. She also discusses what makes an artist’s submission stand out, how storytelling and curation intersect in her practice, and what’s next for PxP as it expands to new cities and fairs through 2026.

PxP Contemporary has grown significantly since your last interview in issue 2 of New Visionary Magazine. What have been some of the most rewarding - and most challenging - moments of running a nomadic gallery in today’s art landscape?

The rewarding parts are quite simple really. I’m grateful that we surpassed the five year milestone as a small business and that even now, after celebrating year six, seeing collectors connect with our artists hasn’t lost its magic. I still get excited about every sale!

In terms of challenges, I would say the one I’m constantly grappling with is growing in a sustainable way. I want to do more fairs and in-person shows for my artists, but the costs keep rising, and I’m always working to optimize and expand our online presence, but that also doesn’t come without time, effort, and its own expenses. It’s a delicate balance not to stretch myself too thin.

You’ve served as a juror and guest curator for dozens of platforms. What makes a submission stand out to you when you’re reviewing work across such a broad range of styles and contexts?

I don’t have much new to add here - great images, a clear creative voice, and abiding by the submission guidelines will put you ahead of around 50% of the other submissions. The rest is taste; for me, I like to see something new to me or when an artist has truly perfected their craft.

Now several years into co-authoring both The Complete Smartist Guide and The Creative Business Handbook, how has your thinking about creative entrepreneurship

evolved? Are there any new lessons you’d add today?

Overall, the main points of both books are absolutely still relevant. I read one of the first chapters I ever wrote just recently and the advice I gave then is still what I’d say today.

Having seen many art businesses close in the years since writing both books, I’d talk about how big the decision to venture into entrepreneurship really is. You need patience as much as persistence, gratitude as much as grit, and adaptability as much as creativity. While I believe anyone can do it, it’s not for everyone. It’s not worth it if you’re going to burn out or be unhappy. Additionally, we discuss growth and scaling, but I’d go into what to do when the

SHIRI PHILLIPS , Bold Beauty, acrylic and glitter on painted frame, 16.5x16.5in

market is slow (both practical advice and mindset tips!).

PxP Contemporary has a strong mission of accessibility - for both emerging artists and new collectors. How do you see the online gallery model shifting the traditional power structures of the art world, and what do you think still needs to change?

It’s been exciting to see growth in the online gallery space and that the nomadic model is now accepted at major art fairs. The market reflects this shift too with online sales increasing every year. However, I still believe in the need for greater transparency overall and more diversity.

You’re deeply involved in both writing and curating. How do you balance the voice of a storyteller with the eye of a galleristand do the two ever conflict or complement each other in unexpected ways?

I think more often than not they work hand in hand. But I would also admit that although I use bits of each in the other discipline, generally my writing and curating work are done separately.

What’s next for PxP Contemporary - and for you personally? Are there any upcoming projects, exhibitions, or collaborations you’re especially excited about heading into 2026?

We are exhibiting for the first time at fairs in Reno this September and Boston in October. Then in 2026, we’ll have an upcoming show in Philadelphia and hopefully a few fairs in new cities as well.

Ekaterina Popova and Alicia Puig at SuperFair

INGRID V. WELL , Let It Be Easy, oil on panel, 6x6in

Mayowa Nwadike on Memory, Movement, and Making Space Through ArT

www.mayowanwadike.com mayowanwadike

Multidisciplinary artist Mayowa Nwadike opens up about the themes behind his debut solo exhibition What Is, What Was, What Could Be at Warnes Contemporary. He reflects on time as both subject and teacher, the intimacy of light and material, and the layering of personal history with collective emotion. From his roots in Nigeria to his evolving practice in New York, Nwadike discusses the power of honest storytelling, the beauty of creative partnerships, and his vision for connecting deeply across cultures, mediums, and moments.

Your recent solo exhibition, What Is, What Was, What Could Be, at Warnes Contemporary in Brooklyn, presents a deeply reflective title. Can you share the inspiration behind the show and what themes you explored through the work?

The title comes from a question I ask with every painting: “What is, what was, what could be?”

For my debut solo show, I wanted to have a conversation with time as a teacher, bringing together different timeframes and noticing what reoccurs to better understand the present. The past is gone, the future uncertain, so I focus on the now: the only space we can control.

The show also offers insight into the fundamentals of my practice: how I process lived experience, evoke emotions, and embody human connection through the subjects, materials, and techniques I choose. The works explore intimacy, its absence, and the longing to connect - especially in a city like New York. I layered memories of Nigeria onto this new backdrop, weaving themes of spirituality, masculinity, sacred femininity, fashion, the immigrant experience, and family.

Where You Go, I’ll Go, acrylic and charcoal on panel, 24x30in

Above all, I wanted honesty - a place where nostalgia meets reality and makes room for all the emotions in between.

As the first represented artist at Warnes Contemporary, how has this new partnership begun to shape or support your path as an artist, even in these early months?

I’m grateful for the team, the support, and the belief they’ve always had in me, even before formal representation. It’s rare and beautiful to have people who advocate for you so you can focus on your number one purpose as an artist: to create.

People have said it’s like a match made in heaven, and I couldn’t agree more. We’re both yearning for growth, so it’s easy to dream out loud with them and feel seen. Communication is everything in this partnership. We plan projects together, share goals, and push each other forward. That kind of support doesn’t just shape your path - it gives you the confidence to keep walking it.

I’m excited because we’re just scratching the surface of what’s possible.

You’ll be exhibiting at the Affordable Art Fair New York City with Warnes Contemporary again this September. What can fairgoers expect to see from you, and what excites you most about being part of a major art fair like AAF?

Expect truth. Expect to feel something.

I’m experimenting more, especially with light. Lately, I’ve had a deep love for it, and in these new works, I’m pushing how light shapes presence and emotion. I want you to feel like you’re in the room with the subjectmaybe even in their position. I’m also working on wood panel for the first time, which brings a whole new texture and intimacy to the paintings, especially the ones that are recreations of old works.

In terms of what excites me most, my first time at AAF felt surreal. People welcomed me with open arms. So to come back and show my growth, to start new conversations, and introduce upcoming ideas - that means a lot. Regardless of where people are from, we all share moments like the ones in my paintings. That’s what excites me: knowing the work will get to speak across all different identities.

You’ve exhibited across the United States, from The African American Museum in Dallas to The Whatcom Museum in Washington. How do different regional audiences respond to your work, and do you adjust your narrative or presentation based on location?

There’s been such kindness in how people receive my work. I’m always grateful to learn what it makes them feel.

That said, I don’t tailor the subject matter to where I’m showing. This is because the elements of my work are

something everyone can bite into, regardless of where they come from. They’re universal truths, and I want to stay true to the substance.

What does change with location are the conversations surrounding the work. They shift depending on the viewer’s experience. Some relate because they, or someone they love, are directly impacted. For others, it becomes a point of reflection or a reference for the future. Regardless, nobody is shielded from these conversations.

At the end of the day, it’s less about geography and more about connection. I paint what’s present, what’s real. And if that truth resonates with someone, I’ve done my job.

Your multidisciplinary approach includes painting, film, and mixed media. How do these mediums influence one another in your process - and do you see yourself expanding into new forms in the future?

Painting, film, and mixed media are all connected for me. I can’t separate one from the next.

A painting shows a still moment, but a film shows the before and after. With film, you’re painting scenarios, and with painting, you’re curating a scene like you would directing a film.

There’s a lot of behind-the-scenes staging, movement, scents, etc., that feed into my work. For example, in my painting Can We Reschedule?, I had the subject prep the dinner table as if they were actually setting up for a dinner date. So when they were portraying being stood up, the emotion felt real. That’s what I want to capture: a full experience.

I also collect sounds obsessively. If I weren’t doing this,

Ndey Christi III, acrylic and charcoal on panel, 16x16in

I’d probably make music. Eventually, I want to score my paintings - curate them to sound - so you not only see the work, you hear it and feel it.

As a self-taught artist from Nigeria now based in New York, how do your cultural roots and lived experiences shape your work today? How do you balance personal narrative with broader social commentary in your art?

It’s important for artists to reflect the times and their environment, so my work is an open-entry journal. It’s a reflection of my childhood in Nigeria, the conversations I grew up hearing, and the roles people in the community played. Then, when I moved to New York, those new

experiences naturally became a part of the stories I tell, too.

I blend nostalgia from home with the reality and lessons of now. Themes like religion, gender roles, and immigration live in my work - not just through critique, but with nuance. Even when a painting appears serious, it often holds layers of humor that soften the weight.

While my works are based on personal experience, they’re not just about me, because these experiences are not isolated. The things I’ve gone through - whether joyful or painful - mirror what others have felt in their own way. They intersect, and my canvas becomes a shared conversation and reflection.

A Closeness, acrylic and charcoal on panel, 16x16in

Layers of Life: Jennifer Agricola Mojica on Painting Through Motherhood and Change

jenniferagricolamojica.com

jenniferagricolamojica

Jennifer Agricola Mojica reflects on how motherhood, grief, and place shape her layered, fragmented paintings. Drawing on her sculptural background, she builds works through physical layers that mirror the complexities of time, identity, and transformation. Evolving symbols and a process that moves from chaos to calm reveal an embrace of unpredictability as a path to emotional truth.

Your paintings often explore fragmented time, shifting perspectives, and layered perceptions. Can you share more about how your personal experiences as a mother influence the visual language and structure of your work?

Being a mother has completely transformed how I see and create. My sense of self is constantly shifting - some days I feel like I have it all figured out, other days I’m completely lost in the chaos. That fluidity finds its way into everything I paint.

When my kids were little, I was their everything. I carried them in slings against my chest, and I genuinely believed I could protect them from anything. I had all the answers, or at least I thought I did. But as they’ve grown, I’ve had to learn how to let go, and that’s been this incredible mix of heartbreak and liberation.

All of those fragments - the protecting, the letting go, those precious little memories that feel like they’re slipping away - they all show up in my work. In “Do You Want to Go or Don’t You,” for example, there are these two figures confronting the moment of separation, and they’re standing in this landscape that keeps shifting and breaking apart. You’ve got broken pots, plants that are simultaneously growing and dying,and these different planes that don’t quite line up. It’s messy and tense, just like that feeling of holding onto pieces of their little lives while also trying to rediscover who I am beyond just being “mom.”

The fragmented perspectives in my paintings - they’re not just a stylistic choice. They’re how motherhood

Do You Want to Go or Don’t You?, Oil on Paper. 28x35in

actually feels. You’re looking at your child, but you’re also remembering them as a baby, and simultaneously imagining who they’ll become. It’s all happening at once, layered on top of each other.

In your artist statement, you describe your process as beginning with disruption and ending in stillness. How does this rhythm of chaos and calm manifest in your daily studio practice?

I begin paintings with gestural marks and color, telling myself most will be covered up - no attachment, open to what happens. It’s like basketball practice, not playing to win but warming up. My intention is to put down color and marks without judgment, receiving shapes as they come, like starting a conversation without knowing where it will lead.

This becomes exciting but chaotic. Through the chaos, I reflect on fluid movement between abstraction and figuration. Marks, shapes, and lines fill the canvas, but as I edit, omit, scrape back, and rediscover under-layers, I build structure and organization. I begin ordering the chaos with calm intention.

Moving from chaotic marks to orderly figures creates a continuum emerging from my psyche. It’s about the search itself - what appears helps me build the story. It becomes manageable, transforming into something beautiful and unexpected.

This excites me because I never know where I’ll land or what will emerge, allowing me to listen to shapes as they appear, staying open to mistakes and unexpected moments of grace.

Houses, birds, and plants are recurring elements in your work that straddle between realism and abstraction. What do these symbols mean to you personally, and how have their meanings evolved over time?

These objects began as a collection of still-life items I’d gathered for my students over the years. Working alongside the students in informal studies, I developed deep attachments to these familiar forms that appeared each semester like old friends.

During COVID, when I brought the objects to my studio for online teaching, they naturally migrated into my paintings as a visual vocabulary for protection, safety, and loss. The houses provided compositional structure but were often fragmented, disintegrating into negative spaces - reflecting how our understanding of safety was crumbling. We were confined to our homes, isolated from human connection.

Plants became particularly meaningful during lockdown. Despite good intentions, I couldn’t keep houseplants alive, yet I painted this cycle of life and death, which felt deeply connected to the world’s unfolding tragedy.

The birds held the most profound significance - they represented the souls lost at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. As a mother of a child the same age, I painted birds and broken planes to process unimaginable grief.

Now, birds and houses are gradually leaving my work, but flora remains essential, exploring structural ideas in new ways.

You’ve worked in both painting and sculpture, with formal training in each. How does your sculptural background inform the way you approach the surface and depth of your paintings?

Conceptually, I approach painting with the same mindset I developed in sculpture, where process and time were essential elements. Whether creating installations or sculptures, I was always considering how layers interact and build upon each other.

This layering approach directly translates to my paintings. I build up underlying shapes, lines, and colors that get revealed and referenced through subsequent layers of paint. Each new application doesn’t completely cover what came beforeinstead, it creates a dialogue between the surface and what lies beneath. These accumulated layers function like skin, holding and containing the painting’s history while allowing glimpses of its foundation to show through.

The sculptural thinking helps me understand paint not just as color, but as material with physical presence and weight. I’m constantly aware of how each mark contributes to the painting’s overall structure and depth, building the work gradually rather than approaching it as a flat surface to be covered.

April, oil on paper. 16x12in

In Vast and Varied: Texan Women Painters at Ruiz-Healy Art, you’re exhibiting alongside a dynamic group of Texasbased artists. What does it mean to you to be included in a show that highlights the diversity and depth of women painters in Texas, and how does your work engage with or challenge regional identity?

Being included in “Vast and Varied” with these amazing Texas women artists is such an honor. When I moved to San Antonio twenty years ago, I was blown away by the culture and community here. There’s this incredible richness to the place, and diversity isn’t just welcomedit’s genuinely celebrated. You see connections to heritage and identity everywhere.

Each artist in this exhibition brings their own story into this whole idea of what it means to be from Texas. Through the way they make marks, their color choicesthey’re all exploring place, memory, and all that nostalgia that’s part of living here. For me, it’s been San Antonio’s vibrant colors and thoughtful pace of life that have really gotten into my work and shaped how I approach painting.

There’s something about this city - the warmth feels authentic, not forced. People deeply care about family and friends. They make real connections even when they’re different from each other. And the slow pace lets you actually reflect and build meaningful relationships. I

think these women painters capture all of that through their distinctly female perspectives, showing what it’s really like to be here while pushing against any narrow ideas about what Texas art should look like.

Your statement speaks to embracing disarray with compassion - a powerful idea, especially within the themes of grief, vulnerability, and maternal instinct. How do you navigate emotional honesty in your work while maintaining enough distance to create?

Painting is how I work through all of these emotions and experiences. When I’m actually painting, my mind gets quiet, and it becomes this almost spiritual space where I can sit with these thoughts. It’s like walking into a meditation room where I can be present in the moment and let the act of painting become my focus.

There can be sometimes a lot of emotions to processsometimes very little, but I maintain separation from any predetermined outcomes. When making work, I’m not focused on constructing a narrative - I’m invested in the process of painting itself. My choices aren’t logical; I try not to arrive at paintings through reason alone. I’m operating through intuition and sensibility, searching for moments that feel right to me. This is where I can navigate those emotions authentically.

The Sixteen Dollar Cake, oil on canvas. 36x50in

Graffiti, Grit & Growth: The Art of Elli “Joshua” Ramos

www.therealelliv.com/about-5 therealelli.v

Bronx-born artist Elli “Joshua” Ramos draws on graffiti culture, his time in the Marine Corps, and an evolving curiosity for new mediums to create bold, emotionally charged work. Blending street energy with fine art traditions, his practice bridges clarity and complexity. In this interview, Ramos reflects on his influences, the recurring character DORKFACE, and his commitment to pushing the boundaries of both medium and message.

Graffiti culture in the Bronx clearly influenced you - how do you see that legacy evolving within your current fine art experiments?

There are elements of graffiti that are bold, and others that are subtle. I like to take parts of graffiti that help me convey my message - whether it’s the saturation of a color in a painting or the line work in a rug that I tuft. The variety of mediums I’ve used throughout many pieces of work also comes from graffiti. Graffiti artists use markers, pens, spray cans, and more, so when I create different series, I like to use multiple mediums to keep a variety of textures throughout my art. I plan to continue learning new ways to merge graffiti and fine art elements to forge new creations.

When viewers encounter your work, what emotional reaction or connection do you hope to evoke?

Being raised in the Bronx, I was exposed to things early on that I probably shouldn’t have seen. Like many others who grew up where I did, we struggled in different areas - especially emotional intelligence. It wasn’t until I grew older that I began to understand these things through life experience. Now, I try to embody a particular emotion in every piece I create, to help spread the understanding that it’s okay to feel scared, happy, mad, sad, embarrassed - whatever life throws at you. Overall, I just want viewers to feel something when they look at my work. Whether they get upset, sad, or even laugh, any emotional reaction makes me feel like I’ve done my job as an artist.

Untitled, oil on canvas, 36x36in

Elli V, oil on linen, 51x40in

How did your time in the Marine Corps shape your perspective as an artist, if at all?

From the moment I entered Boot Camp to my last months in the Marine Corps, people asked me to put my skills to use. At Boot Camp, drill instructors had me create banners and placard designs for them. When I lived in Japan, I was asked to paint a mural for a lounge where Marines would hang out. On the last base where I was stationed, I created an illustration one night (while on duty) that enforced a policy - and I hear it’s still there to this day. My time in service reminded me that I was an artist at heart and that I needed to return to a field where I could be creative. I didn’t enjoy the job I had as a Marine, so halfway through my enlistment I decided I would get out at the end of my contract and pursue something art-related.

In your portfolio, you blend bold graphic simplicity with complex emotional narratives. How do you manage the tension between clarity and complexity in your visuals?

Throughout my different series, I focus on certain elements that stay consistent. In my DORKFACE profile paintings, I use bright, harmonious colors and rushed linework, like a graffiti artist working in the middle of the night, paranoid that someone is watching. In the more cartoon-based “abuse” paintings, I use heavier paint, cleaner lines, and textured surfaces to convey the weight of the abuse - like a cartoon character getting hit on the head with a mallet. I try to find a balance that feels consistent with the message I’m trying to portray in each painting.

What would you say to your 16-year-old self who first sketched your personal characterization, DORKFACE?

I would tell my 16-year-old self to keep creating. Life caused me to step away from art early on, but thankfully, throughout the years, I would always sketch a DORKFACE on a sticky note or in a notebook, and people would instantly know it was mine. It grew from a basic graffiti character, made just to fit in with others, into a tool for expressing emotion and creating recognition. My inner child is happy knowing that DORKFACE still lives.

Dorkface 2, acrylic yarn, 54x30in

On Edge, pastel and acrylic on stretched paper, 36x48in

VISIONARY WORDS

In this section we invite contributing writers to share their perspectives on contemporary art, education, and other notes of interest related to visual arts.

Lessons on Creativity from Children: A Series Exploration (PArt 3)

written by Brittany M. Reid

This is Part Three in a series exploring creative concepts from a child’s perspective. In this edition, we’re discussing the importance of access to art programs and museums at an early age.

Instead of a formal Q&A, my 9 year-old daughter shared her musings around how museums can shape a young person’s experience in meaningful ways:

A GLIMPSE INTO OTHER WORLDS

Outside of contemporary or modern art, museums also contain ancient artifacts and a way to access rich world history. Behind the glass, children can glimpse into cultures beyond their own.

“I think back and picture the past, with all the ancient Egyptian people, and think about what they used those things for. I think about how people were using it and if they were bringing it to pyramids and stuff like that.”

ART YOU CAN TOUCH (SOMETIMES)

Often thought of as quiet or formal environments, many museums now offer interactive exhibits and hands-on activities for children (and adults) that invite touch and movement as part of the learning process.

“Once, we got to weave yarn into a little square and we got to hang it up wherever we wanted – we all made one, of course. And everybody got to see it. I liked it because we got to do it with a bunch of other people, too. That felt fun.”

IDEAS TO TAKE HOME

Kids often leave excited to try something new in their own work at home. Museums inspire young minds – whether it’s experimenting with colors, trying out a new medium, or whipping up an entirely new project.

“My favorite picture, Galaxy [by Fritz Trautmann], I like because I see all kinds of shapes, all kinds of colors, tints. I usually look at a picture and when we observe it more and more, I get an idea for a project later.”

WHERE ART IS CELEBRATED

Viewing work displayed with care conveys a powerful message: creativity is worth the effort and artists are appreciated.

“It makes me feel proud for the people who did that because they probably worked very hard to do that, and it makes me feel like I want to do that when I’m older. I want to get my picture in there.”

A PLACE TO SLOW DOWN

Low stimulation environments are becoming increasingly difficult to come by due to our reliance on screens. Museums offer kids a place to slow down and practice reflection and critical thinking skills, both invaluable tools for developing brains.

“I usually picture myself in there, like I’m one of the shapes, or like I’m the people or things in the art. And I think, ‘Ooh, what would I do in there?’ I imagine I’m in the picture. Sometimes the shape, or the squiggle.”

D’SHON MCCARTHY , 11, acrylic, oil and paper on canvas, 60x72n

Maliyamungu Gift Muhande at LOT-EK

written by Chunbum Park

Maliyamungu Gift Muhande, a Congolese-born woman artist, becomes strongly visible at her solo exhibition (titled, “In Between”) at LOT-EK, an experimental and progressive architecture firm based in NYC.

Muhande is Congolese at heart but carries the complexity of a foreigner who lived in South Africa and the US. She clings onto the memories and the feelings of her early life in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which underwent a civil war. The questions of her own identity and origin are amplified by her swimming into the unfamiliar waters, and they make their imprints on her paintings, which are conceptual, community-based, and performative in nature.

The exhibition space, LOT-EK, is in fact an architecture firm, a brainchild of Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano. It is adorned with displays of various architectural models above, towards the ceiling, and painted all yellow or black. It is a long, narrow space with a very long set of tables in the center, joined by red chairs dotted with circular holes, stationing computers for the staff.

Examining her work, such as “By a Thread” (2023, 2025),” we realize that Muhande’s paintings are mainly figurative in nature, despite the high level of abstraction. In this particular work, we see a loosely experimental and fluidically formulated sea of turquoise or cyan blue, in which a mermaid or whale-like form swims and emerges. The artist achieves the high level of abstraction through the intentional denial of specific detail and the process of imprinting through touches of her own body. Her body applies paint to the surface of the material (which is paper) in the fleeting moments of her performance, which is equally important as the final image.

Often in Muhande’s work, the torso and the appendages carry the most recognizable and readable forms, while the head is more abstracted, becoming almost mask-like. This facial, mask-like pattern is also observed in the multi-piece installation (70 pieces total, arranged in a 5 by 14 format and sized, 8.5. x 11 inches), titled, “Fragments of Gift” (2025). The Congolese people consider their masks a very important part of their national heritage and culture, which is attested by the fact that the Congolese 50 franc bill features the “Mwana Pwo” mask, which historically carried the ideals of femininity for Chokwe People.

To make the paintings, the artist soaks her body, including her arms, hands, legs, and breasts, with colored paint, and she moves across the paper, making contact with the surface. The entire process is highly performative and conceptual in nature, in which the artist’s bodily

movement in imprinting the image is equally important. Her body substitutes the traditional tool of painting in the West and the East, which is the brush. Her body is rich with the history of her own experiences, including the short bursts of energy representing trauma and the long subsequent periods of healing, which follow the moments of trauma.

These two processes or aspects of her identity formation, akin to addition and subtraction, or drawing and erasing, may be metaphorically represented by the explosive imprints of color (made of paint) and the long, wavy and vibrating linework made with pencil or pen. Both healing and drawing take a long time and can be read or depicted in a linear fashion, while trauma often takes place as a burst of energy due to

psychological impact. Muhande sublimates the negative, doubtful, and often hurtful nature of her trauma into a beautiful expression of color and form in her paintings. She envisions her life as being greater than the sum of her trauma, for each of which she takes the time to heal and mature even stronger and wiser. The most ornate kind of line work can be seen and appreciated in “Entry to Remembrance” (2022). In this work, a centrally-positioned angel-like figure stands tall with her arms resting on her hip, and she has a beautiful woman’s body in the tone of milk chocolate or blonde espresso coffee.

The moment Muhande’s body transfers the fresh paint onto the raw paper constitutes the release of the energy from the events in her life that have been stored and inscribed on the surface of her body.

It is the trace of the 3-dimensional body of Muhande captured onto a 2-dimensional surface (of the paper) that gives clues to her being and existence. She rejects the literal or academic depiction of herself and her body, in which she would be painted and rendered in terms of her eye as an eye, her mouth as a mouth, and her nose as a nose. What she instead goes for is a series of imprints that are made in the fleeting moments of her performance. By removing the recognizable traces of her own features in these colored stamps, Muhande strives for a shared, universal identity for all people who have been other-ized or seen as the other from the Western gaze. Simultaneously, the erasure of recognizable features in her figures denies room for objectification or ethnographic gaze from the people of the colonialist and the neo-colonialist institutions.

The nature of her painting suggests her declaration of not only her own existence and identity, but also her power and will to live and thrive. The world, which is neo-colonialist in nature, may have turned her away countless times, rendering her invisible, but she returns with something beautiful to share with the world. What she has to express, her art, vehemently defies and rejects this unjust and misplaced rendition of her within the framework of neo-colonialism. She paints about Congo, her childhood home and motherland. Her work does not point to Paris, London, or New York, like the other artists who have bought into the lie that these European cities are the center of the world.

Her work’s character is full of life and love because she is full of life and love; in real life, she speaks and moves as if she is a person free of oppression - because she is stronger than oppression. Although she is aware of the forces of neocolonialism, Eurocentrism, and racism, she is not poisoned by its hateful and negative character. She relies on her own art to transform this negative energy into a beautiful expression about life, struggle, and triumph.

The importance of her body and the moments of contact between her body and the paper in Muhande’s current artistic practice suggests two important philosophical references. Michael Foucault and Judith Butler proposed the idea of the inscription of events on the surface of the body, which applies to the political nature of tattoos but also shaping of identities by the traumatic events that accumulate historically and politically, leaving impacts on the body.

Her work may be influenced by Yves Klein (French male artist), Janine Antoni (Bahamian-born American woman artist), and Davida Allen (Australian woman artist), the artists who came before her in painting with their bodies. While there may not be many new ideas or approaches left to “discover” in art, the stark contrast remains between the western-nature of these predecessors and the other-ed nature and the Congolese identity of Muhande. The negative impacts of colonialism and neo-colonialism are deeply entrenched in the West and around the world even in the status quo, and the sociallyconstructed hierarchical pyramid (powered by the ideologies of racialization and racism) places white man at the very top, with the white woman coming in at a close second. Muhande, like the other women of color, reject and condemn this construct of fictional hierarchy, which has resulted in violent trauma on their bodies, even resulting in events inscribed on their DNA. A close ally and reference might be Ryan Cosbert, who makes powerful (black/ethnic) abstraction based on the patterns of DNA and warping of chromosomes, suggesting that the impacts of the Atlantic slave trade linger to this day on the DNA of Africans and African Americans.

Where will Muhande go from here? The metaphor of the body in the water is ultimately about liberation; when a Congoleseborn woman artist like Muhande wins, we all win. Instead of getting carried away by the image of the white male superman, we should all have faith in a person like Muhande, who is a young rising star born from struggles, destined for triumph.

Entry to Remembrance, tempera and pen on paper mounted to wood, 42.5x96in

The Feminine Phenomenon of the Unconventional Self-Portrait

written by Emma Hapner

In this day and age, more than ever, self-worth is often shaped by the image we project to the public. Whether through a carefully posed selfie, a polished LinkedIn headshot, or a curated online persona, the modern selfportrait has expanded far beyond paint and canvas. It is often rendered in pixels and broadcast instantly to a global audience. For women artists throughout history, however, the self-portrait has always been more than a simple likeness. It is a deliberate act of authorship.

Frida Kahlo once famously said, “I am my own muse, I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to know better.” Her words express the radical potential of the self-portrait for women. It is a space where the artist, rather than society, decides how she will be seen. Kahlo’s own self-portraits refused the idea of the face as a passive surface. Instead, they became layered self-mythologies that fused reality with symbolism, and vulnerability with strength.

French painter Inès Longevial embodies this spirit of self-authorship in oil paintings and drawings that turn the female form into a layered landscape. Born in 1990 in Agen, she discovered painting as a child, influenced by artists like Picasso, Matisse, and Georgia O’Keeffe. Today, her self-portraits emerge mostly from memory, informed by a deeply personal archive of textures, forms, and colors. Skin becomes a woven surface in her hands, rendered in swatches of ultramarine, mauve, crimson, and honey light. Working with urgency, she often completes a painting in a single sitting, allowing instinct and flow to dictate composition. Whether depicting a downturned gaze, a blooming shoulder blade, or a face punctuated with allegorical symbols, Longevial resists the viewer’s urge to define or consume her. Her work operates at the threshold between the seen and the felt, presenting the body as both intimate terrain and autonomous entity.

In her luminous and hyperrealistic paintings, Sasha Gordon often casts herself as the central figure, using her own body as an unorthodox avatar for psychological exploration.

Working in translucent layers of oil paint and electric hues, she transforms personal likeness into a vessel for emotional complexity. Gordon draws from art historical traditions of portraiture and self-portraiture while infusing them with humor, fantasy, and sharp commentary on representation. As a queer Asian American woman, she uses her work to examine identity, intimacy, vulnerability, and the politics of the gaze, often addressing the intersections of racial prejudice and self-image. In recent paintings, she appears mid-transformation, becoming animal, botanical, or

geological forms and enacting the objectification of bodies while challenging the taboos and aesthetic conventions that shape them. Through these images, Gordon probes alienation and belonging, dismantling the social norms that attempt to confine her.

These artists, along with others redefining the self-portrait, are carrying the tradition into bold new territory. They create works that are unconventional, subversive, and rich with personal meaning. Through symbolic distortions, dreamlike juxtapositions, and unexpected materials, they present themselves as multifaceted beings who serve as their own muses.

These works reject the polished perfection of digital culture. They embrace imperfection, contradiction, and transformation, showing that the self is not fixed but everchanging. By doing so, these artists reclaim a space that has long been shaped by external expectations and turn it into a site for self-exploration and self-determination.

The unconventional feminine self-portrait is more than a mirror. It is a manifesto that declares a woman’s image belongs first to herself, and that the act of creating it is both a form of inquiry and a bold statement of identity, a concept that is essential, now more than ever.

SASHA GORDON , Like Froth, oil on canvas, 60x48in

Refuge and Prison

written by Suso Barciela

The painter’s studio is a strange place. There, among unfinished canvases and stained brushes, emerges a contradiction that I’m certain every creator knows in their own bones: the same refuge that sometimes saves us also distances us from the world. And that can be very dangerous.

When you cross that door, something changes. You feel that place as yours and even the street noise completely fades away. Daily problems lose importance and urgency, and only three elements remain: the artist, the empty canvas, and that mute and of course rhetorical conversation that no one else can intercept... an intimate dialogue with oneself, seeking answers to questions we don’t even know how to formulate yet.

Be careful with this - intimacy is a double-edged sword. The painter who dedicates hours and hours in front of the easel builds, without realizing it, an invisible barrier between himself and others. Family calls less and less, and friends directly stop calling. Invitations run out, you’re invisible to the ecosystem, and an Instagram account isn’t enough. The outside world has already transformed into something you observe from the window, but no longer recognize as your own, and when you understand this, you’ll stop torturing yourself with unnecessary questions.

So, who do you paint for? This question might hurt a little, because it touches a fundamental contradiction in this field. Art is born from the desire to communicate, to share something essential about the human condition. However, the act of painting demands an almost monastic isolation. Sometimes it’s necessary to distance ourselves from

humanity to be able to create, but we cannot escape reality, since fortunately or unfortunately, we all belong to the same reality. By this I mean that this solitude is not accidental, but forms part of the creative process, as much as pigments or composition. The artist requires that silence to hear their inner voice, that distance to see clearly what they want to express and tell us with their work; but at the same time, that very separation condemns them to live on the edge of a society that rewards the useful before personal search.

The studio becomes refuge and prison simultaneously. A refuge because it protects from a world that rarely understands the urgency to create; a prison because that protection can crystallize into perpetual isolation, falling into a vicious circle: paints because he’s

alone, and is alone because he paints. This intensifies when we remember that art seeks to connect, to build bridges toward others, toward us. Each painting is a letter addressed to someone unknown. But that recipient may never arrive, or arrive when the painter is no longer there to witness the response. Painting without knowing the receiver becomes an act of absolute faith, blindly believing that the process makes sense, even if no one witnesses or values it, being convinced that creating is so vital, even if the rest don’t understand it.

This might explain why so many painters continue working in the shadows, without recognition or economic reward. And believe me, they don’t do it out of masochism or romantic nostalgia, rather they do it because they have understood that creating is a way of existing that they cannot abandon without losing themselves.

The studio ends up becoming the only space where this need appears without apparent justifications, and there, surrounded by their work, the painter finds a singular company, the same one born from dialogue with their work in process.

The painter’s solitude is not a side effect of creation, but ends up being a necessary condition, and without it, art would lose its capacity to surprise, to show uncomfortable truths, to reveal aspects of existence that are only perceived from the edges. We need diversity of visions and opinions, we need art.

OLIVIA CHIGAS , Sloppy Joe Xanadu (detail), oil on canvas, 30x25in

ARTIST VALENTINA BENAGLIO

Echoes of Release (detail), oil on canvas, 48x36in

VISIONARY ARTISTS

This issue of New Visionary Magazine is curated by Etta Harshaw

Etta Harshaw is the founder of Harsh Collective, a New York City-based gallery dedicated to supporting emerging and historically underrepresented artists.

With a background in fine art and graphic design, Harshaw brings a curatorial approach that prioritizes inclusivity, creative experimentation, and accessibility. Inspired by her family’s legacy of artistic advocacy in SoHo during the 1970s, she established Harsh Collective as a cultural hub and platform for contemporary artists to share their vision with collectors and the broader public.

Harshaw continues to curate and design exhibitions that elevate diverse voices and foster meaningful dialogue in the art world.

“In visual art, replicating a negative feeling can often have the power to assuage it. The works featured in Issue 15 of New Visionary Magazine embody solemnity, strangeness, and the surreal – yet through viewer participation, these feelings are transformed. Solemnity becomes shared, the strange becomes knowable, and the surreal becomes tangible.

Through shared moments of vulnerability, the artists demonstrate that while experiences are deeply personal, they do not need to be faced alone. In the depiction of a solitary figure, for example, we are reminded that solitude does not equate to isolation. In the depiction of the grotesque, viewers may begin to find the sublime. In the depiction of the imaginary,

the intangible becomes existent. The artists depict moments of loneliness or fear, which, upon inspection, serve as mirrors and invite viewers to see themselves... Whether through themes of gender, race, sexuality, religion, bodily control, or temporality, each viewer should feel seen as they peruse this magazine. While many artists choose to confront challenging subjects, the overarching spirit of this issue is one of connection and hope.“

- Etta Harshaw, Founder of Harsh Collective

FOU NDEROF

Miram Anglin

miramanglin.com miramanglin

How do you balance personal narrative with broader cultural critique in your paintings?

It’s hard, as my work is so very personally driven. I am influenced by current politics - the overturning of Roe v. Wade was devastating to me. I feel the work I make has to be very personal to me; it is always a response to what I am seeing in politics and media, or what I am personally working through. Although I source from Catholic stories and quantify ideas of femininity within my work, it is hard not to be a part of a larger cultural conversation.

Your paintings incorporate feminine-coded objects and commercial products - can you talk about your process for sourcing or selecting these references?

I source a lot of these images online - through personal blogs, Tumblr.com, online catalogs, and stores. Some are taken by me. I think about how our culture measures femininity, how this appears in a material context within consumable products, and how femininity is sold to the consumer. I think about how we experience femininity through sight, scent, edible items, topical products, and pigments. It interests me that oftentimes these commercial items can represent femininity more than the body itself. I think about ways in which I experienced femininity as a girl. I’m definitely inspired by 2014-era Tumblr and how the emergence of more personalized online media has allowed one to visually curate a persona - a representation outside of the body.

In what ways has your relationship with Catholicism evolved through the act of painting? Would you describe your work as a form of reconciliation, resistance, or something else entirely?

I don’t practice Catholicism currently, although I grew up Catholic and my family does still practice in some ways. I would say painting these images has strangely brought me closer to these stories and figures in a way I did not expect. My work is a form of processing the stories that shape Catholicism, but it is also very much a practice of resistance and rewriting of these same stories in ways that honor femininity, power, and choice within a divine context.

Are there artists, contemporary or historical, whose treatment of femininity, symbolism, or religion has shaped your visual language?

Although very different from my own visual language, Firelei Báez’s treatment of femininity is very inspiring to me. Báez’s representation and materialization of femininity within the body is something you cannot ignore. I find it very powerful. I love Jenny Holzer’s use of text. I find text so interesting, as it is so straightforward and to the point, yet leaves just a bit of room for interpretation. Artemisia Lomi Gentileschi’s work illustrating biblical stories often centers on the woman of the story, whether they are in power or being persecuted. I find a connection to her work, as she retells biblical stories and paints biblical women in a time when it was much less common to do so. My own visual language is very much an amalgamation of my girlhood during the early 2000s in Midwestern America.

Self Portrait, acrylic on canvas, 24x24in

Can you share more about the role of performance in your work, whether as a literal act or as a conceptual element within the objects you depict?

I find performance to be a very core component of femininity. Many of the commercial objects I depict require some type of performance or ritual from the user. These are objects that become part of what we experience as femininity; they

become factors in how we measure femininity. I find that in the act of painting these artifacts of femininity, alongside stories and figures of women from biblical stories, I am participating in a performance. My performance connects with generations of artists who have used visual language to communicate Catholicism and ideas of the divine. I participate in this tradition by documenting my experience with the divine feminine through my paintings.

Mother of Mercy, Our Lady of Perpetual Freedom, acrylic on canvas, 36x24in

D’Shon McCarthy

dshonmccarthy.com

dshonmccarthy

Your paintings explore Black female embodiment as both a historical and speculative site. How do you think painting - as a physical, time-based process - helps express that duality?

The process of painting for me has always called into question the concept of race and gender, because so much of the first layers are working out material and compositional issues. A “Black arm” just becomes fragments of awkward shapes to give a hint that this may be a person. The “Black self-portrait” is not steady because I never feel as if I’m looking at an accurate mirror, or a real black person, just blobs of burnt sienna paint. Then there are my experiences outside of the studio, of being recognized incorrectly on both the historical and speculative front. The paint, however, allows for reinvention of these inadequacies because it takes place in the moment. The quick strokes and marks aren’t definable by race or gender. These initial sensations are conveyed through materiality of paint and it is only later, through reflection, editing, and revision that the meaning begins to emerge.

How does self-portraiture function within your workare you painting yourself as an individual, or more as a vessel for generational memory?

Both, but there is also a third function. I always start my paintings by using journal entries as a point of reference, so the poses, the foundation and very first layers are always structured around the experiences of the current version of “me”. This would include generational memories, considering I also use photographs of family members possessions, homes and personal documents. I am cautious, however, about considering myself a vessel for previous generations. It may be too much responsibility. Instead, I always invite the previous generations to assist me in all ways for inspiration. In addition, however, something very interesting about painting, as I have hinted previously, is the operation between the hand and the mind. They don’t always translate the way I intend. That being said, the “me” in my paintings are characters that may

have been inside me all along, ones I must define or call into question.

Is there a particular inherited story or ancestral image that continues to influence your visual thinking or emotional orientation in the studio?

As I was nearing the end of my undergraduate career, one of my last Professors gave the class a prompt that read “What did you look like before you were born?” I wondered if there are possible alternate versions of myself that have previously existed, or exist somewhere else simultaneously as the current “me”. That one question inspires me to meditate in every capacity. My most expressive, of course, is in the studio, and I try very hard to collect mental images of strong willed, stubborn, emotionally volatile dictator-like women related to me, who experienced life as intensely as I, who share visual similarities as me, hence why the selfportrait is a constant metaphor of continuous change for me. On the ancestral front, I always have approached identity and research from a matriarchal perspective by becoming curious of the women in my life and from theirs as well. The relationship I have with paint allows me to be mothered, and do the mothering.

What is your process for constructing the spaces your figures inhabit? Are they rooted in real environments, imagined ones, or something in between?

The spaces are always real. I take an array of reference photos before I begin a painting, plenty of myself, even more of botanical sites, and of certain color patterning and layouts. I then sketch multiple times until I am satisfied with the arrangement of the collected images. This includes a lot of overlap and layering so that the spaces are integrated and somewhat complicated. When the actual painting has begun, at this point I have abandoned the original images, only to be used in the ending process to get the most detail, but primarily I paint from my created sketch. Just as details aren’t entirely sketched out or rendered, neither are most of the marks in the final painting. The spaces in my final pieces are renditions of reality, and even if the marks are somewhat improvised and disconnected from the reality of the original image, they are not imagined.

Objects often appear alongside your figuressometimes scaled unusually or rendered with symbolic weight. How do you think about objects as narrative devices or emotional anchors?

Objects function in multiple ways in my work, sometimes as narrative devices, sometimes as emotional anchors, and sometimes both at the same time. I try to destabilize and question the relation between myself as a subject and the objects in my work. While the objects may seem to orbit around my agency in worlds that the subject dictates, through scale shifts, distortions, and other techniques, the objects impact the space and the figure in space, creating slippages between realities, between past, present, and future, blurring not only spatial relationships, but the relation between subject and object. In some cases, the objects take on a quasi-agency, embodying strong memories of loved ones and bearing other sentimental values. As a result, the objects are often as important as the self-portraits. Like the self, they are characters within complex and constantly shifting narratives concerning the negotiation of identity.

GIRLS MAKE ME SICK!!, acrylic on linen, 81x101in

Valentina Benaglio

valentinabenaglio.com benaglio.art

Your work exists at the intersection of your Mexican and Italian heritage. How do these cultural roots inform the way you see and paint the world?

My mom is from Mexico City, and my dad is from Lake Como, Italy. After they divorced, I spent half the year in each country - two completely different worlds pulling me in opposite directions. One is loud, warm, and full of chaos; the other, quiet, structured, and beautifully reserved. I never felt fully Mexican or fully Italian. I grew up in that in-between space, and I think that’s shaped both me and my work in a really unique way. My paintings reflect that duality, this blend of fire and calm. Now that I’ve lived in Brooklyn for the past four years, that multicultural mix has only deepened. Every piece I create carries a layer of that background - a blend of color, tension, softness, and story. I think there’s something really powerful about artists who come with layers.

How does painting allow you to access emotions that might be harder to articulate in words?

Painting is where I go when words just don’t cut it. I’ve never been great at talking through heavy emotions - the ones that build up like a storm and sit in your chest. About 10 years ago, I picked up painting as a way to release that energy, and it honestly became my therapy. There’s something sacred about turning a fleeting feeling - grief, joy, confusion - into something tangible. I don’t paint to explain; I paint to feel. And the beautiful part is that others can feel it too, in their own way. The canvas becomes a shared emotional space, and that’s something words don’t always allow for.

Much of your work centers on women - not only as subjects but as symbols of strength, complexity, and transformation. What draws you to this focus?

I was raised mostly by my mom in Mexico City, and we were surrounded by incredible women - family, neighbors, caretakers - who helped shape me. Their stories stuck with me: the way they held strength and softness all at once, how they carried so much and still gave more. That kind of quiet resilience really moved me. I’m endlessly fascinated by the emotional layers of womanhood - the vulnerability, the transformation, the power. It’s not that men don’t have depth, but there’s something uniquely powerful about the emotional texture women carry. Painting them feels like honoring that.

Are there materials or techniques you’re currently experimenting with to expand your practice?

Yes! I’ve recently started playing with oil sticks, and I’m obsessed. They’re different from traditional oils - less precise, more raw - and I love the texture and richness they bring. I’m using them now to keep working on my latest series, It Was All a Blur, where I’m leaning into blurred forms and emotional distortion. Oil sticks let me be more spontaneous with the strokes and layering. It feels more instinctual, which is refreshing. I think it’s so important for artists to stay curious and experiment - that’s where growth lives.

Your work navigates the space between the figurative and abstract. Where do you see this evolution heading in the future?

Funny enough, I just painted my first big abstract piece a few days ago, and I loved it. With portraiture, there’s always that pressure to “get it right” - the proportions, the skin tones, the structure. But abstract work freed me up to just play. It was messy, intuitive, and honestly a little out of my comfort zone, which is exactly why I needed it. I’m definitely moving toward more abstract elements - not to abandon the figure, but to stretch beyond it. That middle ground, where form dissolves into feelingthat’s where I’m heading. And I’m excited to see what lives there.

Ephemeral Dream, oil on canvas, 48x36in

Audrey Bialke

www.audreybialke.com audreybialke

Your work draws from illuminated manuscripts, folk art, and early animal representation. What draws you to these specific visual traditions, and how do you reinterpret them for a contemporary context?

Using historical imagery from these past eras helps me feel connected to different makers across time and offers me tiny clues about different ways of being. I’m particularly interested in illuminated manuscripts because of the way pagan and fantastical imagery was woven into religious texts, subverting the new religious order by their inclusion. Folk art often

references myth and legend, suggesting the possibility of the Otherworld. Deeply rooted in historical creative practice is a desire to capture the unknown.

Being able to honor the imaginations of the past can help us understand ourselves in the present. Our current era faces similar struggles to the ones earlier creatives faced - some different - and by studying old depictions of animals and patterns, I’m able to see underlying threads of persistent perseverance and try to communicate an age-old complex mixture of wonder, sorrow, and joy.

How do you think about ornamentation in your practice - not as decoration, but as narrative or spiritual structure?

In the last century, ornamentation has been largely downgraded to “craft,” which I suspect is linked to patriarchal connotations of decoration being considered women’s work in centuries prior. There’s considerable intellectual depth in pattern, especially in how it subtly nods to infinity, saying, “I could go on forever.” It also requires patience and devotion. Oil paint is a tricky medium for delicate patterning, so until they are complete, my borders often look highly imperfect and irregular. This reminds me of the power of the completed vision, and to trust the process and not scrutinize the individual parts.

Is there a recurring creature, plant, or motif in your work that holds particular personal or symbolic meaning for you?

I am continually drawn to painting lions, as the depictions of them through time are incredibly varied, due in large part to many artists being geographically prevented from seeing lions in real life and rendering them using dog, bull, or entirely invented anatomy. The creatures are then a mixture

of real lion and mythological beast, even when they follow a checklist of what physical attributes a lion has: magnificent mane, plumed tail, claws, etc. I like to think we’re like this too - a list of human traits, but with our fullest self-expression, we can become Otherworldly if we want to. The lion is courageous, but in many representations - from Dürer’s drawings to the Medici lions - they appear sensitive and sorrowful.

Can you talk about your relationship with oil paint and how you approach surface, layering, and color in your compositions?

I start my compositions with a loose burnt sienna underpainting and build thin opaque layers on top. I leave a tiny swath of the underpainting visible in most paintings - an Easter egg of the process. Some areas have many layers to build a depth of pigment. My color choices are largely intuitive, but I have a rough idea of what color scheme I will be using when I begin. My color palettes are seasonal, given that my work does speak to the current climate and the way we are connected to the natural world. I create mostly landscape compositions, with some weight of either color or value to make them feel grounded.

What possibilities do you see in visual storytelling today - especially in a world so saturated with digital media and visual noise? What can painting still offer us?

Yes, there is a lot of digital media and visual noise, but nothing can replace seeing paintings in person and noticing how we feel in their presence before we have to understand them fully. Being close to a painting you love - seeing the brushstrokes, some confident, some wavering - in your home year after year is like cultivating a long-term relationship. Living alongside visual stories has added value to life for as long as we’ve had the tools at hand to make them, and I think it will continue this way.

This chapter of the digital age has the potential to push artists to create in spite of the deluge of media and the fight for online attention and will encourage them to grow in ways we can’t anticipate. I see a lot of artists working less with linear narratives or single-moment depictions and more with nonlinear timelines in one image. The stories don’t have to be quickly parseable - some amount of ambiguity allows work to resonate both personally and broadly and be more akin to the mysterious universe. Painting can still offer us a journey into the ether while simultaneously grounding us in reality through the physical act of viewing.

Best, oil on panel, 9x12in

Look Unmoved On Fortune Good Or Bad, oil on panel, 16x20in

Lulu Luyao Chang

lululuyaochang.com

6u6usaferoom

How have your transnational experiences - being born in Japan, raised in China, and now based in the U.S.influenced the way you approach memory and identity in your installations?

I was born in Japan and raised in China, where I first became aware of conflicting historical narratives and the manipulation of collective memory. When I moved to China at six, I felt a deep rupture - the idea of “home” became unstable. That early dislocation made me question where I belong.

Now based in the U.S., those questions have only intensified. I’m not even considered an immigrant in the formal sense, as I’m still struggling to secure the right to stay - caught in a liminal space where I’m neither fully included nor rooted. The isolation here feels sharper, yet it also deepens my awareness.

My installations reflect this ongoing negotiation with place, language, and belonging. I use clay and fragile found materials to express the tension between erasure and care, control and softness, bitterness and sweetness. Through these gestures, I investigate how memory and identity are shaped by displacement, and how “home” becomes something perpetually constructed and questioned.

Your work often confronts systems of control while using playful, toy-like forms. Can you talk about a formative childhood experience that shaped this duality in your practice?

The choice of toy-like forms in my work comes from how I’ve come to see the world - something that looks playful or harmless on the surface, but is actually carefully designed and controlled underneath. Growing up between cultures, I often felt both inside and outside of each system. I belonged, but never fully. That in-between space made me sensitive to contradictions: how joy and pain, freedom and control, often coexist.

Toys are a perfect metaphor for this. When children play, they believe they’re in charge, but in reality, every option has already been predetermined by design. That mirrors how we move through society - feeling autonomous while shaped by invisible structures. Especially in China, where I grew up, I saw how people kept living, laughing, surviving

within systems of restriction and silence. That duality - the sweetness and the heaviness - is what I want to evoke: stories buried beneath surface pleasures, and memories that resist being fully erased.

When building your immersive environments, how intentional are you about controlling the viewer’s experience - do you want them to feel complicit, passive, or disrupted?

I’m very intentional about guiding how viewers move through my installations, but I never aim to dictate a single interpretation. I want to create a space where they feel a mix of comfort and unease - where something soft and playful slowly reveals something more complex or unsettling beneath.

All Those Sparkles, paperclay, synthetic hair, aluminum wire, plastic beads, wool yarn, acrylic, watercolor, house paint, glue, 17x12.25x10.5in

Rather than positioning the viewer as purely passive or complicit, I want them to feel disrupted in a quiet way, like realizing too late that they’ve crossed an invisible boundary. Many of my forms draw people in with childlike aesthetics, but once inside, they’re confronted with traces of trauma, silence, or loss.

This tension mirrors my own experiences navigating different systems and histories - things that look stable on the surface but carry deep fractures underneath. I’m less interested in moralizing and more in creating a space that opens up reflection: what does it mean to witness something beautiful that is also heavy, or to occupy a place that’s not quite yours?

Are there specific symbols, objects, or recurring motifs in your work that have personal or political significance related to suppression or erasure?

Yes, recurring motifs in my work carry both personal and political weight. The deformed, star-shaped human heart references Chinese patriotism - distorted into an organ, it reflects the contradictions of living under a cruel, covert system where loyalty is demanded and identity is fractured. Chains appear often too - they symbolize control and censorship, but also the complex, unbreakable bond with one’s homeland and cultural identity. Even outside China, I still carry its imprint. Hair and dismembered body parts speak to fragmentation, inherited grief, and bodily control - especially over femininity. The body becomes both

world and mirror, shaped by external forces. Drawing from Buddhist thought, I use these fragments to restructure my own imagined world - a space where trauma is processed and reshaped. Through these objects, I explore what is erased or silenced, giving form to pain that resists language, especially within politically suppressed histories.

As a teaching artist at Art Omi and the Chicago Children’s Museum, how do your roles as educator and artist inform each other?

As a teaching artist at Art Omi and the Chicago Children’s Museum, my roles as educator and artist constantly feed each other. Because my practice explores memory, identity, and world-building through children’s objects, working closely with them has given me deeper insight into how they form relationships with objects, space, and storytelling. I’m always learning from their logic - it’s intuitive, symbolic, and often surreal, which mirrors how I build meaning in my own work.

Teaching also lets me observe and participate in how museums and organizations design experiences, exhibitions, and programs specifically for kids. That kind of spatial and emotional thinking fascinates me - it aligns with the strategies I use in installation and sculpture. In both teaching and making, I’m interested in how people process the invisible: memory, trauma, belonging. Kids remind me that art isn’t just about expression - it’s a way of holding emotion, of translating inner experiences into forms we can touch, see, and share.

Block#10, Part of WarmBed Series, paper clay, synthetic hair, watercolor, aluminum, glue, 13x17x14in

Charlotte Bravin Lee

www.charlottebravinlee.com

charlottebravinleestudio

charlottebravinlee

Your work grapples with fear and obsession, particularly your phobia of birds and fears around the human body. How do you translate these deeply personal experiences into your paintings?

I did not know how to explain in words how a fear I have dealt with my entire life is now suddenly an obsession. Somehow, I became obsessed with the idea of having a fear. I wanted to lean into it. As visual artists, I think it is fair to say we all struggle with finding our voices for a period of time. And one day - it clicked. My mind and my right hand became one, unified. I was suddenly able to see my own anxiety looming over me - large, loud, poetic. The idea of “the bird” became an extension of myself.

There’s a tension in your work between the grotesque and tranquility. How do you balance those opposing sensations visually and emotionally?

Within the realm of “The Grotesque,” and the way my specific mind perceives “grotesque,” there is also a sense of calmness that comes over me as I navigate painting textures that disturb me. In most of my paintings, I choose to depict soft pastel fabric either encasing the feathers or intertwined with the feathers. The fabric, to me, represents privacy and peace.

I am fascinated by human hypocrisy. Humans deal with their own hypocrisies every single day. I am fascinated by my own - the tension between enjoying the feeling of triggering myself and then bringing myself back to a state of peace.

Can you walk us through your process and how repetition or detail plays a role in the work’s emotional impact?

Of course - my process is meant to be and feel tedious. I choose to stare at zoomed-in photos of pigeons that I have taken over the years when I feel daring enough to get close. By rendering each feather as meticulously as I possibly can, I end up simultaneously triggering and healing myself. I am a self-taught painter. I started developing these compositions by making both physical as well as digital collages. My paintings are extensions of my mixed media pieces.

I grew interested in the idea of the “deconstructed bird.”

Are there other motifs or recurring elements in your paintings that serve as anchors or counterpoints to fear and obsession?

The human body is a character in my work as well. I find my work has qualities of a Rorschach test. I see corporeal textures in the formations that emerge between feathers and fabric.

I am fascinated by the concept of “pareidolia.” Pareidolia is the tendency to perceive meaningful images, often faces, in random or ambiguous stimuli.

I see human features in my depictions of feathers. It reminds me that I am a living creature and that I am not more important than the birds I fear.

Do you find that your relationship with fear and obsession shifts over time, and if so, how does that affect the work you make?

I have observed in myself that, while I will always be afraid of birds, there are phases in which I feel reclusive and paralyzed by the fear. Other times, the fear has led me to make bold and uncomfortable choices. In 2023, I challenged myself to walk through a crowd of 500–700 pigeons. I was filmed walking back and forth through the crowd. I felt obsessed and determined. I walked back and forth multiple times, closing my eyes and flinching often. Each walk made me feel more empowered than the last.

Brain Landscape 1, oil on canvas, 24x12in

Photo byAdamNinyo

Theatre to Nervous System, oil on canvas, 48x36in

Dimithry Victor

www.dimithryvictor.com dimithryvictor

You’ve mentioned cartoons and comic books as an early influence. Do you remember a particular character or series that first made you want to create your own?

When I was around 8 or 9, I was playing outside with my friends while my neighbor was moving out. He had a bunch of boxes piled up. It turned out the boxes were filled with comic books. He approached us and asked if we wanted them, and I was the only one among my friends who said yes. The first comic I read from the boxes was a Venom comic book, and I was immediately hooked. It was my first time reading a comic book, and that’s when I knew I wanted to create my own characters too.

How did your transition from character creation to fine art unfold - and what role does storytelling still play in your practice today?

To be honest, I originally wanted to be a comic book illustrator, but I gave up on that dream once I realized how demanding the career was and how disrespected illustrators were in the field. What changed everything for me was going to the MoMA when I was around 14 or 15 years old. That was my first time in an art museum, and it changed my life. I was finally able to see works by artists like Picasso, Warhol, and Van Gogh in person. Seeing those paintings made me want to create work at that level and on that scale. I was driven to make pieces that impactful. However, storytelling still has a huge influence on my work, I won’t make a piece unless there’s some story I’m telling with it.

Having grown up in Haiti and then Miami, how do those two cultural spaces continue to shape your visual language?

Every single piece I make is inspired by both cultures, from what the people are wearing to the colors and even the hairstyles. My top priority is to create work that feels most authentic to me, so these cultural spaces play a huge role in that. I’m blessed to have grown up in environments like that; it genuinely feels like I’ll never run out of inspiration.

What’s the role of the gaze - both of the subject and the viewer - in your portraiture?

I like to play around with the gaze in my work. I often tend to symbols or familiar settings and flip them. I believe it adds

a sense of suspense in my work. A lot of my work tends to be very dynamic as well so I will intentionally create compositions that guides the viewers eye. In regards to male or female gaze, I try my best to do a lot of research to create works that feels authentic and doesn’t lean towards the male or female gaze.

Do you see your work as political, personal, or somewhere in between?

I see my work as a reflection of myself and also the people around me. I think politics is such an impactful part of our lives that it would be impossible for me to make work without touching on it somehow. So I definitely think it’s a mixture of personal and political subjects.

Dancing Till We Die, acrylic on canvas, 36x60in

Im Gonna Be A Star, acrylic on canvas, 58x58in

Olivia Chigas

www.oliviachigas.com ochigas

You explore these themes “from a feminine perspective” - how does gender influence the emotional tone or narrative presence of your figures?

In my work, femininity is both subject and setting - a shifting terrain. By drawing upon 20th-century films and other found footage, gender is implicitly explored through the varied ways femininity is constructed: styled hair, manner of dress, a high heel. The figures are typically cropped in a manner that withholds further identification, residing in an ambiguous state and challenging the traditional gaze by denying full access. Here, the act of looking turns each painting into a meditation on how identity is projected onto others, selfperception, and the blurred threshold between subject and observer. Ultimately, gender is not an assigned role but a performed negotiation between what is revealed and what is concealed.

How do you navigate the relationship between homage and innovation - particularly when referencing such iconic styles?

The postmodernist instinct of appropriation and recontextualization is one that I am constantly reflecting on. For me, visual history is a deep and rich well that we, currently in the Internet Age, have more access to than ever before; I have the ability to pull up colorized film footage of Paris from 1910 and then go watch Apocalypse Now in the same afternoon. This manner in which all of history can be collapsed is a unique product of the modern age, and so I see my consumption of this stream of media - and translation into my own visual interpretation - as an artistic endeavor that could only be done at this point in history.

Your compositions often resemble film stills. How does cinematic language inform your choices around cropping, color, and atmosphere?

Many of my painting compositions are taken directly from films. In my opinion, cinema is the defining art form of the 20th century, with such care and detail given to set and costume design, lighting, and cinematography. I’ll often watch a movie and see a five-second shot that’s so stunning it will stick in my head for days - or months, in some cases. When I come across these moments, I isolate the stills and put them into Photoshop. I adjust the saturation, the contrast; sometimes I’ll fiddle with the composition slightly and otherwise play around with the various tools until the image strikes some

sort of emotional nerve that was first conjured when watching the movie. That’s when I know it’s ready to be painted.

Many of your subjects appear turned away or lost in thought. Do you see this as a form of emotional withholding, privacy, or something else entirely?

The ways in which figures are turned away or cropped to withhold their identities is a vital element of these compositions. It forces the viewer to fill in the blank, to engage with what is revealed and to give it meaning in a way that makes sense to them. I love hearing people’s interpretations of who the figures are, what they might be doing, and what they might be feeling - because they are always right.

Is the sense of “urban loneliness” in your work tied specifically to New York City, or do you see it as a more universal emotional condition?

I would certainly say that in a way, my work is an exploration of the experience of loneliness in New York City, insofar as it’s the place I was born and grew up. Its architecture and visual language - Neoclassicism pushed up against Art Deco, pushed up against Modern Art, pushed up against Contemporary, and everything else - have influenced my sensibility so deeply that any time I depict an urban setting, there is a feeling of New York.

However, I would also say the experience of “urban loneliness” is certainly a more universal condition, a particular byproduct of the modern (industrial) age. We see it depicted throughout modern history; we see it in Van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night, with Caillebotte in Paris, and in de Chirico’s surreal Rome. I’m just in my place in my time.

Cigarette Girl/Nuclear City, oil on canvas, 40x30in

Rania Debza

appleinthesouth

You cite Grégoire Delacourt and Oh de Laval as key inspirations - how do their approaches to vulnerability and unfiltered honesty inform your own visual language?

I wasn’t sure how much I could open up with my art. I sometimes thought some things were too raw and vulnerable for me to paint, but with their work, I discovered this unapologetic authenticity and tribute to humans’ flaws and imperfections.

There is a sincere intention to empathize with their lives and behaviors without judgment, because art isn’t about being visually pretty - it’s about being real and true to ourselves. There is this beautiful, empathetic thread the artist starts to knit by creating the piece, and the audience finishes it by bringing their own personal interpretation.

I also really like to explore the thin line of morality in my paintings, as I think it is one of the most fascinating things in life. It is always surrounding us, but it is also never the same because of how personal and biased it is, and my work is inspired by this never-ending, moving cursor.

When you incorporate “bloody imagery,” are you drawing from specific horror narratives or personal symbols - and how do you ensure those visuals remain deeply personal rather than purely sensational?

I grew up with hypersensitivity. Everything I felt was always amplified, good and bad. I also grew up surrounded by the curious and thrilling world of horror. My brain naturally began to illustrate those deep feelings in a bloody way. I use horror to express that intensity.

As a teenager, anytime I wanted to express my emotions, I had to make it horrifying to show how extremely I was feeling inside. I think it mainly shows the difference in intensity between regular and hypersensitive people. It always comes out

as over-the-top and dramatic, but that intensity is just a reflection of how deeply we feel things.

Also, we all have, deep down, a violent part of ourselves that reacts to situations impulsively. We won’t admit it to anyone, because it belongs to our intrusive thoughts - still unfiltered by our inner moral compass - but it exists. This is an ode to our dark side, to the need for balance.

What kinds of “extreme emotions” - fear, shame, desire - are you most drawn to depicting, and why?

My favorite emotion to portray will always be love. Having a crush, being in love, breaking up - we can turn into completely different people, both good and bad - and how we react to it all is captivating to me. It’s my favorite fuel

to create. When I want to move on from someone, I like to paint the whole situation, even if it’s a fantasy I wished had been real for a long time during the relationship, just so I can make it exist somewhere, even if in real life it was a totally different story. It really helps me let go.

As a woman, as tragic as it may sound, anger is also a recurring emotion represented in my paintings. It feels dystopian sometimes to live in this era where women are still objectified, especially online, and reduced to silence, so turning it into art is very liberating and, I hope, helps echo our words and be seen.

Do you plan narrative sequences across multiple works, as in a comic, or treat each painting as its own singular story?

I treat each painting as its own singular story. Usually, I have a “flash” - an idea that suddenly seems to come out of nowhere in my mind - and I immediately have to sketch it down. I wait for the right time to put it on a canvas and start the painting. I have to be drawn to the picture, to visualize the ambiance I want for the piece before I start everything. I’m a sketch-on-paper-first-then-on-canvas

type of person. Some ideas need time to mature or are not fully formed during the sketch stage.

The common ground of my work is that all my pieces are inspired, directly or indirectly, by my life. They all have a very secret meaning that led to the piece. However, the viewer can decide whatever they want: it’s up to them to find their own story in my paintings.

How does your faux-naïf style - its loose lines and flattened perspective - serve your themes of sincerity and rawness?

What I like about the faux-naïf style is that it focuses on what’s necessary. You can show emotions in a more efficient way than you could if you used any other style. It keeps the rawness from the sketch while also elevating it. You can also navigate the atmosphere and the feeling of the whole piece by adjusting the distortion of the body. An alluring and joyful piece can easily become overwhelming and lead the viewer to question it. I love to play with the uneasiness. What’s being represented is not an easy feeling or situation, so naturally, the piece shouldn’t feel easy to appreciate.

The Party Went Wrong For The Boys, It Went Amazingly For The Vampires, acrylic on canvas, 22x15in

Isabella Covert

www.isabellacovert.com isacov.art

Your work draws from body horror to explore fears around bodily control and systemic power. How did you first become interested in this genre as a lens for your art?

The grotesque and absurd aesthetic of the bodily ecosystems in my work evolved from the relationship of reproducing bodies within power dynamics. The associative lens from the subgenre of body horror communicates symbiotic themes within my work. Drawing from its nature as a storytelling device through embodiment, my work is birthed from the same genus. Machine-like and mutant, the bodies I create are exfoliating internal spaces and emancipated through their monstrosity. I study feminist filmmakers within and inspired by the subsect of New French Extremity. Bodies existing within this framework, such as those from the minds of De Van, Ducournau, and others, exhibit autonomy beyond margins. Subverting the neo-conservative tropes of their male forebears, they allow women’s bodies to experience their fullest potentialities and formulate critiques of bodily containment.

Writhing in the muck of abjection, bodies resist exterior containment, warping notions of disgust. They express experience in an exaggerated manner that provokes an animalistic hunger within us to become them.

What role do texture, elasticity, and tactility play in communicating the themes of your work?

I work by detangling entrails, autopsying past work that I have conducted. I dismember, cauterize, and contaminate bodies from previous pieces, so no work is ever fully finished. They maturate to the point where I can leave, like a mother. Due to the nature of materials like latex and hair, these are bodies of infinite potential, confined to a space of decomposition and decay - a parallel to bodies in the world. Violating rules imposed upon materials, I manipulate tactile relationships - catalyzing discoloration, festering, and aging. What remains of porous flesh may one day be only a metal skeleton. These bodies are byproducts of my process. Evolving at their own pace, they are a form of shed skin. I mostly act as a surrogate that provides them with new materials and tools. They are fabricated bodies that are allowed to age and decay - something not allotted to women in the current zeitgeist.

In what ways do you hope your work challenges or disrupts dominant narratives about gender and bodily autonomy?

My work challenges ongoing biopolitical attitudes toward reproducing bodies. Often held as subordinated vessels for collective futures, the reproducing body is understood as a tool to promote reproductive futurism. Challenging this framework, I draw from feminist critiques that characterize bodies beyond constructed boundaries. A foundational pillar of current power dynamics is the categorization of reproducing bodies as predetermined for procreation. Bodies are skinscapes with no definite boundaries, collections of components and interactions that are constantly exfoliating. Bodies can disintegrate the state and existing control mechanisms, and this capability is why those who govern live in fear of the body. To unlink existing ideas of sex, pregnancy, and reproduction is to disarticulate current power structures that limit reproducing bodies. In my work, I probe at these ideas through an exploration of the body’s capabilities - and what they could be capable of in an ecosystem without margins. Are there specific bodily or cultural references you

Pore Catheter, nylon, latex, medical tubing, 14x16in

draw from when creating your works?

Much of what I absorb is extracted from posthumanist feminist theorists like Braidotti and Haraway. Breaking the tie between subjectivity and reproduction, posthuman thought shifts the focus away from biological essentialist ideas. Often misunderstood as a term referring to Silicon Valley profits and AI slop generators, the posthuman is used as a form of liberation in the present day through widespread access to synthetic biology and assisted medical services - think anything from egg freezing to artificial hip replacements. My work prods at the potential within these developments for reproductive liberation, which can already be seen in the evolution of IVF technology. Through developments of artificial wombs and egg harvesting, can advanced technology contain the ability to liberate bodies from the expectation of childbearing? Could this restructuring subvert gendered ideas that hold reproducing bodies as predetermined lifebearers, and subvert power structures? I work in a space where I can pick at these thoughts and potentialities of the body.

What advice would you give to artists grappling with difficult or politically charged subject matter in their work?

I think that we live in a highly curated era. Politically challenging work is often buried in algorithms that determine what is released and consumed. It is a powerful position that they are in - formulating and manipulating a collective mind. Conformity is a limiting tactic. We’re at a moment of figuring out how to be a real entity and a virtual entity.

Existing and creating in a liminal space of nuance is one of the best ways that we can document the mind in this era of discourse and overwhelm. I understand my work as thoughts that are never fully developed, and that’s a good thing. It allows me a whole lifetime to dissect my brain and have a tactile relationship. I see the act of making as a living archive of the body existing in becoming-time. I think that a marker for this epoch is to think critically about who and what we are becoming.

Ventral Follicle (Feeding Tube), nylon, latex, medical tubing, Petri dish, 19x68x22in (variable)

Milena Guberinic

www.milenaguberinic.com milenaguberinic.art

Can you describe your earliest memory of making art and how that memory lives in your current practice?

I was about five years old, completely absorbed in drawing on the floor of my bedroom, when my grandmother came in to find a disaster. Rain had started pouring during the time I had been drawing, and I hadn’t noticed the open balcony doors or the water flooding in around me. The floor was soaked. I was dry. But also totally gone somewhere inside the drawing.

Total focus and absorption still define how I strive to work today. My favorite paintings are the ones that happen intuitively and when I stop trying to control the outcome and let the image unfold. It’s not easy, but I try to get out of my own way because I know that planning can be a curse. That childhood memory reminds me how magical it can be to lose yourself completely in the act of making, and I try to remember it whenever I feel lost.

You often paint from memory rather than direct reference. What does that process look like for you - do you begin with a feeling, an object, or a mental image?

It usually starts with a feeling, a memory, or a concept. From there, I anchor myself in something real. Right now, it’s usually a vintage doll or accessory I’ve collected. I’ll draw it again and again until it lives in my head. I fill at least one sketchbook a month, and those pages, whether created based on life or photographs, become my personal archive. They’re full of physical details I can return to later.

When I use photo references, I veer off quickly. The painting takes on a life of its own, shaped more by mood and memory than by accuracy. I enjoy inventing directly in the paint and following what feels right. I aim for something a bit warped, dreamlike, or emotionally charged. Working at least somewhat from memory lets emotional truth override realism.

Watercolor is famously difficult to control, yet your work embraces its unpredictability. How did you come to develop such a deep trust in the medium?

Watercolor’s unpredictability has always felt like a mirror to the instability I’ve known in life. I learned early on that it’s better to let the paint do what it wants - to separate, bloom, pool - and then respond to it, rather than fight it. Over time, the “mess” became part of my language.

In painting, I don’t like rigid plans, “styles,” or “certainties.” I’d rather follow the medium. That act of surrender and painting with the medium feels like the most honest way I can work. I’ve come to see watercolor as a collaborator. There’s something in its fluidity and transparency that feels true and natural.

I’ve also learned to trust that the unexpected isn’t a mistake. It might become the source of meaning. For me, it’s usually that back-and-forth with the paint that makes the painting come alive… or not. But I’d rather take that risk than just execute a perfect plan.

You’ve studied psychology and Japanese culture - two fields that deal with perception, restraint, and symbolism in very different ways. How do those disciplines inform your artistic decisions?

Psychology taught me that memory and perception are layered and mutable, rather than fixed. That idea fascinates me, and it shows up in how I approach visual memory and distortion in my paintings.

Japanese culture, on the other hand, deepened my appreciation for restraint and the idea of impermanence. There’s a power in what’s left unsaid and merely implied. That faith in the viewer is essential to how I work.

Both fields influence how I build and pare back my work. I don’t always spell things out. I leave gaps and spaces the viewer can enter and shape with their own experiences. That mix of restraint and symbolic weight is how I aim to use objects and space.

Even when a painting looks simple or playful, there’s often something deeper underneath. Psychology and Japanese aesthetics both taught me that obvious visual complexity is not necessary to create meaningful work.

Would you say your paintings serve as a form of self-portraiture? If so, how do you see yourself reflected in these still life arrangements?

Many of the paintings in my doll series work as symbolic self-portraits, but instead of showing my face, I use objects. Doll parts, toys, and bits of furniture become emotional or psychological stand-ins. These unconventional “still life” scenes convey fragments of memory, identity, illness, and longing.

The dolls are often disassembled or strange, like I’m trying to piece together something that may never have been whole. Having emigrated from war, lost my father young, and living with chronic illness, I carry a weight that’s hard to put into words. It’s a way to reflect on who I’ve been, what I’ve lost, and how I’m still trying to put myself back together.

There’s usually a tension between the familiar and the unsettling. That mirrors what it feels like to live in a body that doesn’t always cooperate. These paintings are layered and coded and let me convey complexity without having to explain it all.

Handler 3, watercolor on cellulose cold press, 12x12in

Handler 2, watercolor on cellulose cold press, 12x12in

Rodrick Howard

rodpaints.com rodrickpaints

Your thesis series explores your emotional experiences during your time in the Army. How did you translate those internal states into visual language?

Thank you for this interesting question. I drew heavily from the visual language present in different forms of Japanese media, like film, ukiyo-e prints, and even video games. My thesis, titled Floating World, is named after the English translation of the Japanese ukiyo-e. Using these inspirations, I created paintings that were akin to heightened, cinematic stills of different “scenes” I experienced. For example, the pieces Battle Without Honor or Humanity and You Are Already Dead lean on narrow aspect ratios, intense colors, and accurate expression in the subject’s face to convey emotions like rage, fear, and paranoia.

Many of your works use a single recurring figure to represent yourself. How does repetition or continuity of this character shape the emotional tone or symbolic weight of the series?

The figure depicted in Floating World, a young Black man in Army fatigues, is meant to serve as a stand-in for both myself and many soldiers - now veterans - who I served alongside. I sought to depict the psychoemotional highs and lows through a continuous narrative, showing highs - a fight-or-flight response conveyed through the subject’s battle stances - and lows - depression depicted via the subject kneeling over, preparing to commit seppuku.

Does your technical training in cyber operations influence your visual decisions - perhaps in structure, logic, or layering - even if indirectly?

I think the technical training I received in the military greatly influences the art I make. Cybersecurity encapsulates many different subjects, with cryptography being one of them. The cryptic act of obscuring certain things - like subjects, concepts, and meanings - is something I do that I directly attribute to my military training. Before the military, I think most of my work was far more explicit in its meaning, almost like visual idioms and metaphors. And yes, I do believe that I approach the internal logic of my artwork in a Boolean fashion - IF one such subject is present, THEN I need to include this thing, ELSE do something different.

How does the Floating World - originally a term for fleeting pleasures and stylized representation - resonate with your own experience of emotional turbulence and self-reflection?

I took the fleeting, transient nature of the original “floating world” translation and applied it to the now-ethereal times I experienced while in the military. The hedonistic aspect of ukiyo-e is definitely inverted for my series, though I did find that there was a direct parallel between the use of Kabuki actors in original Japanese ukiyo-e art and my use of a model (my close friend, Triston) to help me frame and create most of the artwork from my thesis series. Additionally, I found the history behind ukiyo-e, which began to thrive

at the beginning of the Edo period, very interesting and wanted to relate that to “periods” in my life. The period that came before - and partially overlapped with - the Edo period, the Sengoku period, was known for widespread social upheaval and civil war. The Edo period was a time of peace. I perceive a similar, smaller-scale pattern within my own life.

Oil painting is your primary medium, though you’ve worked across others. What keeps you returning to oiland how do you see its materiality supporting your exploration of memory and emotion?

I often find myself working with other media, like acrylic paint, dry pastel, and charcoal. I only started working with traditional oil paint back in 2020, during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before then, I had used water-soluble oils a few years prior, but those were mainly one-off experiments. I think the most beneficial aspect of using oil paint is the richness of the color. I also enjoy the longer working time you get with oils versus a medium like acrylic, which dries so rapidly. Besides the practical aspects of oil as a medium, I personally associate it with many of the great painters from the Renaissance and other periods, so I’d love to someday master it.

Battle Without Honor or Humanity, oil on board, 36x18in

Kneeling Among Flowers of Carnage, oil on board, 36x24in

Sylvie Harris

www.sylvieharris.com

sylvie_harris

In what ways do you feel your work honors or expands upon the histories and experiences of your greatgrandmother and grandmother?

I hope that my decision to devote a career to pursuing my artistic work honors my great-grandmother and grandmother because they were unable to make those decisions for themselves. Unlike them, I am not held back by poverty or the expectation that raising children and managing a household should be my primary concern. Because I was never able to ask them, I’m not sure what they would have chosen to pursue if they had been given the opportunity, but I believe that I honor the legacy of garment-making in my family lineage by allowing that role to function in a new way - as an artist. I also use materials left over from my grandmother’s sewing room, including fabric scraps and thread, so I feel that her artistic work and energy are woven into my work.

Your aprons and garments function as “empty vessels” or “ghosts” of previous generations. How do you think about the absence or presence of bodies in these works?

The emptiness of the garments as they are installed leaves room for the memory of previous generations of women whom I’m considering in my work. The fact that there is not a body inside the garments represents an absence, but the apron itself is present in the space, reminding me of the artistic impact of my maternal lineage. The aprons and the included images tell the story of this family history of garment-makers who didn’t have the opportunity to tell their own story.

The combination of photographs printed on silk with fabric and lace scraps creates a deeply tactile archive. How do you balance archival history with contemporary art-making?

Many of the people I represent in my work are no longer alive, so I use archival images and materials to represent them. I am limited to photographs taken of my grandmother and scraps of her fabric and thread that she left behind, which I incorporate into the aprons. I have little to represent my great-grandmother, so I use elements of photographs by Lewis Hine from the Library of Congress, of women working at the textile mill in Indian Orchard, Massachusetts.

These photographs were taken during the years she would have been working there after arriving from Poland, so I imagine that one of these women could have worked with her or known her. While I use archival images and materials, I mostly take my own photographs, which include contemporary subjects and image-making practices. I also feel that my use of images digitally printed on silk reflects a contemporary embrace of textiles and mixed-media artwork.

Apron #9, pigment prints on silk habotai with fabric scraps, 34x18in with fabric extending to the floor

Do you see your work as a form of reclaiming or rewriting women’s histories - particularly around domestic labor and creative agency?

I do see my work as rewriting - at least the history of women in my family - particularly in how we see the value of their domestic labor and the value of objects they made for domestic use. Many beautifully crafted objects made by women have been assigned a lesser value because they are functional or not made for the purpose of art. These objects, such as clothing and quilts, expressed an artistic inclination as much as any other artistic medium, but for women like my grandmother, sewing was the medium she had access to in her home while raising her children. By combining my own mediums of photography and textiles to

create silk aprons and evoke a common domestic object, I consider how much artistic agency and opportunity can determine the life of an artist.

What responses or conversations do you hope your audience takes away about lineage, labor, and opportunity?

I hope that my audience is able to recognize someone in their own life through my work and potentially consider how that person’s labor has contributed to their own success and well-being. In particular, I hope that the aprons invoke an appreciation for those in their lives who carry out underappreciated and often unacknowledged domestic labor.

“Apron #3”, Pigment prints on silk habotai with Polish costume fabric, 34x18in with fabric extending to the floor

Moria Kihato

moriaswrld

Your work draws from both your Kenyan heritage and Italian roots. How do these dual identities shape the stories you choose to tell through your portraits?

I constantly draw inspiration from things I experience, submerging my paintings with depictions of my own intimate home life. Being born and raised in Italy with Kenyan origins has informed many of these experiences. I’ve always found myself straddling two cultures, often remaining in the middle or forming a third culture where both intersect and blend. Recently, I’ve been delving deeply into what it means to exist between two cultures and the complexities of identity and belonging. Through domestic scenes - while seemingly mundane - I seek to

blend Kenyan and Western elements of my life, exploring connections between people and places, and where these cultures meet and influence each other.

Can you share more about how your color choices support the emotional atmosphere of your paintings?

My paintings serve as displays of nostalgia, identity, and memory, where personal and autobiographical scenes are permeated through rich layers of paint. I’ve come to the realization that it’s not only people and interior spaces that invoke feelings of nostalgia, but also nature. Physical landscapes have become a crucial point of inspiration for

me: the way the sun shines through leaves, the color of foliage, the warmth of a sunset. The colors I use reflect these elements that are deeply entrenched in memory and nostalgia. From there, I place my scenes on top of washes of vibrant yellow to invoke this sense of vibrancy and warmth.

You mention inspiration from artists like Jennifer Packer and Jordan Casteel. How have their approaches to figuration and abstraction influenced your own style?

I absolutely admire the looseness and transparency of Jennifer Packer’s work - something I try to emulate in my own style. Though she often works from direct observation, the figures in her paintings hover on the boundary of abstraction, often making it more challenging to make out what’s what. I love the way she retreats her figures into the background, creating emotional depth and withholding the secrets of who it is she paints.

With Jordan Casteel, her vibrant and colorful still-life compositions depict the beauty in the ordinary. This contrast creates a very interesting visual experience, which I try to reflect in my own paintings. Both of these artists have inspired me to move away from perfection and into experimentation.

What draws you to portraiture as a medium for exploring identity and human experience? How do you capture the subtle emotions or stories of your subjects?

My introduction to portraiture stems from the photographs my family would take to commemorate important events. These photographs depicted who we were - they were a record of our history. Each specific detail, from the hairstyles we wore to the clothes we had on and the settings we found ourselves in, exposed our identity. In my own work now, I seek to formulate my scenes like a photograph. I reflect on my subject, and with each object and motif, I intentionally portray contemporary narratives evoked through themes of identity and belonging.

How do you hope viewers connect with the intimate encounters and cultural nuances embedded in your portraits?

My paintings depict scenes of intimate moments and domestic life. I hope to invite viewers to reflect on and consider the wider themes of cultural identity, memory, and belonging. Through universal dialogues concerning the human experience, I hope viewers admire the beauty in the seemingly mundane intricacies of everyday life.

Conversations With The Father, oil on canvas, 19.7x27.6in

Frances Matassa

www.francesmatassa.com

francesmatassa

Your recent work marks a shift from depicting dissociation to visualizing the act of reconnecting with the physical world. What personal or artistic moment led to this transition?

My work is rooted in trauma, and each painting processes different parts of that experience. I sometimes think of healing like a wave; it can crash over you hard and then pull back gently. When I paint dissociation, it’s because the wave has swept me out so deep that I lose my footing. I feel far away from myself, so my figures, too, inhabit dreamlike, untethered spaces. But I’ve had a lot of changes in my life in the last few years. I feel more present and happy, and I’ve been able to start to see my trauma as a part of my story rather than the whole thing. That shift into seeing myself more clearly, even if briefly, gave rise to this new series. It’s still murky waters at times, but I’m trying to capture those moments of clarity when I feel grounded and connected and real.

In your process, do you find that painting itself becomes a way to ground and reconnector does it sometimes mirror the dreamlike, detached state you’re portraying?

I think it moves through both. When I started painting, I was processing this assault that I didn’t know how to talk about. I started drawing and painting when I was alone, just to keep myself distracted. Later, in art school, I fell in love with theory and history, and that gave me the tools to bring more intention to my work. I started thinking more deeply about narrative, color, and references, which still ground my process. But every painting has a point where all that fades. I stop thinking about theory and let the image unfold. That’s when I feel the most inside of the painting, like I’m in the landscape with my figures. In those moments, I feel both anchored and free. And that balance is a huge part of why I keep painting.

Do these landscapes come from personal memory, imagined space, or a mix of both?

Definitely a mix of both. As a kid, I had vivid, recurring dreams that took place in the same handful of imagined spaces. I even mapped them out once.

Those spaces aren’t exactly the ones that I paint, but fragments of them resurface in my paintings sometimes. Other times, a scene is sparked by a real memory - often something relatively mundane but rooted in a sensory experience; lying in the grass and feeling it tickle your legs as you listen to the crickets chirping. I created an actual soundscape to accompany this series. The gentle hum of insects tethers me to memories of being a kid and coming home at twilight, and that’s what this series feels like to me: coming home. Even though the figure is really the focal point of my work, the environment is just as emotionally important because it shapes the perspective from which the viewer enters. Often, for me, a painting starts at the landscape.

Your use of insects - moths, worms, flies, dragonflies - feels both personal and archetypal. How did these motifs emerge in your practice?

I first got interested in the use of insects in painting after learning about memento mori and vanitas paintings. Artists would use bugs to symbolize mortality or transformation. In my work, I try to incorporate some of that symbolism to further the narrative language of the piece. For me, insects reflect how trauma lives in the body. Dragonflies suggest fragility and change; flies represent lingering pain and decay; worms point to what is hidden or buried. But in my work, the glowing moth is central. It’s drawn to light, even when that light is disorienting or dangerous. It mirrors the figures in my work who search for healing. In the final piece of the series, a figure glows softly, cradled by the earth. That painting, Homecoming, speaks to the full journey: breaking through dissociation, returning to the body, and finding presence again.

What does working large-scale allow you to do emotionally or psychologically that smaller work wouldn’t?

The physicality of large-scale painting certainly makes me feel more present. In a series so focused on the body, the way I use my own (stretching, pulling, reaching, compressing) feels important. That movement grounds me and mirrors the themes of embodiment and presence in the work. I think that when a figure is life-sized, it can invite a sense of likeness or recognition. I hope that it also allows the viewer to physically step into these worlds I create. While my paintings are technically self-portraits because I often use myself as a model and draw from personal experiences, I don’t want them to feel exclusive. My paintings depict an array of emotions that, I hope, can resonate beyond my story and be accessible to anyone.

Allegory of Somatic Memory; Imprint, oil on canvas, 48x40in

Michele Mirisola

www.chell-fish.com

chell_fish_nyc

Your series, Chell Fish, began with the idea of turning meals into still lifes. Can you share how that origin has evolved - and where your practice sits now between art, craft, and design?

My background is in oil painting, and five years ago I created my first shell plate to hold raspberries for a still life painting. From there, the plates took off and enveloped my practice. I use delicate shells and chunky clay with the goal of designing special pieces to take the place of the ordinary. Recently, I’ve been thinking beyond the table. I want to build the objects you’d see in a painting of a grand interior - but they’re tangible, imperfectly handmade, and something useful every day. I approach my designs for mirrors and chairs as I do a canvas, thinking about light, color, and texture, but ultimately making decisions to create pieces that will last, that can show use and love, adding to the character of the piece.

byJessTran

You’ve done residencies in Italy, Maine, and upstate New York. How has time in those places influenced your material choices or color palette?

My time in Italy has made the most impact on my work. Along with materials and color - blues and seashells - I have taken a lot of my painting and sculptural imagery inspiration from the Italian frescoes, statues, and architectural design: cherubs, moon faces, camellia bushes, and wrought iron fences.

The time I’ve spent in artist residencies has also helped me trust my own taste by taking me out of my shared studio and away from my close friends - who I’m always tempted to ask, “Is this finished?” or “Is this the worst piece I’ve ever made?” The best choices I’ve made during these trips have been not to be productive, but to just give myself mental space to absorb a new world. The work happens when I get back home.

In an increasingly digital world, what role do you think physicality and imperfection play in how we connect to objects?

This is a beautiful moment to be making craft and design. In this hugely digital world, with the rise of AI in the arts, comes a resurgence of love for traditional ways of making and a blending of new media with old. I hope that those who use my pieces will see my hand in it and know a human made this. I personally like to see a chair get scuffed, or a spoon rest get dyed from a beet. I’m a sucker for a dogeared book with notes in the margin.

How do you move between painting, sculpture, and design? Do they feed each other, or do you treat them as separate languages?

I’m lucky enough to have my job be creating a line of handmade, usable tableware. Some of these designs are things I will repeat for 50 orders at a given time. About a year ago, that production process was taking over my studio practice and leaving little room for play and inventiveness. This year, with my new collection of art furniture pieces in collaboration with Studio Solenne, I have found an outlet for creative newness.

Now, the varied practices inform each other in new ways. If

Cherub Platter, gouache paint on shells with epoxy clay and resin, 13in round

Photo

I don’t want to hand-build a pomegranate fifty times, I can paint it with just a few lines and dots. There is a consistent visual language between my worlds of production design and sculpture/painting, drawing from shared imagery in different ways.

Do you imagine your work being used every day, or held for special moments - or both?

I want to create work that people enjoy touching. It can be hung on a wall, but most of it can be taken down and used as a platter, washed, and hung back up to dry. I would hate it if these pieces just collected dust. I create things that reveal their beauty through touch and intimacy. They are, of course, decadent and can be used as a wonderful excuse to throw a dinner party.

Primavera Mirror, oil on wood with epoxy clay, shells, and ceramic, 64x26in

Primavera Mirror - Detail

Chenxin Luo + Chenyi Luo

guesswho.studio naaameiii skye7luo24 glcylcy

Your work is a deeply collaborative process between the two of you as twins. How do you navigate creative disagreements, and how do you think your twin dynamic uniquely shapes your artistic voice?

Our creative disagreements usually come from seeing the same idea from two different angles - which, surprisingly, often leads to a stronger concept. We’ve learned to trust each other’s instincts and to take space when needed. Being twins means we’re super in sync, but we also challenge each other a lot. If one of us pushes back, it usually means the idea isn’t quite there yet. We’ve learned to pause, talk it out, and come back with fresh eyes. Our twin dynamic definitely shapes our voice. There’s a builtin dialogue happening all the time, and that tension makes our work feel layered, even when it’s subtle.

How do you balance individuality and togetherness in both life and practice? Does this tension ever appear in your subject matter?

Balancing individuality and togetherness is something we’re constantly navigating. We’ve spent our whole lives being seen as a duo, but we’re also two very different people. In our work, we try to leave space for both - to share a visual language while still letting our own interests show through. That push between “me” and “us” shows up in our art a lot, such as mirrored figures.

Bees, knives, and sweat are recurring symbols in your work. How do you choose metaphors that remain emotionally resonant while still feeling subtle?

We’re drawn to symbols that carry multiple emotional temperatures, feel honest, a little weird, and open to interpretation. We collect metaphors intuitively, often from personal memories or physical sensations, and see how they resonate over time. We like metaphors that don’t scream their meaning but hum quietly in the background, making space for ambiguity, discomfort, and interpretation.

What role does texture - both visual and emotionalplay in your illustrations?

Texture is where emotion lives in our illustrations. Visually, we often blend clean lines with raw, hand-drawn marks or textures that mimic physical mediums to break the digital

surface. But emotional texture matters just as much - what’s tender, messy, or unresolved. We think a flatly beautiful image can fall short if it lacks emotional grain.

How do you hope viewers relate to these depictions of social unease? Do you aim to soothe, provoke, or simply reveal?

We don’t see our work as offering clear resolutions. Instead, we’re more interested in revealing moments of tension or unease and letting viewers bring their own reading to it. Some people might find the images unsettling; others might find them oddly comforting - and both reactions are valid. Rather than aiming to soothe or provoke, we try to create space for reflection. A lot of our symbols and scenes are intentionally open-ended because we believe the emotional weight of an image often comes from what’s left unsaid.

Edges 02, Digital, 12x12in

Edges 04, Digital, 12x12in

Sophie Pickering

sophiapickering.com eatfiber

When did you first discover papermaking as a medium, and what drew you into its tactile, layered language?

In my early years as an artist, I worked with textiles and later studied weaving during my MFA. I was unbelievably lucky that my school had a papermaking studio. Papermaking solved many of the problems I was having with my weaving, primarily one of forced structure. Weaving generally follows a strict chronological order, and to embed imagery, you are constantly grappling with the grid. With papermaking, the impulse to break the grid is immediately rewarded, and I found that I could have figurative imagery while still having a tactile nature to my work - something that I felt my paintings lacked. Conceptually, the medium is the most truthful way for me to investigate time, with its weightless tactility and history of archival use, as paper has a matrix-like structure of fibrils with no identifiable beginning or end.

Your work grapples with the relationship between beauty and trauma. How do you use landscape or domestic architecture as metaphors to explore those emotional states?

I’m deeply interested in the interruption and integration of beauty and trauma in everyday life. In past work, I explored domestic space, where the house served as a symbol of continuity and stagnation. A home can become a container for every gruesome and lovely thing in the chronology of a family, allowing things to occur while maintaining its shape. Currently, I view the ocean as a similar space. Upon close examination, relics of death and life are scattered across the beach. Discarded shells, sea glass, and seagull carcasses all make up the grander, unchanging landscape of the beach. I like to bring little domestic elements back in to show disparity in scale. Feeling both minute and immense is, to me, the hallmark of being human.

Do recurring motifs - like domestic structures, natural elements, or archival materials - carry specific symbolic meaning for you? Or do they shift depending on the context of the work?

I’ve touched on domestic structures and oceanic elements within my work, but something that also appears frequently are excerpts from my archive of family photo albums. I see this as an anti-chronological impulse. “Characters” from these photos that I find myself repeating are a specific pair

Giantess, abaca, kozo, raw flax, denim, plaster, resin, found sea glass, 35x12x2in

of crystal candlesticks, a cherry pie, and a hair band around a wrist. All three of these have a time-based element to them but can also be temporally unmoored in their continuity. This is also a healing impulse, as the breaking of the linear timeline through the resurrection of images from my past helps me to grieve my father, who passed away a couple of years ago. Puncturing linearity, grief has brought up vivid memories in much the same way a domestic space or family photos do. The year after his death was thick with memories of the sickness. But recently, deeply buried recollections from childhood have begun to trickle in, allowing my father to actively touch my life in the present.

Would you consider your work as being in conversation with feminist or domestic art histories - especially given your use of materials traditionally associated with care and labor?

I’ve always cowered away from any gender-based concept, for fear that my work would be reduced to something easily digestible. However, I work in craftbased mediums that have strong histories of use within the home. All of the specific textile-based techniques that I work with have been developed and mastered by feminine people, so I owe a great deal of what I do to a gendered lineage. About my domestic imagery, I’m not a very domestic person, so I reject the notion that that is inherently feminine, even though it has been historically. My fascination with the home has more to do with it being a container for time and emotion, and far less to do with anything we might immediately associate with a domestic space.

What questions are you asking yourself in the studio right now - and how are those questions shaping the next evolution of your work?

I continue to be fascinated by time and chronology, and my current research focuses on the ocean and tidal cycles. My imagery is shifting from inside the home to outside, where I investigate the sea as a space of mystery, fear, and comfort that both marks time and seems almost separate from it. The fear and mystery surrounding the ocean fascinate me because all life originates from the sea, and for the first nine months of our lives, we are underwater. Beyond the sea, I have considered dimension a lot in my work. My two-dimensional imagery serves as a memory, while my three-dimensional forms feel more immediate and tangible. Visually, I am researching religious architecture and the way that ovals, arches, points, and decorative flourishes converge to inspire awe.

Sea Is Sky, abaca, raw flax, plaster, found sea glass, 22x9x1in

Sea Is Sky (detail), abaca, raw flax, plaster, found sea glass, 22x9x1in

Philipp Pusch (Ghislain)

www.philipp-pusch.de phlppxpsch ghislain______

How does your work respond to or critique the relationship between algorithms and individual consciousness?

In a world filled with distractions, where we usually spend a maximum of only 12 seconds on visual content, there is a risk of losing our authentic selves. To combat this, I embrace minimalism in my artistic expression to convey profound messages efficiently.

You speak of an “artificial state of euphoria” as a way to fill emptiness and escape reality. How do you represent this in your visual or musical work?

The artificial state of euphoria induced by the void of social media is acknowledged.

I counterbalance that void by exploring self-discovery and self-expression. I symbolize the emptiness and disconnect of the digital age with shapes and negative space, integrating elements of nature and human figures that reflect our search for identity within this artificial euphoria.

Can you talk about your feather paintings and your unconventional material explorations? What draws you to those tactile experiments?

After incorporating everyday objects into my exhibitions alongside my paintings, I shifted my focus to using unconventional materials that are common in our daily lives. Following my grandfather’s passing, I found comfort in preserving sentimental items from my grandparents’ home. These objects, which have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember, served as the starting point for my feather paintings.

The feathers I use in my work are sourced from the pillows I have slept on all my life. In recent exhibitions, viewers engaged with my art by blowing these feathers, actively transforming the images and embodying the evocation of memories through external interactions.

You work across tattoo art, drawing, painting, experimental music, and object art. How do you decide which medium best conveys your ideas in a given moment?

My energy flows naturally, and I appreciate the freedom to work as an artist who can shift focus as needed. It’s a combination of concentration and passion - I usually concentrate on several projects at a time, always replenishing my energy by indulging in another activity I love. Ideas come and go, requiring discipline to capture and pursue them to completion. For instance, when I’m working on a painting exhibition, I take breaks to make music or draw as part of my daily routine to stay disciplined and motivated to finish. Luckily, in some way, all my work forms a vast conglomerate that harmonizes together.

Do you see your work as offering viewers a space for their own introspection or emotional engagement? If so, how?

I depict elements of my reality in a contemplative and evocative style, capturing the essence of life in simple compositions. I invite viewers to connect deeply with these pieces, creating a profound link to their feelings and emotions. Each of my artworks serves as a small window, providing a glimpse into their own souls.

Couple Hand Concept, handpoke tattoo

Essence of Trauma, feathers and oil underpainting, 19.7x23.6in

Chanya Vitayakul

chanyavita.com chanyavita

In what ways does your identity as a feminized and nonbinary person shape how you approach materiality, form, and audience?

I think my identity isn’t just thematic in my practice, but embodied in the work. As someone feminized and nonbinary, I often move through the world misrecognized, so I gravitate toward materials that can’t be easily categorized: latex, hair, crocheted mesh, synthetic skin. Materials that are pliable, grotesque, soft and sharp at once - things that hold contradiction without needing to resolve it. I’m interested in how form can feel, can gesture toward discomfort, eroticism, refusal. Audience becomes less about reception and more about entanglement. I don’t think I’m offering clarity; I’m offering encounter.

Your work spans sculpture, installation, and graphic design. How do you decide what medium a particular idea demands? Does the material guide the message, or vice versa?

Sometimes the material whispers first, and the concept arrives through the act of holding or working it. Other times, the idea insists on a particular spatial or tactile form.

My training in graphic design taught me how to work within grids and systems - what it means to offer communication; sculpture and installation let me rupture them. When an idea aches in the body, I know it needs to live beyond the page; I’m following the friction.

As a graphic design student, how do you reconcile the goals of communication and clarity traditionally associated with design with your interest in rupture, distortion, and slippage?

I think communication isn’t the same as legibility. Something can be illegible and still deeply felt. I’m drawn to rupture because it makes space for truth that doesn’t flatten or translate. Graphic design teaches control - through typography, hierarchy, logic - but I’m interested in what leaks, what mutates. Communication becomes embodied, messy, porous.

You’ve said your body is often “misread or overwritten by external systems.” What systems do you find yourself in dialogue with - or resisting - through your work?

I’m in tension with systems that claim authority over bodies: medical institutions, gender binaries, reproductive legislation, design standards. Systems that reduce us to data, diagnosis, stereotypes. My work resists those clean readings. I lace it with contradictions, excess, failure. I’m interested in building a personal archive that resists erasure, that refuses to be legible on anyone else’s terms. Sometimes that looks like a crocheted vision chart. Sometimes it’s an altar of latex and hair. Always, it’s about reclaiming authorship of the body’s story.

What does authorship mean to you now - and how has that changed since you began this journey?

Authorship used to feel like control, like staking claim. Now, it feels more like curation of presence: what I allow to surface, what I choose to ritualize. I think of authorship less as ownership and more as holding space for contradiction. As a feminized and non-binary person, I’m used to being spoken for. So authorship becomes a kind of counter-spell - not to shout over, but to re-inscribe, with softness, with rage, with refusal. The work isn’t about resolution. It’s about staying with the wound and naming it on my own terms.

Wynter Rhoads

www.wybterart.com _wybterart

How has your personal experience with religion influenced your visual vocabulary?

I’ve always said that, through all their flaws, the Catholics really know how to decorate. They have quite the over-thetop dramatic flair to everything that really plays with the visual hierarchy we give imagery. I like to think of Catholicism and Camp as existing in the same visual landscape.

Are there particular biblical or mythological figures that have become important to you in reinterpreting identity, sexuality, or redemption?

My relationship with religion has been very back and forth. I think I’ve moved past my desire to reconcile with it. I don’t want to forgive it or learn how to be at peace with it. I want to take from it unforgivingly for my own benefit, as I feel like it has done to me. For that reason, no, I don’t

find myself looking into the religion for representation or reinterpretation. Instead, just like in the rest of my life, my art practice looks outside of religion to real queer voices and representation. I find myself currently inspired by Claude Cahun and their collage work, as well as Greer Lankton and her handmade dolls, celebrating the people she loved and who inspired her.

What types of conversations do you hope your work sparks, especially in the context of gallery or market spaces that may not always feel inclusive or accessible?

I want to talk about the queer experiences that are not visible to everyone. I want to explore the nuances that we all have as people. In my work, I am very seldom making direct statements. I am always growing, learning, and exploring, and I want those things to come through in open conversation with my viewers. I think a common conversation around my work in most institutional settings is about censorship and taboo, when at a very real level, I am just depicting myself and my experience. I would love for the conversation of femininity to evolve past solely being feminist, and for feminine sexuality to be accepted as more than shocking.

Is there a specific piece or series that felt like a personal turning point - emotionally, politically, or artistically?

Around 2022, I made an extremely pivotal piece that was just as controversial. It was a six-foot-tall, plush screen print of myself as Jesus, nude and hung on a Barbie-pink cross and strewn with condoms. It was appropriately titled Bimbo Jesus. The piece wasn’t groundbreaking or moving in meaning, but it was the first time I realized that my art could impact other people. And it did. It made a lot of people very upset until it was removed from its public space, and then it made a lot of other people upset that my artistic voice was being silenced to appease a specific religious group. What I realized is that I would rather my work say exactly what I want it to, to whoever I wanted it to. I think, mostly, that piece put me in a position of not having to be afraid of a group of people being upset with something I had made. It allowed me to keep making things that could offend.

Your work often uses self-portraiture and caricature. What does it mean for you to represent yourself this way - as both subject and symbol?

I am looking to represent myself to myself and represent others through shared experience. I am hoping that recreating myself in a way that feels uncomfortable to me will make me become comfortable with the body I am in and have little control over. Most, if not all, of this work is connected to the idea of gender and the performance of self, and I am thinking about the way our gender inherently forms our experiences and expectations, and how our identities are formed from said experiences. Specifically, I am exploring my own perceptions of femininity and my experience of girlhood as a nonbinary individual who has lived in the past as a girl. I am interested in posing questions to the audience, working through these questions as I create, and navigating the reality of questions that I cannot answer.

Dress Up; Paper Doll, watercolor, screen print on MDF, 56x67in

Emma Schwartz

emmamarieschwartz.com

emmaschwartzart

How do you negotiate the tension between your Midwestern Christian upbringing and your current artistic exploration of spirituality?

It’s representative of the internal conflict between my upbringing within Evangelicalism and my current understanding of religion’s place in my life. I create a dichotomy between sexual imagery and religious iconography. This tension led me to explore the way I grew up in relation to sexuality, women’s roles, and political leanings. It led me to solitude and more of a connection to spirituality through an agnostic framework. In an Evangelical setting, there is a lot of performative spirituality and not a material application of Christian teachings. When I finally left the church, I met people who did not have, or no longer had, ties to religion exhibiting an ethics of care that Christianity is based in. I believe this inner and outer troubling creates a realm where lessons of care and compassion are isolated while still referencing their Biblical contexts. Through this recontextualization, I found new ways to approach and build stronger relationships and communities outside of religion.

What role does desire - both solitary and communalplay in fostering empathy between the viewer and the work?

Growing up within Christianity, I was told as a girl, and eventual woman, that I should not see myself as desirable so as to not spark temptation in men. Desire had a negative connotation until I deconstructed that harmful rhetoric. The first step was to unravel those bad associations surrounding my wants and needs. From there, I explored desire, having positive and negative experiences, and brought those experiences with me into my various relationships.

In the work, desire functions in multiple ways - sexually and platonically. Desire is used to search for new experiences, relationships, and to get the most out of this lifetime on our own terms. It’s rooted in compassion and is communicated to viewers through the intensity of color, touches, eye contact, and the physicality of the soft sculpture. The intimacy depicted becomes a way for the static scenes to activate empathy toward the vulnerability emanating from the work.

You employ a mix of painting and soft sculpture. How do you decide which medium best conveys a particular idea or feeling?

I feature intense colors, giving a feeling of sensuality and warmth. The imagery within the paintings includes personal references to Nebraska, art history, and biblical stories. By pairing narrative scenes with soft sculpture, the sculptures are moved into the moment of a reflective religious experience. I’m interested in the desire for connection taking place within religious spaces and how I can recontextualize it within the secular-agnostic position I currently find myself in.

The soft sculptures’ imagery is usually derived from intimate images taken of myself for the private viewing of my partner. They signal to the devotive nature of Christian relics. The reference image acts as a relic of my desire. The pairing of these imageries modernizes and secularizes the ideas of faith, personal devotion, and spirituality. The 3D nature of the soft sculptures moves the desire featured in my work outside of the two-dimensional nature of the paintings and into the room with the viewers.

Red Hair Is A Sign of Glory; It Is Found On The Path of Righteousness, oil on canvas, 21x21in

What conversations or connections are you hoping to foster through both your art and curatorial projects moving forward?

I have found that, oftentimes, as a painter the process of making my work can feel very solitary, despite making work about connection, community, and being politically active. Through my curatorial practice, I have the opportunity to engage with artists, their activism, and create new conversations around their work and utilize this intersection to bring people together. At the same time as this community building is occurring, I pair exhibitions with fundraising and educational opportunities by having people bear witness to the ways artists have been speaking out against human rights violations. I aim to work with artists whose work has been censored by institutions due to their activism and to highlight the importance of their messages. I have utilized my curatorial practice as a way to create a praxis of community building. I want my curatorial practice to be one that mobilizes artists and their activism to push back against institutional and societal constraints.

Can you describe your process in developing a series that weaves together biblical storytelling and contemporary femme experience?

When I create my work, I look for connections between my past and present in relation to sexuality, relationships, spirituality, and religion. I find that the dichotomies within my life are not always so separate; they often overlap. When we are in limbo, we have to mobilize internal forgiveness, accepting that we may not fit perfectly into either binary. Utilizing stories in the Bible that I believe, when taken outside of their traditional contexts, can be reimagined to resemble instances of comfort and connection. I reference Mary Magdalene through red hair, as she is a figure within the Bible that operates within sinner/ saint binaries. I resonate with this feeling of otherness and the search for community that Mary searched for on her faith journey. I highlight other themes of remembrance, care, forgiveness, and grace that I have found in my relationships and Biblical teachings. It creates a web of seemingly opposing upbringings and stories and draws connections between them.

Noah Trapolino

noahtrapolino.com penkeeper

Your influences - Schiele, Klimt, Degas - are all artists who navigated intimacy and eroticism. What do you take from their approaches, and how do you challenge or expand on them in your own work?

For Egon, his confrontational nature - his figures face us, look at us, engage us. Egon is my unashamed Pervert. For Degas, his subtlety - he prefers the back, the model is posed during a daily activity. He is my Voyeur. Klimt’s complex compositions make him a great Mythologizer - he convinces you to stare at the bareness of the nude through the contextual beauty of the composition. Klimt is my Exhibitionist.

The Pervert was punished with jail, the Voyeur accused of not helping his poor models, the Exhibitionist’s sexual exploits with muses put on display. I am always oscillating between each of these positions. In my community of artists, I am urgently erotic - a Pervert. In my online world, I am the recipient of so many images, solicited and unsolicited, to be turned into art - a Voyeur. And then finally, I, of course, must invite you to watch me, my art, my world of Perversion - I am also the Exhibitionist.

In what ways does your work challenge dominant cultural narratives about sexuality - especially in relation to moral authority, religion, or institutional control?

Eroticism is a privileged form of excess. It is the unnecessary component of reproduction: your lover’s hand grazing your shoulder; the whisper in an ear; a nipple seen through a shirt - all of these are intensities that do not contribute to anything necessary about sex itself.

It is this “unnecessary” - this wastefulness - that is what interests me politically: what else is wasted, where is energy sacrificed or conserved, and who is making the decision to waste, to sacrifice.

If we look at eroticism as a symptom of a broader system - that of a libidinal economy - we will come across various manufacturing, distribution, and consumption centers. Who is allowed to be desired? Who is bestowed with the capacity to empower or disempower certain

bodies and identities? And then who is allowed to be horny, and where?

These are urgent political questions as we see surges of incels, right-wing calls for a return to tradition, and public pushback against queer expression.

As a self-taught artist, how has your practice evolvedformally or conceptually - outside traditional academic constraints?

The most important moment for my self-led education was the conceptual discovery of where my work needed to go - instead of journaling, I drew about it. Why did I desire what

Miran And The Cows Uterus, oil on panel, 12x16in

I did, and what did that imply in the context of the body and my relationships?

The first thing I drew was a nude. Every sketchbook in my early days was an explosion - again, an urgency - of erotic forms and attempted education.

It was important to become erotically educated - to undo what the pornographic had done to me and my community. This meant film, books, and of course, art.

I was not without help: Ryan Humphrey, Daniel Maidman, and Martin Campos helped me to find a visual language through which to explore eroticism and sex as they meet in the context of the body.

You must first go fast in order to go slow: what began in a flurry is now a meditation for me.

How would you describe your process, from concept to finished work?

It begins as a flash, a pang - if I am close enough to both a pen and paper, perhaps some version of it can be hastily put down. These flashes come to me at various moments.

I am involved in a parttime academic research program with the Mimbres School for the Humanities, wherein we engage in cross-disciplinary reading with vigour and hostility, primarily exploring themes of power, sovereignty, reproduction, and how politics, theology, and philosophy have attempted to refine and mediate these forces.

It is incredibly important to read. These themes in particular help me contextualize my eroticism in political issues and provide me with millennia of visual inspiration.

With a concept in mind, my subjects of composition reveal themselves - which friend or lover brings about this energy, this context, this desire?

Once the subject, energy, and context are in my head, I then draw endlessly. I make a hundred small renditions of the piece in its various forms.

What kinds of reactions or questions do you hope your viewers leave with - especially when confronted with themes of eroticism, theology, and power?

Sex is a part of the human condition. The body is a site of politics. The nude on the wall - a reminder that we have bodies and subsequently desire others’ bodies. The nude is a political act.

What is the difference between a Renaissance painting in a cathedral with nudity and an Egon Schiele that landed him in jail? When is art considered sinful versus pure? Who makes these decisions? Are you ashamed to have your subject of desire hung on a wall for all to see?

When desire is hidden, it is the most dangerous. When it is transparent, it is liberatory - and that is a threat to those who control the flows of our libidinal economy.

Art, for me, does not change the world - it is a symptom of it. What symptoms reveal themselves results in different treatments and diagnoses.

Xuecong Wang

xuecong.art

xc_wang.art

How do moments of blurriness or distortion in your art function metaphorically in terms of memory or emotion?

In my work, blurriness and distortion function as metaphors for the fallibility and subjective nature of memory. In my opinion, reality can be represented in three ways: objective reality (that which exists physically), perceived reality (our immediate sensory experience), and the reality of memory (a reconstruction of a moment using fragments of memory and imagination). My art centers on this last one.

Because I’m working with the reality of memory, I’m inherently dealing with something that is already filtered, incomplete, and subject to interpretation. Blurriness and distortion become visual tools to represent this inherent ambiguity. They reflect how memories fade or transform because of time and the shift of focus due to our emotions. A sharp, clear image might suggest a claim to objective truth, while the ambiguous representations acknowledge the subjective nature of memory and how it’s never a perfect replica of the past.

Having moved from a small town in China to New York City, how do nostalgia and independence intersect in your art?

In Chinese, there’s a saying: “The one involved is lost in the fog, while the observer sees clearly.” This means that only when disengaged can you perceive the whole situation. Moving from my small town to New York, I detached from the soil that had nurtured me, rerooting in the concrete jungle, only to realize who I am. Hence, it is because of this nostalgia that I have found independence.

I discovered my resistance to order and a completely rational society through the displacement. Influenced by traditional, family-oriented culture and folk beliefs in that small town, I am a sensual person. In New York’s somewhat cold society, this quality of sensuality is particularly prominent. Thus, my work focuses on those peculiar moments rooted in personal stories because of the individualistic, unquantifiable touches revealed within them.

Can you walk us through your process using watercolors and how you cope with the unpredictability of the medium?

The unpredictability of watercolor arises from the dynamic interaction between its core elements: the paper (or surface), the pigment, and the water. To control all of these simultaneously is, in my experience, impossible. Therefore, I’ve learned to share creative freedom with the medium itself. Mastering watercolor requires a long learning curve, and those uncertainties that happen during creation are often a great opportunity to discover new techniques.

When things don’t fall into place as I initially envision, it often leads to surprising results. For example, a pigment might dry up in unexpected granulation, creating rich texture, or a stray drop of water might lift a lower layer of color, revealing something new. While relinquishing control can initially be frustrating, I learn immensely from these “accidents”

and have found the creative process rewarding. These unexpected occurrences break the monotony of the initial plan, fusing the piece with a unique character. Hence, a watercolor painting bears a narrative of the creative process, revealing a glimpse of the creator’s mind.

You write that your art-making is a “trip seeking answers.” Have you found any surprising or unexpected answers through your practice?

I uncovered a long-held, irrational fear of losing my sight while making the series called Because I Might Not See. In its early stage, this series lacked a clear title or even a perceived connection between the paintings. Yet, an invisible force compelled me to continue creating.

Gradually, by analyzing recurring themes and visual motifs, I recognized the driving force behind the work: an irrational fear of losing my sight. This fear has made me acutely aware of the beauty and significance of peculiar life scenarios, and it compels me to contemplate the relationship between human perception, memory, and objective reality. Consequently, many of the paintings in Because I Might Not See focus on capturing strange phenomena in life, sensations, and reconstructed memories.

Do you feel your work participates in a broader dialogue about displacement, hybridity, or globalization? If so, how?

While I wouldn’t categorize myself as an artist primarily focused on themes of displacement, hybridity, or globalization, I do believe my work inevitably participates in a broader dialogue surrounding these issues. My intention isn’t to create explicitly political or sociological statements. But much of my artistic vision derives from my subconscious, as an immigrant and a person of color, venturing into an unfamiliar environment.

I want to offer fresh perspectives on the world that provoke thought and generate conversations across cultural boundaries and more. For instance, from the angle of globalization, my art sometimes involves finding common ground between Chinese and American cultures. By highlighting similarities in values and experiences, I hope to encourage greater understanding, peace, and mutual respect between these cultures.

Because I Might Not See No.9, watercolor on paper mounted on wood panel, 6x6in

Marion Vail

www.marionvailed.com

marionvailed

You work primarily with found and sentimental objects - what draws you to assemblage as a form, and how do you decide what objects “belong” in a piece?

I view physical objects as vessels of memory: the curve of worn steps, the patina of old jewelry, the stains on used bed sheets. I choose objects that ‘speak’ the loudest, those capable of conveying an imagined past. In this altar series, that might be a wedding ring or a used chocolate boxitems that represent their histories and speak to the rituals of love.

Many of my pieces also incorporate objects from my own life, like my childhood furniture and stuffed animals. In 2024, I reworked old dolls handmade by my mother and grandmother. The dolls facilitated a dialogue between the two makers, especially relevant with my grandmother’s passing in 2021. Through their hands and mine, I watched how time changed these items, my perception of them, and, by proxy, me.

How do you balance personal meaning with broader accessibility in your materials - do you want viewers to understand the original context, or does reinterpretation feel more important?

When exhibiting my work, I provide context without defining a sole meaning. Like a map without directions, I want the viewers to understand the emotional landscape, but with room to interpret as relevant to their own experience.

In assemblage work, the material list and title are essential parts of the piece, providing important breadcrumbs to the intended meaning. Combined with the show statement, these written guides help the viewer toward the narrative core of the work.

Accessibility is central to my practice, extending beyond language and into the physical. I’m interested in tangibly bringing fine art into daily life. After creating my piece ‘Barbie plays house’ in 2022, a room-sized hanging installation composed of headless Barbies, I made over 50 mementos from the leftover heads. These allowed viewers to carry a part of the work in their pocket, which felt like a fitting end for a piece that began in the hands of children.

Now that you’ve relocated to Baltimore and are starting your MFA at MICA, do you sense your relationship with material, memory, or narrative shifting?

Graduate school is an important time for me to experiment with broader narratives. Until now, my work has leaned toward the personal, partly because I’ve been creating alone.

With the support of an artistic community, diverse critique, and academic research, I’m excited to bridge the personal and the societal. Specifically, I’m interested in examining my family’s relationship to America and how inherited memory shapes identity across generations.

I plan to work with objects not only from my own life, but also from the lives of my ancestors, seeking to accept the past while articulating my place within it.

Hannah, wooden plaques, aluminum siding, mosaic tile, plastic figurine, shells, ribbon, pearls, safety pin, button, 12x13x2in

Are there artists or movements that have shaped how you approach storytelling through objects?

I’m heavily influenced by traditional high church liturgy, rooted in my Anglican upbringing. Many Christian and Catholic traditions regard objects as storytellers: the vestments worn by clergy, the altar linens, the reliquary, the cross.

Anglican Christianity has shaped not only how I see objects, but how I understand their role within ritual. All of my shows include some form of viewer-guided ritual, from group shrines to writing love letters. These gestures invite the audience to engage physically and emotionally, grounding themselves within the work through action.

Your recent altar series grapples with the question: “What belongs in your heart after someone has left?” Has your answer to that question shifted through making the work?

When I began the project, I thought I was laying memories to rest. But in making the work, I realized it was less about burial and more about acceptance - the understanding that certain memories live with you.

This acceptance isn’t quite peace, but it’s the closest I’ve come. To answer directly, I’d say people leave behind memories like old keepsake photographs: always there, slowly fading.

Sasha, chocolate box, mosaic tile, Altoids tin, tacks, stock photograph, wedding ring, key, pearls, beads, 12x13x1in

Livia, Cookie tin, mosaic tile, glass jar, human hair, rosaries, pearls, rosettes, 10x15x4in

Fernanda Uribe

www.fernandauribe.com

fernanda___uribe

Your work draws deeply from your Mexican-Cuban heritage. How do these cultural lineages individually and collectively shape your artistic voice?

I feel incredibly fortunate to have been born into the rich cultural tapestry of Latin America. The vibrant colors, lush landscapes, and deep-rooted traditions of Mexico blend with the musicality, rhythm, and architectural beauty of Cuba - each flowing through every brushstroke. My background in dance and yoga informs the movement and sculptural flow of my work. Much of my exploration centers on the body and its connection to nature, shaped by Mexico’s rituals surrounding life and death. These cultural lineages aren’t separate for me - they’re intertwined, constantly feeding my practice with both ancestral memory and embodied experience.

How does your understanding of death - shaped by cultural traditions and personal experience - manifest in your work?

The body - its pain, beauty, and fragility - has always been present in my life. My father, a respected doctor and forensic specialist, would take us for ice cream on Sundays - his only day off - but sometimes we’d end up waiting hours outside the morgue. Death was never hidden from us; he’d explain the human body like a puzzle, which he did with me and my sister, who’s now also a doctor.

At the same time, my mother made sure we were connected to our cultural traditions around death, especially how it’s celebrated - not mourned - as a continuation of life. Those experiences shaped how I view mortality: not as an end, but as a transformation. It’s a constant presence in my work, a reminder that life is always teaching us to let go.

Can you walk us through a recent piece - from concept to completion - and how intuition or meditation played a role in its evolution?

My two latest pieces, including Chrysalis de Monarca, are part of my exhibition Metamorphoses at the Mexican consulate in NY and explore the chrysalis stage - when a caterpillar breaks itself down to become a butterfly. In October, I was diagnosed with stage four endometriosis, adenomyosis, and nine benign tumors. The physical pain and emotional weight nearly broke me. But during an artist residency in rural Oaxaca, surrounded by nature, I slowly began to heal.

I became fascinated by the instinctive will to live in the caterpillar’s transformation. As I recovered, my hands moved intuitively - more focused on emotion, texture, and energy than on form or function. For the first time, I sculpted with raw feeling. These pieces weren’t about utility or beauty - they were about survival, about honoring the strength it takes to rebuild from within.

How do science and mythology coexist in your work?

I’ve been a nerd since I was a little girl - curious about how and why things work . I loved reading quirky facts and exploring nature with my brother, who’s love for animals manifested in being a marine biologist. Science is my way of making sense of the world.

My dad taught me to read with Greek Mythology. Fantastical stories -which all cultures have- to give shape to what we don’t fully understand. Science and myth aren’t opposites to me; they’re different ways of storytelling. When they coexist, they create a beautiful tension: logic and wonder, evidence and mystery. There’s no single immaculate truth, and that’s where art lives - in the space between knowing and imagining.

Monarch Chrysalis, ceramic stoneware, 18k gold and mother of pearl luster, 13x12.5x11in

Many of your pieces resemble relics or sacred objects. How do you balance the ancient and the contemporary in your aesthetic?

I’m drawn to objects that feel like they’ve lived many lives - weathered, sacred, layered with meaning. Ancient aesthetics carry a kind of silent wisdom, and I try to channel that presence into contemporary forms. I often

use natural materials, textures, and gestures that echo preColumbian artifacts or ritual objects, but I bring them into the now through abstraction, movement, and the body. It’s not about recreating the past - it’s about honoring it while letting it evolve. I see my work as a conversation across time: between ancestors and the present moment, between what we’ve lost and what still lives within us.

Metallic Mechantinis Chrysalis, ceramic stoneware, 18k gold and mother of pearl luster, 9.2x7.1x 7in

Juliette VaissiÈre

juliettevaissiere.com

juliettevaissiere

You draw from the visual language of French Baroque and Rococo to comment on modern consumerism and social media. What parallels do you see between these historical periods and our current cultural moment?

I believe we are living in a “Modern Rococo” period. The 18th century saw a huge excess of wealth at the top of French society, which culminated in revolution and a new system of government. What I find particularly interesting to compare, beyond the parallels of growing wealth disparity, is the rise of willful excessive consumption to signify social status and the simultaneous urge to “return to nature,” which acts as a counterweight. In the mid18th century, this manifested as increasingly theatrical fashions and decor, excessive gambling, and a focus on individual pleasure. Simultaneously, pastoral paintings idealizing rural life rose in popularity - a motif that greatly influenced Marie Antoinette’s personal dress and inspired her to model her retreat (the Queen’s Hamlet) after romanticized country life. Complete with cottages and a working farm, the queen adopted lightweight white muslin dresses inspired by laborers’ wear.

As I doomscroll through influencers in modern peasant dresses (direct descendants of the French queen’s chemise à la reine), making manicured sourdough bread and sitting in fields, I can’t help but reference this history of aristocrats cosplaying as the working class.

Greyhounds in your work nod to their historical symbolism - how did you arrive at this metaphor, and how has their role evolved in your paintings over time?

I’ve always been intrigued by how prevalent greyhounds are in historical portraits of nobles. After almost going extinct during the Middle Ages, clergymen began to breed them as hunting dogs for the aristocracy. They eventually became a ubiquitous status symbol: people would pose with them for portraits the way we might pose with a fancy car or designer bag in pictures today. It was illegal for common people to own

greyhounds, so they were seen as an exotic symbol of wealth and privilege.

Their role in my work has evolved alongside my understanding of their background and symbolism. Although I initially included them because they are so visually striking, in my current paintings they often serve as stand-ins for human archetypes. In The Pity Party, the greyhound on the right represents Vanity, while the one on the left symbolizes Self-Indulgence. They have both failed to protect the bluebird (a symbol of hope and joy) because they are so entrenched in their own narrative.

What role does solitude - both of your figures and your imagined places - play in exploring themes of selfimage and disconnection?

My paintings aren’t set in a specific place or time, but rather in a disconnected, empty sort of liminal space. I like to think of my landscapes as snapshots of an expansive garden that is very sparsely populated by statues, animals, and symbolic figures. They’re all in the same place, but too disconnected and isolated to be aware of each other. I’m really drawn to the idea of “the calm before the storm” - this kind of indecisive balance between peace and calamity. I think a lot of people globally feel really unstable and uncertain about the future right now. My paintings are a response to this subconscious unease and the isolation that comes from being chronically online while also trying to present a perfect version of ourselves.

Do you see your paintings as critical, empathetic, or ambivalent toward the world of online self-curation and social performance?

I’d say my paintings tend to be critical of our social routines and online peacocking, but I always hope it’s in more of a comical, satirical way than open condemnation. The human condition implies being ridiculous more often than we would like, and knowing that we’re all in the same boat

feels really reassuring to me. I used to think “great” art had to be solemn and polished, but I think there’s a lot of power and relatability in the ridiculous and the mundane. I also recognize that I’m guilty of everything my paintings are critical of, so they’re as much autocriticism as anything else.

What

does your painting process look like - from memory or imagination to the finished piece?

I spend a lot of time consciously thinking about compositions and what would make an interesting painting. Mental images often pop into my mind when I’m falling asleep, in a yoga class, or just watching people at the grocery store interact. Ninety-nine percent of them are terrible, but every once in a while, something will click that I think is maybe worthwhile. Weirdly, a title usually pops into my head at the same time as the mental image. I’ll sometimes do a quick ballpoint pen thumbnail, and then I’ll tone a canvas and start painting. Since I work almost fully from my imagination, I’m able to tweak things a lot during the underpainting stage before I start adding color. As a body of work evolves, I find that my color palette generally becomes more restricted as I hone in on the mood or atmosphere I’m trying to convey. I also find that each painting influences the next, so I end up subconsciously exploring themes and motifs from different angles.

Hunger, oil on linen, 6x8in

Darcy Whent

www.darcywhent.co.uk

darcywhent

Your work blurs the line between personal memory and collective experience. How do you navigate that space between autobiography and invention?

The space between autobiography and invention is not something I try to clearly define. It is a shifting terrain I consciously occupy. My work draws from personal memory, yet it does not attempt to recount events in a literal or documentary way. Memory is already an act of fiction, shaped and reshaped by time, emotion, and absence. I use fragments of my own experience as starting points, but they are not the full story.

What interests me is how intimate, individual experience can open into something more shared. The domestic, the familial, and the psychological are not only mine. They speak to wider cultural and emotional narratives. Invention plays a crucial role here. It offers freedom. It allows me to protect certain truths while also amplifying others. Through imagined scenes, symbolic gestures, and indirect storytelling, I can reach something that feels more universally resonant. Rather than seeking to distinguish what is real from what is imagined, I embrace the blurring. I want the viewer to find their own emotional entry point into the work, even if the story beneath it is not theirs.

Do these motifs serve as anchors to specific memories, or do they take on new meanings as your work evolves?

The motifs I return to in my practice often begin with specific memories. They come from small details that have stayed with me. A glance. A shadow in a doorway. The shape of a horse’s body. A broken domestic object. In their first appearance, these images serve as anchors. They tether the work to particular feelings or scenes. But the more I use them, the more they shift.

With time and repetition, these motifs develop a new kind of meaning. They move from being descriptive to symbolic. They take on the weight of metaphor. A dog might once have been a real animal from childhood, but now it might stand for loyalty, threat, or the pull of the past. This evolution is natural and intentional. I want these images to carry both the residue of the personal and the possibility of transformation.

In that way, they behave like memory itself. Never fixed.

Always refracted by the present moment. They become part of a larger visual language that speaks emotionally rather than literally.

Themes of motherhood and emotional tension are central to your practice. How do you approach such intimate, often vulnerable subjects in your work?

I approach them with care, with distance, and with an awareness of what can and cannot be spoken. The maternal appears in my work not as a figure, but as a presence. Sometimes it is a wound, sometimes a shelter. Sometimes it is both at once. I do not set out to portray motherhood in a literal sense. Instead, I explore its emotional atmosphere. Its contradictions. Its psychic weight.

To do this, I often work through indirection. I use metaphor, suggestion, and gesture. A painting might hold tension without naming it. A piece of fabric might stand in for absence or loss. This approach gives me space to reflect, but it also respects the complexity of what I am handling. Vulnerability does not mean full exposure. It means allowing something honest to emerge through form and material, even when words fall short.

Working with these subjects also involves a certain responsibility. I am aware that the personal is never only

personal. It is part of a wider web of histories, relationships, and power. My aim is to honour the tenderness, the pain, and the ambiguity without reducing it. I want the work to offer a space for recognition and reflection, not explanation.

Is there a particular memory or emotional landscape that first compelled you to explore these themes through art?

There is no single origin point, but rather a constellation of emotional impressions that have shaped the way I see and think. From an early age, I was attuned to what was not said. To the silences that filled a room. To the feeling that something might fracture at any moment. These emotional conditions became part of my inner landscape.

Art became a way to hold and examine that landscape. It allowed me to give form to things that felt too diffuse or painful to articulate directly. Painting especially offered a way to linger with feeling, without demanding clarity. It let me work with the unresolved. It let me return to the same emotional site again and again, each time seeing it differently.

What continues to compel me is not the urge to find closure, but the desire to stay with the complexity. The emotional themes in my work are not problems to be solved. They are conditions to be lived with. Art gives me the space to do that, and to share something of that process with others.

What role does folklore play in shaping your understanding of identity and transformation?

Folklore offers a rich and symbolic framework for thinking about identity. It allows for multiplicity, for shapeshifting, for contradiction. These qualities mirror the themes I explore in my work. I am drawn to stories where the boundary between human and animal, self and other, care and danger is blurred. These narratives reflect the emotional states I inhabit and express through my practice.

Growing up in Wales, folklore was part of the cultural texture around me. The stories were embedded in landscape, in rhythm, in the everyday. They carried with them a sense of both magic and moral complexity. A girl could become a bird. A mother could vanish. A house could speak. These were not just fantastical tales. They were metaphors for transformation, for loss, for inheritance.

In my work, I use folklore not to illustrate, but to echo. It offers me a way of holding onto the symbolic, the mysterious, the deeply felt. Through it, I explore how identity is formed and reformed. How we carry the past inside us. How change can be both frightening and necessary. Folklore reminds me that the self is never singular. It is a story told many times, in many voices.

ARTIST PATRICIA DATTOMA

VISIONARY VISITS

Our studio visits in New York City and beyond provide us with a deeper understanding of the work in which we are viewing. Through this ongoing series, we travel to artist studios to meet contemporary artists who are creating powerful, thought-provoking work.

Patricia Dattoma

subscribepage.io/PatriciaD patricia_dattoma.art

BIO

Patricia Dattoma is a NYC based artist, art educator and lifelong New Yorker. Her abstract paintings are a visual response to memories and life in NYC. She received a Bachelor of Business Administration from Bernard M.Baruch College/CUNY and worked in the advertising industry for many years. Dattoma spent much of her free time taking evening studio art and art history classes from The School of Visual Arts/NYC. After a successful career with a major NYC advertising agency, she made the decision to pursue her life long love of teaching and visual art and enrolled in the School of Visual Arts/ NYC Post Baccalaureate program for Art Education. She became a NYS certified public middle school art teacher within the NYC Department of Education. While teaching full time she earned her Masters Degree in Art Education from Teachers College/Columbia University. Now retired, Dattoma is a full time artist. She is most inspired by the works of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Georgia O’Keeffe and Helen Frankenthaler. Dattoma’s work has been exhibited in NYC galleries and she has sold work to private collectors, both nationally & internationally. She resides in Manhattan with her husband, daughter & rescue pup.

ARTIST STATEMENT

Memories are part of our inner landscape and can be elusive, fragmented, distinct or hazy, yet can hold meaningful resonance. When memories surface, they are often colored by emotion, the passage of time and perspective. I am interested in exploring the way in which something so intangible as memories can be translated into a painting using a personal visual language.

My paintings begin with a glimpse of a memory which may be prompted by a song, a poem, a feeling or a fleeting image of a specific time in my life. I respond to these glimpses abstractly through painted layers, found text and intuitive mark-making. I seek to capture the emotional essence of these memories. My process enables me to echo the way memories surface, meld into each other and ultimately fade, much like a dream state.

My hope is that viewers will engage with my work in a way that resonates with their own inner landscape of memory.

Charlie Serotoff

charlieserotoff.com

charlie.serotoff.art

BIO

Charlie Serotoff is a textile artist based in New York City. Since beginning his exploration of textile art in late 2023, Serotoff has developed a practice centered on transforming personal emotional experiences into tactile, visual narratives through hand-tufted rugs.

Entirely self-taught, Serotoff’s partial color blindness plays a key role in shaping his bold and distinctive palette. By selecting yarns based on contrast and visual impact rather than specific hues, he creates dynamic color relationships that heighten the emotional resonance of each piece.

His work has been featured in several solo exhibitions, including Hangin’ by a Thread at Helm Contemporary (March 2025), Rugs of Reflection at Columbus Circle (May 2025), and Cathartic Connection at Gracie Mansion (June–August 2025).

Balancing both analytical and creative instincts, Serotoff works in digital product management by day. His textile art practice offers a deeply fulfilling creative outlet - one that bridges intellect and emotion in equal measure.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work explores the emotional complexity of being human - especially the kinds of feelings that don’t have clear names. I’m drawn to the subtle, often contradictory reactions we have to memory, connection, disconnection, and the stories we tell ourselves. Emotions like shame, longing, disorientation, or quiet clarity - the ones that live in the body before we can articulate them.

What began as a way to process personal transformation has evolved into a practice of making the invisible visible. Each piece I create is rooted in real emotional experiences, translating concepts from my mental health journey into visual form through hand-tufted rugs. The softness of the textile medium makes challenging psychological concepts more approachable - the texture invites people to lean in rather than turn away.

Through designing, tufting, gluing, and carving, I spend 20 to 30 hours with each piece, finding that the meditative process offers as much clarity and meaning as the finished work. My background in software development and interests in science, mental health, sociology, and systems thinking inform my approach, whether through structured patterns or organic forms.

These rugs are attempts to translate thoughts into form, to create small moments of recognition where someone might feel seen, understood, or just a little less alone. In a world where complex feelings often resist language, I offer texture, color, and form as alternative vocabularies for the human experience.

JESSICA VioLETTA

www.jessicavioletta.com jessica_violetta

BIO

Jessica Violetta is an Italian American painter based in the New York City metro area. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from California College of the Arts in San Francisco where she then became a commercial textile designer. Violetta works primarily in oil on canvas, honoring the complexity of modern feminine narratives through figurative and biomorphic realism.

ARTIST STATEMENT

In her paintings, Jessica explores the use of repetitive organic forms to create a sense of empowerment and belonging. She uses color, form, and space to highlight overlapping traits between feminine figures and the natural world that then extend to become the space itself. These suspended compositions demonstrate the inherency of our experience and validate the beauty of unrestrained self expression.

Photo by

AshleyJoanna

Photo by Ashley Joanna

Photo by Ashley Joanna

Photo by Ashley Joanna

Photo by Ashley Joanna

VISIONARY EXHIBITIONS, FAIRS & GALLERIES

Coinciding with our mission to highlight emerging artists, we’re shining a spotlight on selected exhibitions, Fairs and Galleries in New York City that have inspired us.

THOSE WHO TEND

Curated by Kaylan Buteyn

Visionary Art Collective opened Warnes Contemporary, a gallery in Brooklyn, NY to exhibit work by emerging artists.

www.warnescontemporary.com warnescontemporary

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Warnes Contemporary is pleased to present Those Who Tend, a powerful group exhibition curated by Kaylan Buteyn in partnership with Visionary Art Collective.

In a world where so much demands our attention - children, art practices, homes, relationships, and inboxes - Those Who Tend honors the artists who create in the midst of it all. This exhibition brings together work made in the margins of busy lives, in quiet hours, during nap times, or between shifts - highlighting the resilience and devotion it takes to sustain a creative practice while tending to others.

Featuring artwork by parents, caregivers, and those balancing the often-invisible labor of care, the show reflects the tension and tenderness of making space for oneself in a life filled with responsibility. Through painting, sculpture,

textile, mixed media, and more, these artists explore themes of identity, memory, nourishment, and generational care.

Curated by artist and community-builder Kaylan Buteynfounder of the Artist/Mother Podcast and Kinhouse Artist Residency - the exhibition celebrates both the quiet power and profound persistence of caregiving artists.

EXHIBITING ARTISTS

Heidi Brueckner, Ana Maria Farina & Hanna Washburn, Barry Beach, Jodi Brown Steifel, Sydney Brown, Shannon Cleere, Christina Cornier, Morgan Ford Willingham, Anya Kotler, Amanda Lechner, Catherine LeComte Lecce, Lucy Bohnsack, Kara Patrowicz, Mary Porterfield, Angela Shaffer, Sarah Sharp, Allyson Smith, Vanessa Torres, Sara Tuttle, Colleen Walsh, Toni Pepe

Artists ifeatured in the image (left to right): Christina Cornier, Vanessa Torres, Angela Shaffer, Lucy Bohnsack, Heidi Brueckner

Artists ifeatured in the image (left to right): Angela Shaffer, Lucy Bohnsack, Heidi Brueckner

Artists ifeatured in the image (left to right): Barry Beach Toni Pepe

Harsh Collective

www.harshcollective.com harshcollectivenyc

Harsh Collective was founded by Etta Harshaw to offer a more intentional and inclusive space for contemporary art, one where emerging and underrepresented artists are given the platform to share their work and story. With a curatorial approach grounded in collaboration and community, the gallery brings forward bold, concept-driven programming across digital platforms, art fairs, and pop-up exhibitions this season.

This July, Harsh Collective presented ∆y/∆x at Artsy’s Foundations Fair, a duo show featuring Jacky Boehm and Mo Gordon. The exhibition explored transformation and temporality, offering thoughtful reflections on change, both internal and environmental, through materially rich, process-based work.

At its Brooklyn pop-up, the gallery concurrently launched Pet Shop, a group show featuring 36 works by nine emerging artists. The exhibition examined how animals, real and imagined, act as mirrors for human emotion, exploring themes of care, vulnerability, and identity through sculpture, painting, and mixed media.

This fall, Harsh Collective returns to the Affordable Art Fair New York as part of the Fellowship Program, continuing its mission to spotlight emerging voices and create an inclusive space for nuanced, emotionally resonant work. Through thoughtful curation and artist-first values, Harsh Collective brings a distinctive, storytelling-driven voice to the evolving contemporary art landscape - one that is both conceptually rigorous and deeply engaged with artists’ visions.

ADA LOUISE HAMILTON , Scaredy Sphinx, Stoneware, 9x4x18in

DARCY WHENT , Standing Ovation, oil on linen, 35.8x35.8in

NORD , Walking with Harry, ceramic,

The Sacred Condition of Being

Curated by Victoria J. Fry

www.kasiamuzyka.com kasiamuzyka

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

Kasia Muzyka’s new solo exhibition, The Sacred Condition of Being, asks viewers to look past our fragmented experiences toward the wholeness that lies beyond. Using natural pigments and organic materials in an almost ritualistic manner, she makes expressive, intuitive marks across canvases, channeling primordial methods of representation and understanding.

Muzyka considers her pieces to be not so much paintings as portals; what they capture transcends the visual and the verbal, inviting us to contemplate existence itself. This body of work explores the process of becoming, from nothingness to creation and back again. It celebrates

chaos, change, and cycles, embracing impermanence and the unknown. Engaging with the tension between being and nonbeing, between formlessness and form, Muzyka considers existence more holistically and illuminates the cosmic interconnectedness of our lives.

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Kasia Muzyka has exhibited nationally and internationally, including at Tyrrell Art Gallery, Dove Gallery, and Red Dot Miami, a satellite fair during Art Basel. Her work has been featured in several publications, including Vanity Fair and New Visionary Magazine. She is based in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

100- The Leap of Wholeness, coffee, wine, pigments, pastels, 36x36in

Quantum Timelines - The Tower Everything, coffee, wine, natural pigments, 36x36in

Before First Breath, coffee, wine, natural pigments on raw linen, 40x60in

ARTIST TRACY VON AHSEN

Soft Exit (detail), analog collage, paper & glue, 10x81/2in

VISIONARY COMMUNITY

Designed and led by our founder Victoria J. Fry, The Visionary Community is our online community membership for women & non-binary emerging artists who are ready to grow together in a supportive group environment.

Tracy von Ahsen

tracyvonahsen.com

tracyvonahsen

Tracy von Ahsen (b. 1981, Long Island, NY) is a New York City–based artist whose analog collage work explores identity, transformation, and spiritual memory.

Her hand-cut compositions create psychic interiorsspaces shaped by chairs, curtains, and fashion relics, where faceless feminine figures become archetypes rather than individuals. Drawing on her background in photography, addiction recovery, queer identity, and global spiritual study - including time in Indian monasteries and Peruvian ayahuasca ceremonies - von Ahsen channels collage as a language of emotional and energetic reconstruction.

Through intuitive layering of pop culture, nostalgia, and myth, she constructs cinematic dreamscapes that mirror personal healing and invite entry into parallel realities. Her work asks: How much of what we inherit do we keep? How much can we cut, reconstruct, and choose anew?

Von Ahsen has exhibited at the Leslie-Lohman Museum, Amos Eno Gallery, Van Der Plas Gallery, and Prince Street Project Space. She lives and works in the East Village.

Behind the Curtain, Down the Hall, analog collage, paper & glue, 12x10in

Mandee Nicole

www.cohart.com/mandeenicole mandeenicole.art

Mandee Nicole is an artist, writer, nature lover, dog, cat, and plant mom.

She works with continuous line drawings in her paintings to help us remember the interconnection between everything in nature, bridge separation and belonging, and reflect on our connection to our inner and outer landscapes in order to rediscover our own true nature and develop a reciprocal appreciation for our planet.

You’ll also find a glimmer of gold in each of the pieces as a reminder of hope and optimism.

Mandee is the founder of the INNERSCAPES Artist Residency for emerging artists who integrate nature into their work and want to explore the inner landscape in creative connection to various landscapes across the world through an ecotherapy and naturebased expressive arts lens.

She is an advocate for self-healing and worldhealing through nature and aims to share this through her work.

The Forest Is Where I Most Belong, acrylic, oil pastels, ink on canvas, 20x20in

The Sun Is My Second Heart, acrylic, oil pastels, ink on canvas, 8x8in

ARTIST SAMANTHA DAVIES

Echoes of Release 1 (detail), sculpted silk on canvas, 39.4x59in

VISIONARY ARTist DIRECTORY

We are proud to feature a wide range of talented artists in the Visionary Art Collective Directory. Coming to you from numerous states and nations, our directory artists work across a wide range of mediums and disciplines.

visionaryartcollective.com/directory

Samantha Davies

samanthadavies.art

BIO

Samantha Davies is a British sculptural artist working exclusively with pure white silk to create dimensional works that hold emotional resonance, stillness, and energetic presence. Her practice is rooted in memory, movement, and intuitive transformation - each piece capturing the subtle tension between surrender and structure.

Samantha’s work has been exhibited in London, New York, and as part of the Estila Interiors Collection. Her sculptural silk series - including Treading Deep Waters, Embrace, and Echoes of Release - invite viewers into a sensory experience where silence speaks and form becomes feeling.

Guided by a deep connection to water, energetic ritual, and unseen frequencies, she creates artworks that act as portals for reflection and emotional clarity. Through her refined sculptural practice, she offers spaces not just to view, but to feel, remember, and reconnect.

She currently lives and works in the UK.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work explores the space between movement and stillness - where emotion becomes form and form becomes feeling. Working with pure white silk, I sculpt directly onto

Treading Deep Waters 3, sculpted silk on canvas

canvas, allowing the fabric to stretch, fold, and surrender according to its own rhythm. Each piece holds a memory - of breath, of silence, of something that’s been felt but not always named.

I don’t begin with fixed concepts. Instead, I respond to energy - shaping tension, release, and resonance into each work. The silk carries emotion. It behaves like the body does in moments of grief, love, or presence - holding, softening, opening.

Water, too, is central to my process: its rhythm, depth, and capacity to shape without force. I often work near coastlines, where I can move between the external landscape and

the inner emotional current. My Treading Deep Waters series embodies this - a meditation on emotional depth, weightlessness, and surrender.

Other works, like Embrace and Echoes of Release, explore presence and intimacy in stillness. Waves of Surrender offers a close-up glimpse into the material itself - where detail and emotion meet in a single gesture. These pieces aren’t meant to tell you what to feel - they’re invitations to listen to what already lives beneath your surface.

Through sculpted silk, I offer not just visual experience, but spaces to feel, to pause, and to come home to your own quiet truth.

Embrace, sculpted silk on canvas

Spencer Welch

www.spencerwelchstudios.com spencerwelchstudios

BIO

Spencer Welch is a self-taught artist currently working out of her home studio in Central Texas, USA. She is constantly inspired by the world around her, especially as a mother, and tends to draw and paint the people that are closest to her. Spencer has been painting professionally for 8 years, creating commissioned portraits for clients and selling original artwork. She has shown work in shows across the US, winning multiple awards such as first place awards, honorable mentions, and Best in Show at the Georgetown Art Hop.

When Spencer isn’t painting, she loves to spend time with her family exploring, going on road trips, and playing board games. She also loves spending time in her garden with her backyard chickens and giant sunflowers!

ARTIST STATEMENT

I am a self-taught artist, inspired by everyday life and the moments lived with my children. Painting is my medium of

choice, a combination of acrylic and oil, but I also love to incorporate other artistic and creative outlets and mediums such as embroidery, graphite, and marker. A combination of playing with materials and studying the master’s has helped me hone my craft and find my voice.

My favorite historical period of art is the impressionist and post-impressionism era. I love artists like Monet, Manet, Cassatt, and Van Gogh. I take advice from the master’s and use light, color, and texture to bring life to my work. As a selftaught artist I believe studying the master’s is an important aspect of discovering one’s unique style. However, it’s because of practice and play that I have found confidence in my work.

Because of their childlike curiosity and eagerness to play, my kids are my biggest inspirations and, alongside my husband, they are my loudest supporters in life and as an artist.

Burgers at Freddy’s, Acrylic, oil, marker on canvas, 30x48in

Ocean Of Dreams, oil on canvas, 40x60

1 SCOTT ACKERMAN

www.lovescottart.com

lovescott3

2 ROBIN ADLER

5 SUNNY ALTMAN

www.sunnyaltman.com

sunnyaltmanartstudio_

6 JAYN ANDERSON

www.jaynandersonart.com jaynandersonart

Scott Micheal Ackerman is a self-taught artist from upstate New York. Usually working within the traditions of Folk and Outsider art, Ackermans process is driven by intuition and instinct, using acrylic, pencil, and spray paint: “When I sit down to work , I typically don’t know what’s going to happen”. Scott lives in Margaretville, NY with his wife, daughter, and son. 1

My art is inspired by nature and its spiritual connection to human life. My work celebrates the natural world and its profound impact on human experiences. I use a combination of mediums and techniques to bring to life the emotional depth and spiritual connections in all living things, inspiring viewers to appreciate and cherish the beauty of the world around us while reflecting on the deeper aspects of our existence.

robinadlerart.com

robinadlerart

Robin Adler is a Woodstock, New York-based abstract artist who transcribes emotional experience into visual form. Using line, shape, and color, Adler works intuitively, pushing past limitations toward freedom and possibility. She works in various media including oil, acrylic, encaustic and print. While expressing boundless enthusiasm for abstraction, she explores her inner landscape and the natural environment for inspiration.

Adler is a member artist of BAU Gallery, in Beacon, NY. Her work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions in galleries throughout the East Coast. Adler is a member of two art collectives, Spliced Connector and The Drawing Galaxy.

3 JENNIFER AGRICOLA MOJICA

jenniferagricolamojica.com jenniferagricolamojica

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Jennifer Agricola Mojica is a contemporary painter, educator, and mother based in San Antonio, Texas. She has exhibited nationally and internationally. Her paintings can be found in private collections and has been featured in multiple publications. In her process, a painting begins with a disruptive start and ends with a harmonious stillness. Planes shift and shapes repeat, forms are portrayed at different vantage points, and figures become fragmented. The chaos then becomes a calm meditative process as she weaves concepts and elements together. 3

4 CAROLINA AIEX

carolinaaiex.com

carolina.aiex.art

Carolina Aiex is a Brazilian photographer with a background in Physics and Literature. She delves into themes of time and memory through innovative photography and video art. Her work - including photographic series Flux and Rites of Passage and video pieces Present and Recollections of a Dreamexplores the delicate interplay between reality, perception, and the unconscious, unveiling the poetic nuances of human experience.

Jayn Anderson is a North Carolina-based abstract painter. Her work is inspired by life experiences, emotions, music and how they all relate to fundamental humanness. She creates to uncover the deeply personal and at times, uncomfortable parts of life. Through her work, she strives to present a visual language that we can all relate to on a deeper level. Jayn’s desire is to provide a safe space for others to feel the freedom and vulnerability to connect to their innermost thoughts through art.

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7 PHYLLIS ANDERSON

www.phyllisandersonart.com phyllisandersonart

Phyllis Anderson is an award-winning artist living outside Denver, CO. She received a BFA at the University of Texas. Her work explores dreamlike mountain landscapes, featuring fantastic color, image fragmentation, and drawing. She belongs to Core Art Space, an artist co-op in Lakewood, CO, and her work is available at Framewerx Gallery in Winter Park, CO.

8 REBECCA ANNAN

www.rebeccaannanart.com

rebecca_annan_art

Rebecca Annan is a multi-disciplinary artist from England, U.K. who returned to her art practice in 2021 after a decade in nursing. She is inspired by the world around her to create art that captures the temporal and impermanent. Her most recent series “Look Above” focuses on the transitionary time of dusk as the trees become silhouettes against the sky- instilling a moment of peace and reflection as the day turns into night.

9 LAUREN SKELLY BAILEY

www.laurenskellybailey.com

skelly__bailey

Lauren Skelly Bailey is a ceramic artist based out of Long Island, NY. She holds a Master of Fine Arts, Ceramics from Rhode Island School of Design. As well as a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Adelphi University in Fine Arts. Skelly works in layers, in a sometimes modular recursive process. The foundation of her ceramic practice is her relationship with abstraction, the vessel, nature, color, and texture. Her works are formed by integrating the use of coiling, pinching, painting, and thrown clay structures to connect her sculptural vessels and corals.

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MELISSA BENEDEK

www.melissabenedek.com melissabenedek_art

Melissa Benedek is a Contemporary Artist whose work is focused on Abstract Expressionism. Her portfolio demonstrates her vision and passion for colors and movement. She is guided by her intuition. Her work is known for her beautiful color combinations and fluid brushstrokes that intersect, overlap and react with one another, until they unite into a wonderful rhythm.

11 MARTHA BIRD

www.marthabirdart.com marthabirdart

Martha Bird is a Minnesota-based artist specializing in sculptural basketry. She uses basketry techniques to create expansive conceptual forms that both carry forward the traditional craft and challenge its utilitarian assumptions. Martha’s work explores the human body and concepts of resilience, energy, and growth. She exhibits regionally and nationally and her work can be found in collections around the US.

12 ASHLEY BLANTON

ashleyblanton.com faint.as.fog

Ashley Blanton is entangled in a desire to find magic in the mundane, for looking closely at details and disparate parts helps her cultivate and connect to the sense of wonder that she seeks. Combining watercolor, gouache, cut paper, collage, and transfer techniques, Ashley creates mixed media works on paper that are evocative of emotional and visceral felt senses.

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13 LAURIE BLESSEN

www.laurieblessen.com

laurieblessen

Working in abstraction allows the fullest expression of my life. Prolific and driven to get out the complex emotions that words fail to express. I use colors to set the tone and lines the movement. Together they tell my narrative.

14 STEPH BLONDET

www.stephblondet.com

stephblondetart

Steph Blondet is a Puerto Rican artist based in Tampa, FL. Blondet creates textured and dimensional paintings as a form of visual journaling. In her work, Blondet explores themes of personal growth, grief, and the societal pressures placed on women. She creates intuitively and communicates her story through color and composition to reflect the duality of the human experience, and to convey that through darkness there will always be light.

15 SARAH E. BOYLE

saraheboyle.com

saraheboyle_painting

Sarah E. Boyle is a Chicago-based painter who explores connections to place through memory and landscape. Her Night Windows series is named after Edward Hopper’s 1928 painting and references the everyday experience of gazing at a lit interior and the introspective pause that follows. Her paintings are a catalyst for concepts of voyeurism, escaping in, and longing.

16 VALERIE BROWNE

www.valeriecbrowne.com

valeriecbrowne

Valerie Browne is a graduate of SAIC where she received her BFA in 2017. In her paintings, she explores social isolation and the internal tension introverts may experience while yearning to join “the party”, alongside layers of emotions that cross one’s mind when experiencing social and sensory overload. Much of her work is inspired by figurative works of the 16th and 17th centuries and traditional techniques of the Old Masters.

17 PAULETTA BROOKS

www.paulettabrooks.com

PBWearableArt

Pauletta Brooks creates unique and eclectic ‘wearable art’ jewelry utilizing raw minerals and gemstones. Her signature is unmistakable: sculptural, organic and bold, often straying from traditional techniques and concepts of jewelry. Many pieces have been shown in galleries and magazines including Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and Ornament Magazine. All are handmade and one of a kind, designed in her NYC studio.

18 OWEN BURNHAM

www.owenburnham.com

owen.burnham

Owen Burnham is a Brooklyn based photographer and multimedia visual artist creating from the investigation of movement and abstract imagery. Spanning photography, painting, and collage their practice contextualizes motion as a means to abstractly deconstruct identity. Collections are reflections, reclamations - who and what makes us move? An NYU Tisch Alumni (BFA, Dance), they currently capture New York City dance, with their visual art collections showcased in various virtual exhibitions.

19 INGRID BUTTERER

ingridbutterer.com ingridbutterer.art

Ingrid Butterer is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. She earned her B.F.A. from the University of Michigan and EdM from Columbia University, Teachers College. Her work has been published in Orenda Arts Journal, Quarentine Magazine and Womxn Artist Project. Ingrid’s work has shown at Lincoln Center, A.I.R. Gallery, Atlantic Gallery, 440 Gallery, Benheim Gallery, Kyoto Shibori Museum and Yamashita Gallery (Japan).

20 VIVIAN CAVALIERI

www.viviancavalieri.com

vc_artworks_

Vivian Cavalieri is a visual artist with a studio on Chincoteague Island, VA. Her threedimensional miniature scenes prompt conversations on a range of social issues. They have appeared in numerous group exhibitions in the US and abroad. Her work has been published in Suboart, Art Seen, Modern Renaissance Magazine, Collect Art, and Artists Responding To …. She is represented by Hambly & Hambly Gallery, Northern Ireland, UK

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LAURA CLEARY WILLIAMS

www.lauraclearywilliams.com

lauraclearywilliams

Laura Cleary Williams’ abstract spaces are an ode to an imperfect language. Through motion, she makes marks that translate thought - subconscious – a viscerally understood language. Williams works from her hometown of Chattanooga, TN. In 2009 she received her B.F.A. from Tufts University and the SMFA, Boston and her Master’s in Printmaking in 2012 at SCAD-Atlanta. Williams founded, managed, and co-owned Straw Hat Press, which specialized in fine art publishing and contract printing.

22 MARCIA CONLON musingwomen

Marcia Conlon likes working with materials that are a little rough, grungy, maybe a little dirty. She juxtaposes feminine images from vintage magazines or antique photos next to found material like cardboard, vintage paper and deconstructed book pages. Conlon has been drawn to artistic practices most of her life, even though she has had an eclectic professional life. Conlon has a degree in Art History from the University of Michigan but is mostly a self taught artist. She was born in Detroit, but has lived in Traverse City for 23 years.

23 DEBRA COOK SHAPIRO

www.debcookshapiro.com

debcookshapiro

Debra Cook Shapiro is a San Franciscobased painter whose vibrant, expressive oil paintings and collages celebrate the joyful chaos of human connections. Drawing from her own life experiences, Shapiro’s work captures the energy and intimacy of festive gatherings, weaving personal milestones and relationships into dynamic compositions set against lush, sun-drenched landscapes. Shapiro studied art in Florence, Italy and San Francisco, drawing influence from Botticelli, Hockney, and Bay Area figurative painters.

24 PATRICIA DATTOMA

subscribepage.io/PatriciaD patricia_dattoma.art

Patricia Dattoma is a NYC based artist, art educator and lifelong New Yorker. Her abstract paintings are a visual response to her environment. She explores a sense of place through color, shape and texture. Whether in NYC, at the beach, or in the Southwest, Dattoma internalizes her surroundings which produce a rhythm and harmony that emerge abstractly onto her canvas.

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MARGOT DERMODY

www.margotdermody.com

margotdermody

Margot Dermody is a Pittsburgh-based artist whose work primarily focuses on painting and sculpture. She uses abstraction to explore memories and emotions, examining the connections between human experiences and the natural world. She works in stone and glass for sculpture and mixed media for painting. In abstract layers of opacity and translucency, her works ask how to locate beauty in the shadows and bring light into life.

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JACQUELINE DIESING

www.jacquelinediesing.com

jacquelinediesing

Over the past 10 years in Chicago, IL, Jacqueline Diesing has come to realize she processes her feelings and heals herselfc through her mixed media artwork comprised of detailed, freehand micron ink and soft pastel drawings. Diesing’s journey began with a desire to restore crumbling, architectural masterpieces in her hometown of Detroit to their former beauty by surrounding them with colorful life. Since then, she has been drawn to examine her own health and healing by digging deeper into issues stemming from childhood. The art Diesing is working on now depicts her path towards wellness.

27 GREY ECKERT

greyeckert.com

nelliegreyeckert

Grey Eckert (she/her) subtracts text from found cross-stitch, a process akin to erasure poetry. Transforming lengthy verse into short instances of speech – sweet nothings, passionate ramblings, and lovelorn pleas –imposes a contemporary love affair upon the traditional marital practices in which crossstitch is historically ground: the feminine virtues, domestic responsibilities, and spousal devotion that they describe attracted potential suitors.

28 TARA ESPERANZA

www.taraesperanza.com taraesperanza

Tara Esperanza’s paintings share her intimate viewpoint of succulents. She feels deeply connected to her subject and is inspired by the abundant varieties of textures, colors, forms, and shapes. Esperanza imagines herself as a bee as she delves into the plants and explores what they reveal. Her paintings celebrate the diversity in the world of succulents. They are magnified images that illuminate the distinct beauty that she sees.

29 SUSAN FELDMAN

www.susanfeldmanart.com susanfeldmanart

Susan Feldman is a self-taught mixed media artist. Her practice often centers on a sense of place, evoking architecture and the fantastical nature of history and memory. Feldman was born in LA and has exhibited my work throughout CA and NY for over 3 decades. She has a background in graphic design, and is also a vinyl only DJ.

30 KAREN CHRISTIE FISHER

www.karenchristiefisher.com karenchristiefisher

Karen Christie Fisher’s nonrepresentational paintings are an immersive exploration of color and texture. Her intuitive and tactile process employs a variety of mediums and tools to investigate the landscape of emotion. Raised in NYC and inspired by modern design, she now lives and works in the foothills of Oregon.

31 ERIN FRIEDMAN

erinfriedmanart.com erinfriedmanart

Erin Friedman is an abstract artist just outside of Washington, DC in Bethesda, MD. Using acrylic paint and oil pastels, Erin’s work is an accumulation of feelings and experiences over time that transfer onto the canvas. Inspiration comes from moments and reactions to everyday life and her emotions. Erin will make marks, alter her ideas, add layers and change directions. We all experience conflict, change, joy and sadness. Erin does her best to embrace this process and allow those feelings to be revealed throughout her work.

32 RICHARD GLICK

www.richardglickstudio.com richardglickstudio

Richard Glick’s paintings explore his inner travels through the universe and his way of seeing stars, planets, moons and other celestial bodies. While Glick’s work is abstracted and reflects representational matter, he focuses on each work’s formal qualities; its shapes, colors, textures and overall composition. Many of his works have circular and free flowing forms that seem restrained by distinct, unyielding grids or borders. Perhaps this alludes to Glick’s inner turmoil about being open and authentic in hisworld. Come fly with Glick into space.

33 JOSEPH

GOLDFEDDER

www.josephgoldfedder.com josephgoldfedder

Joseph Goldfedder is a visual artist based in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. While initially trained as a fine artist, Goldfedder’s experience of living in New Mexico inspired him to pursue becoming an acupuncturist. Through this understanding on how energy or “Qi” circulates through the body, acupuncture reshaped his approach to making art. This experience deepened his understanding of the connection between science, creativity and healing that continues to inspire him.

34 SUSAN GRACE

www.susangracestudio.com/ susangracestudio

Susan Grace is a contemporary figurative painter. Her oil paintings have their basis in the human form, but each portrait captures a figure in a stage of transformation. She sees the figures as participants in unfinished dramas in which they are continually evolving, exploring possibilities for metamorphosis, delighting in the fluidity of identity, and remaining indifferent to a final resolution.

35 LUCY JULIA HALE

www.walltowallsecrets.com

Lucy Julia Hale is a Georgia feminist / social activist artist and art educator. She often selects scenes from our cultural archives of mass-produced publications or vintage vernacular snapshots to which she adds drawn, painted, and/or collaged images to portray a deeper history. She serves as an advocate supporting the dignity and wellbeing of vulnerable populations, which unfortunately now include all inhabitants of Earth. Her work has been selected by prominent jurors for numerous national exhibitions. She holds an Ed.S. and an M.Ed. in Counseling and Educational Psychology, and a B.S. Ed. in Art Education.

36 MEAM HARTSHORN

meamhartshorn.com

meamhartshorn

Meam Hartshorn is an abstract painter. Her work explores the relationship between landscapes, geology, and natural phenomena with expression, emotion, and memory. Her paintings create undulating and constantly deconstructing landscapes that often draw inspiration from the geology and ecosystems of the Western United States. Meam currently lives and works in Austin, TX and she is the founder The Artful Collective, a platform for connecting and supporting emerging artists.

37 ELVIRA HEIMANN

www.heimann-art.com

elviraheimann_artist

Dipl.-Psych., Dipl.-Theol. Elvira Heimann lives and works in Hamburg, Germany as an abstract painter. Her work explores the sensory essence of nature, striking a balance between chaos and order while capturing the playful freedom of childhood. She has exhibited in solo and group shows across Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, France, Sweden, England, as well as in Paris, China, and New York.

38 ALEXIS HERMAN

www.alexishermanstudio.com

alexishermanstudio

Alexis Herman (b. 1962) is a contemporary representational painter based in Coastal New Jersey who explores water’s regulating qualities. Her paintings feature simple organizing compositions and richly saturated colors capturing waters transfixing moments. Her process includes sanctifying the painting in the ocean. Her work has been exhibited at Kelly-McKenna Gallery, 14C Art Fair Showcase Artist, Mattatuck Museum and Monmouth Museum.

39 SARAH HESSINGER

www.sarahhessingerart.com

sarahhessinger

Sarah Hessinger is a self-taught contemporary artist living and working in Hana, Hawaii. Hessinger’s work portrays nature through ethereal expression, using drawing and painting techniques informed by the natural world and her imagination. Her paintings are displayed in many private homes and public exhibitions.

40 TAYO HEUSER

www.tayoheuser.com

tayoheuser

Heuser’s artwork is a confluence of her cultural experiences both visual and spiritual. Heuser describes her paintings as portals in that they represent a world of infinite possibilities allowing time for reflectivity and timeless tranquility. Her work addresses the central theme of cosmic balance between light and darkness, spirit, and matter.

41 COLLEEN HOFFENBACKER

colleenhoffenbacker.com colleenhoffenbacker

Colleen Hoffenbacker’s work inhabits the fertile crossroads of nature and technology, where traditional fine arts entwine with AI to expand the boundaries of creativity. As the first painter granted US copyright for AIcollaborative works crafted by human artistry, her celebrated paintings weave past and future, illuminating a vision rich with promise while advocating for an eco-conscious world.

42 ROBERTA HOINESS

www.robertahoiness.com robertahoiness

The world can be a noisy and complex place. Roberta Hoiness creates organic abstract landscape art with the hope of inspiring moments of calm. She layers hand-painted paper, pigment, oil pastels and occasional touches of metallic leaf to recall the “feeling” of a place rather than the details. Hoiness is continually inspired by the quiet, stillness & rustic beauty of the Canadian prairies where she lives with her husband and three children.

43 CHRISTINE HONG

christinehongstudio.com christinehongstudio

Christine Hong, a Korean-American artist based in New Jersey, presents “Barlight,” a mixed media painting that explores the fragility and resilience of human relationships through the act of carving. By cutting through multiple layers of paint and revealing the raw canvas beneath, Hong symbolizes the peeling back of outer selves, exposing the deeper connections that lie within.

44 KIM HOPSON

www.kimhopsonstudio.com kimhopsonstudio

Kim Hopson is a multidisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. In her work she explores themes of ableism, caregiving, and identity. Experiencing life with a disability has given her a unique viewpoint that is reflected in her paintings, drawings and collages. She focuses on the body’s relationship to the world, both physically and emotionally.

45 ANNA HVID

www.annahvid.dk annahvidart

Anna Hvid is a self-taught, Copenhagenbased painter. Her subjects are usually semiabstract figures, and her works are composed of solid blocks ofcolors and suggestive lines. At the very core, Hvid’s visual inspiration comes from her grandmother’s tapestries. Her grandmother had an enormous loom, on which she would weave all sorts of magical creatures. Those tapestries are always at the base of what Hvid does.

46 DEREK JACKSON

derekjacksonartist.com

derekjacksonartist

Derek Jackson, a Pop artist from Harrisonburg, Virginia, explores loneliness, longing, and nostalgia through vibrant, sugar-coated aesthetics. Self-taught in acrylic painting, pottery, and glassblowing, he examines how social media and opinions shape art perception. His work, challenges viewers to engage with art beyond instant judgment and digital noise.

47 LEA JERLAGIĆ

lea_jerlagic

Lea Jerlagić, born in Sarajevo in 1984, is an artist and Assistant Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sarajevo. Specializing in printmaking and painting, her work explores human nature,inspired by spiritual practices and sacred erotic art. Combining traditional and experimental techniques, her art is a meditative process, inviting us to explore deeper aspects of ourselves and the universe.

48 ANDREA JONES

www.modandart.co.uk andrea_jones_art

I am an artist from Liverpool, England and for the past eleven years I have worked as an art teacher in a prison. My artwork has featured in several magazines of art and literature in the U.S., U.K. and Berlin, Germany. One particular style that I work in is based on my alter ego, this is inspired by wanting to be somebody else, taking elements from different people to create new characters, I call these characters my alter ego people. The images are painted in acrylic on canvas or drawn onto paper.

49 ZARA KAND

www.zarakand.com zarakandart

Zara Kand is an oil painter based in Southern California. She has exhibited throughout numerous venues within the US and has been featured in many online and print publications across the globe. Her work is often highly symbolic and focuses on figurative elements within dreamy environments. She currently lives in the hi-desert, spending her time painting, art writing for various art magazines, and dabbling in curatorial projects. She is also the editor of The Gallerist Speaks, an international interview series focusing on gallery directors, arts organizers and curators.

50 YULA KIM

www.yulastudio.com yurajoanrobinakim

Yula (b. 1996, South Korea) is a London-based contemporary painter whose work seamlessly bridges the natural world and urban spaces through her distinctive use of lines, abstract shapes from natural creatures, vivid colors, and dynamic spatial arrangements.

51 TOSHIKO KITANO GRONER

www.toshikokitanogroner.com toshiko_kitano_groner

Toshiko Kitano Groner is a visual artist who lives and works in New York City. She was born and grew up in Japan. These works are color field paintings emphasizing the coordination of colors. She uses color to exude passion in her compositions. The floral scenes spontaneously arise in her imagination based upon fleeting random images briefly seen and experienced.

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52 LAUREN KNOLLMEYER

www.laurenknollmeyerstudio.com laurenknollmeyer

Lauren Knollmeyer’s work explores the concept of balance, weaving together themes of nature, motherhood, and mental health. An engineer turned visual artist and mother, Knollmeyer strives to balance these oftenconflicting identities and finds herself seeking refuge in nature and memory. An oil painter based in Seattle, WA, she now paints moments of reflection in the form of landscapes and portraits.

53 SANDY LANG

www.sandylang.art

sandy_lang_art

“Creating is like telling yourself a tale of the world you feel.” Born 1980, Sandy Lang is a self taught artist located in Germany. She mostly works with oil colours since she loves their brightness and texture. It allows Lang to explore strong dark and light effects and to express the themes her paintings deal with. Being a lover of symbolism, Lang is working with allegories in a figurative manner of painting with a very personal approach to themes such as shadow and light, memories in time, and love – or its absence.

54 CHARLES LEAK

charlesleakstudio.com

charlesleakstudio

Charles Leak (b. 1953, Dallas, Tx ) is an artist who lives and works in New York City and East Hampton. He combines oil paint, enamel, gold, copper powder, and graphite on canvas and paper. “I am influenced by all the great artists from Da Vinci to Diebenkorn. And all the great writers, musicians, and filmmakers. But more importantly, my greatest influence is the wonderful natural world we were given that surrounds us all”

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JENN LECOUR

www.jennlecourart.com jennlecour_art

Jenn Lecour is a Canadian abstract painter living on an island off the west coast where she is surrounded by the drama of nature. Using cold wax and oil, she seeks to evoke a sense of timelessness that is embedded in the landscape. Through scraping and rebuilding layers, she explores the visual impact of what has been left behind.

56 DIANE LAMBOLEY

www.dianelamboley.com

dianelamboley

Diane Lamboley is a contemporary photographer who strives to brighten the lives of others by helping them free their imaginations from the cage of their conditioning. She embraces adventure and finds much of her inspiration exploring the beauty earth offers. Lamboley is called to capture the wonders of nature through her photographs which are digitally transformed for people to experience a visual journey. Her artwork is printed on aluminum enhancing the contemporary feel.

57 MOLLY MARTIN

www.mollymartin.com mollymartinartist

Driven by a deep passion for the environment and women’s freedoms, Molly Martin’s art explores the intrinsic connection between humanity and nature. She reimagines 19th century photographic portraits of women to reflect environmental issues. Each piece evolves intuitively, allowing Martin to express both her concern and hope for the future.

58 SHAWN MARSHALL

www.shawnmarshallart.com shawn_marshall_art

Shawn Marshall is a Kentucky-based mixed media artist with a background in architecture. Her work explores themes of human presence, environmental interconnectivity, and sometimes societal perceptions of gender. Marshall’s work is frequently published, she has extensive exhibition experience in both group and solo shows, and she has received multiple Artist Enrichment Grants, supporting her creative development and international experiences.

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GINGER MARTINEZ

www.saatchiart.com/gingerlianne gingerlianneart

I create abstract paintings that reflect emotion, movement, and healing. Layer by layer, I explore resilience, using color and texture to transform pain into beauty. Inspired by nature and personal experience, my work is a visual journey..raw, expressive, and deeply felt. Through art, I connect with others who seek meaning in transformation.

60 JODI MILLER

www.jodimillerfineart.com jodimillerfineart

Jodi Miller is a Canadian prairie-based contemporary, impressionist painter. Her work explores connections with our roots, our stories and our surroundings. Drawing on her childhood on a family farm and years spent in the Royal Canadian Air Force across Canada, her landscapes are familiar yet fictitious. “Each painting begins with a memory, then evolves to tell a story of its own.” Jodi’s work focuses on human connections as observed through our environment using the metaphor of our imprints on the land as an entry point for personal narratives.

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NICOLE MILLER

www.nicolemillerart.com nicolemillerartist

Nicole Miller is an artist who shares her passion through teaching. With degrees in Studio Art, Interior Design, and Education, her artwork reflects a journey filled with joy, happiness, and gratitude. Using brayer techniques combined with oil pastels and acrylic paints, Nicole explores organic objects and pushes the boundaries of color saturation. Each piece is thoughtfully crafted, with heavy influences from her family and life experiences.

62 STEPHANIE MULVIHILL

stephaniemulvihill.com smulvihillart

A NYC-based artist and educator, Stephanie Mulvihill works primarily with the drawn image on paper because of its tactile surface and fragile, impermanent quality. By drawing with graphite, she taps into the tradition of drawing as a means of investigation and dissection of both nature and ourselves. In her work, Stephanie explores themes of creation, motherhood and personal evolutions: physical, spiritual and intellectual. Visual references to the body and internal anatomy overlap, meld and transform to create totems honoring our individual and collective transformations.

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63 CAMILLE

MYLES

www.camillemylesart.com camillemylesart

Camille Myles is an emerging Canadian contemporary artist living on the shores of Georgian Bay in Tiny, Ontario. Park Superintendent & formerly an archaeologist, Myles has a deep connection to nature & history bringing hope and transformation to her community. Working in painting, sculpture, installation and public art, she creates conversations about identity, motherhood and celebrates change and growth in her work. She’s exhibited extensively and is part of private collections internationally.

64 SEPI

NAGHASHIAN

www.sepiandart.com shokous

Sepi Naghashian, a self-taught Nashville artist, draws inspiration from Ed Ruscha and Anselm Kiefer to transform mountains into abstract forms that float against a minimalist background representing a silent universe. Her work is a subtle exploration of the coexistence between humanity and nature through the integration of conceptual themes, highlighting human and urban footprints on mountains in ordinary yet nuanced ways.

65 CELESTE NOVAK

www.celestenovakstudio.com/ celest.novak

Celeste is an artist and architect living in the woods in Northern Virginia. Painting and drawing since childhood, her art is grounded in the work of abstract expressionism, color theory and Eastern Art. She conducts visual symphonies through marks, splashes and layering of transparent watercolor washes. She paints to share the joy experienced through art, in nature, and in life.

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JESSICA OLIVEIRA

www.jessicaoliveiraart.com jessica.oliveiraart

Imitating the unreliable and fluctuating nature of her memory, Jessica Oliveira (b. 2000, Yonkers, NY) works to develop worlds that can be explored and experiences that can be rediscovered. In remembering, we can reflect and in reflection we can learn. Jessica is assessing how different people, places and objects are remembered and what happens to her memory over time.

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RACHAEL O’SHAUGHNESSY

rachaeleastman.com/home.html rachael.oshaughnessy

Rachael O’Shaughnessy witnessed every consecutive ocean sunrise of the last decade, and translated them into atmospheric paintings to merge her coastline with the timeless, the ethereal, and the sublime. An honors BFA from MECA, Europe, and work with Wolf Kahn prepared O’Shaughnessy’s balance: “The intimate carries the infinite. I’m here here to render nature as felt, breathed in, and condensed.”

68 ANNA PACHOLIK

annapacholik.com annapacholik_paintings

Pacholik graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. She creates in cycles, exploring identity, our relationship with the environment and femininity. She extracts images from her subconsciousness and reaches for archetypes and symbols, taking inspiration from the philosophy of Jung. She won the Hommage à Łódź Award and has participated in collective and individual exhibitions.

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STEPHANIE PEREZ

stephanieperez2018.wixsite.com/perez-artistry perez_artistry

Florida native Stephanie Perez is a visual artist who uses portraiture to explore the Anthropocene and issues of climate change. Her work examines the human condition, consumer culture, and society’s influence on individuals. Inspired by climate change, influential consumer graphics, and bold colors in merchandise design, she emphasizes the interconnected nature of these dynamics and their impact on humanity.

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REBECCA POTTS AGUIRRE

ww.rebeccapotts.com pottsart

Rebecca Potts Aguirre is an artist based in Southern California. She explores themes of motherhood and gendered labor, memory and visibility, trauma and healing. She sculpts polymer clay and play-dough, building “paintings” with slight relief. Her materials draw connections to craft and childhood, while her imagery reflects flickering memories and the early fog of motherhood. Through her art practice, she seeks connection and asks: how do connections persist?

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LISA PRICE

www.lisamarieprice.co.uk lisapriceart

Lisa-Marie Price is an abstract painter based in Hertfordshire, UK, creating eco-conscious art using handmade watercolours from foraged minerals and offcut linen. Her work explores themes of climate change, mindfulness, and our connection with nature. Through delicate, textured compositions, she encourages reflection, invites stillness, and inspires a more grounded, eco-conscious way of living.

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PAULINA REE

www.paulinaree.com paulinareeartist

Paulina Ree is an Oslo-based painter, educator, curator, and researcher. Born in Ecuador, Ree moved to the United States as a teenager, it was during her time there that she first trained in Art, pursuing her long life passion of learning about painting and art history. Her art practice revolves around regular and continuous research, as well as participating in in-person and online art related workshops. Ree explores drawing, and painting in different mediums. Ree’s focuses on portraiture and figurative art.

73 BRITTANY M. REID

brittanymreid.com

brittany.m.reid

Brittany M. Reid lives and works in Rochester, NY. Shapeshifting between mediums has become second nature, with their current focus on painting. Their recent work captures the moments where our minds wander into nebulous daydreams, featuring amorphous shapes and fantastical dreamscapes. This shift to painting marks a deliberate departure from their earlier collage work, which was characterized by bright colors and crisp lines, and reflects an evolving exploration of abstract visual storytelling.

74 MICHELLE REEVES

michellereevesart.com

michellereevesartnashville

Michelle is a botanical/floral artist who lives with her husband and son in Nashville, TN. She began painting at the age of 52 after a gentleman asked, “What are you passionate about?” during a job interview. This question led Michelle back to school to pursue an Interior Design degree, but through coursework she started to paint. Her latest paintings are inspired by pages from her childhood coloring books. Bold outlines of brush strokes and intricate backgrounds fill the canvas.

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75 MADDIE REISS

www.maddiereiss.com maddiereissart

Maddie is a landscape painter based in Greater Philadelphia. She works primarily in acrylic but enjoys sketching in ink and watercolor. Nature and wildlife are her main sources of inspiration, but she also relies on words, song lyrics, and poetry to guide the look, feel, and mood of her visual work. Her current collection of paintings is centered on western landscapes from her travels, featuring scenes from AZ, CO, and Big Sur.

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JANNE REUSS

www.artjanne.com jannereuss

Janne Reuss’s layered photographs evoke poetically charged compositions. She was born in Mexico and studied Fine Arts at the Academy of Art & Design in Stuttgart, Germany and History of Art in Mexico City. Janne’s work is held in private and public collections including the Donovan Art Collection at St. Michael’s College (Canada) and the Municipal Gallery of Ostfildern (Germany).

77 ALI

ROUSE

www.alirouseart.com

ali_rouse_artist

Ali Rouse’s artistic creations are reflective of the power of beauty, death and rebirth, and the eternal cycle of Life. Born of death becomes reincarnate Life.

78 RACHEL

ROSE

www.rachelmo.com rachelrose_art

Rachel Morrissey is based in Massachusetts. She received her MFA in 2016 from MassArt. Morrissey makes highly saturated narrative paintings that employ organic forms to convey her daily experiences, which include motherhood, anxiety and more recently, life with a chronic illness. The motifs oscillate along the continuum of her lived experience, love and joy at one end and utter despair at the other. She is represented by Voltz Clarke Gallery and 19 Karen.

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JANA

body_wilderness

Jana, a German self-taught artist, creates watercolour and line art celebrating female bodies and nature. Her work, inspired by conversations about womanhood, challenges societal norms and fosters self-love. Through series like ‘Vulva Discoveries’, Jana aims to break taboos and offer new perspectives on often misunderstood body parts. Her art is a journey of growth and an invitation for viewers to reconsider their own attitudes towards bodies.

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LINDA SIEVERS

sieversartstudio.com

lindasieversstudio

Linda Sievers prefers the beauty of a simple palette to create a sense of elusive quiet in her abstract paintings. Her work has a soft, subtle, yet underlying strength. She graduated with a degree in social work and feels strongly that both professions share an emotional action. The same sense of observation and sensitivity come into play. Her home in Bloomington, IN, influences her work.

81 MEGAN SILVA megansilvaartist

Megan Silva is a South African born acrylic painter who lives in North Carolina with her husband and two kids. Megan started painting after losing a sense of self through a difficult pregnancy and motherhood in a foreign country. Through her paintings she hopes to draw you in, to join her in the quiet moments and pleasures that are found throughout an often loud and hectic day.

82 LIBBY SIPE libbysipe.com libbysipestudio

Libby Sipe is a process-driven multidisciplinary artist currently living in Maine. Her work represents her playful and resilient spirit that has carried her through profound and challenging moments of her life. She breaks the rules of painting because she is enchanted with the idea of something like paint being able to stand without the aid of a traditional substrate.

83 EKATERINA STOLYAROVA art_ekaterinas

Over the years, Ekaterina Stolyarova increasingly understood that her art should not only be a means of expression but also a way to show people that nature needs protection. Using eco-friendly materials is her way of saying, “We can create without harming the environment.”

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84 NAOMI THORNTON www.spiritisaboneart.com spirit_is_a_bone_art

Naomi Thornton is a mixed media artist and psychotherapist living in the expansive beauty of Northwest Montana. In her art, she highlights the historically undervalued stories of women while emphasizing a connection to nature as a life-giving resource. Vintage portrait photographs are the inspiration of her work. She uses collage and paint to evoke a textured layering of desires, hopes and dreams using found images, handmade papers, and text from old books. Through her art, she intends to create a new narrative of empowerment, resiliency, and connection to the natural environment.

85 NINA URLICHS

nina.urlichs.de ninaurl

Nina Urlichs, a German artist, completed her studies in Fine Art in Paris. In her collage-like works, Nina explores themes of femininity and the relationship with the surrounding nature. She employs a variety of techniques, including drawing, cyanotypes, and photography, to create layered compositions that evoke a world of silence and nostalgia.

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86 SIEGLINDE VAN DAMME

www.sieglindevandamme.com sieglinde.art

Sieglinde Van Damme is a visual artist based in CA, although she used to be an economist with European roots. Focused on abstraction as an open, undefined potential to new interpretations, her work reflects on the deep layers of our individual past histories and the complex dynamics behind big life choices. Her message: always “re-imagine what else is possible.”

87 CHRIS WELLER

www.nycdrawings.com chriswellernyc

Chris Weller, b. 1962 Calgary, Alberta, Canada, BFA Western Michigan University. Chris is a New York City based artist. “I make drawings to explore man’s relationship with the urban environment he has built, juxtaposed against his tenuous relationship with nature. My goal is to create work which communicates

88 ERIN WHEARY

www.erinmonetwheary.com erinwheary

Erin Monet Wheary is an interdisciplinary artist. Her work explores concepts of growth and decay and order and chaos. “Visual art is my lens to see and understand the physical world and humanity.” Wheary’s recent exhibitions include the Female Artists Club, Belgium, and a site-specific installation at Swarthmore College. Artist residencies include Chateau d’Orquevaux, France (2020) and Casa Taller El Boga, Colombia (2023). She currently teaches at Western New Mexico University.

89 YAHEL YAN www.yahelyan.com yahel.yan.art

Depth is born from layers of paint, revealing a tapestry of hidden memories. Each painting brings forth underlying emotions and sensations - from joy and romance to grief and healing. My artistry thrives on a determined passion for creation. Whether capturing the essence of a chair, a whimsical landscape, or an abstract form, every collection embodies my optimistic spirit and my mission: to inspire joy in every viewer.

90 KATIE DUMESTRE YAQUINTO katiedyaquinto.com katiedumestreyaquinto

Katie Dumestre Yaquinto is a contemporary artist based in New Orleans. She attended the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and LSU where she studied fashion design and merchandising. My work primarily focuses on introspection. My practice allows me to process and express my innermost thoughts and feelings through various brush strokes and mark making. These distinctive marks have become my own private visual language and have developed over time through body movement and muscle memory

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91 BRENDA ZAPPITELL

www.zappitellstudio.com zappitell_studio

Zappitell is a contemporary abstract painter. Ritual Paintings series, is characterized by her distinctive gestural marks of looped forms in subdued palettes that have been integrated with mantra-like phrases repeatedly inscribed in diminutive text across the canvas. These statements, quietly repeated by the artist during the act of painting, serve a dual purpose as both a seal and a disclosure, intricately intertwining with the abstract forms to convey a personal narrative.

92 ZINEFING ZANG

www.zifengzang.com zifengzang

Zifeng Zang, an abstract painter based in Philadelphia, passionately explores the intuitive sense of color and how nature inspires and informs her work. Her love for art began at a young age, leading to dual BFA degrees from Jilin University in China and West Chester University of Pennsylvania. Her extensive career experience in graphic design and brand management in China honed her skills, but she always felt drawn to traditional painting. Now, Zifeng focuses on developing her favorite abstract style, a universal language for expressing personal experiences and emotions through color and form, connecting viewers to the natural world.

93 DASHA ZIBOROVA

www.dashaziborova.com realtimeinink

Dasha Ziborova is a versatile multimedia artist born in St. Petersburg, Russia, who moved to New York in 1991. Her work has been exhibited at Art on Paper, Outsider Art Fair, The Center for Book Arts, Governors Island, DVAA, and Space776. Dasha’s artistic style varies depending on the project, spanning from collages and artist books to immersive performances.

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BRITTANY M. REID , The Day After the Northern Lights, acrylic on canvas, 20x24in

SOPHIE PICKERING , The First Real One, abaca, flax, pine, 10x17x0.5in