Artist Spotlights
Grace Nkem
“I think of my collage-like, painted images as browser pop-ups and I draw upon compositional clichés and visual conventions we encounter when interacting with screens: icons, endless interfaces, a compacted depth of field, cut-paste image-overlay, and so on. It seems impossible to produce a twenty-first century painting that is not informed by digital images, given that our contemporary understanding thereof is inexorably shaped by and tied to their existence in cyberspace, though we only spend fractions of a second with some of the images we see on screens.”
Daria Denisova
“The work process begins either with a search: I do compositional searches in my sketchbook, or begin to directly work on canvas. I just sit down in front of a white primed canvas, and my hand is already gliding it over it.“
Alisa Gvozdeva
“The process of making my works is always different, often it is a spontaneous idea, which comes to my mind before or during work. I like to make something new, it's always a challenge for me to try some new techniques or compositions. In spite of the difference between every work I produce, I usually enjoy the process no matter what, I discover the unconscious with no struggle but calm and joy.“
Luis Gutierrez
“When painting my abstract studies, I am inspired by the signs of decay of exterior walls; there is something very interesting about the change of their color due to time and weather. I think that connects to my obsession with history; no matter how much we try to erase our past, somehow, it will always remain present.“
Sofia Yalalova
“The opaque colored background in my work symbolizes the process of growth and development, it helps me to focus all my attention on the portraits. It is also important for me to immerse the viewer in a timeless perception, to shift the viewer's focus to the portrait of a child as much as possible, his childhood dreams, experiences and feelings.“
Marsel Yalalov
“From a technical point of view, this is oil paint on canvas. However, it's far more complex than that. The difficulty of creating the work was in mimicry of a graphic computer file, achieving RGB color in the background. I like to combine classical painting techniques and digital art. I believe that this is a kind of symbiosis of the real and digital world.“
Lucía Rodríguez
“Right now, big part of my process has to do with channeling ideas or inspiration in a useful way so they can become actual artworks and not stay as just ideas. When I walk on the street I see subtle things that inspire me like a pattern, a color palette or the relationship between two shapes. I try to document these little pieces of inspiration by taking pictures or drawing or even writing some notes. I like to think all of these elements mix together in the back of my mind, and somehow, without knowing, I start piecing them together. “
Aaron Coleman
“Art History is my first love. I knew I wanted to be an artist when I got to see Botticelli’s Primavera at the Uffizi in Florence when I was 12. Soon after, I became infatuated with Japanese Ukiyo-e. I felt a deep resonance with the artform that was so purely Japanese and striking in its style. I saw myself in the prints and felt pride in the representation they provided. Ukiyo-e is a touchstone for my work. By bringing its recognizable style into contemporary settings I create a space for my own mixed-race identity. “
Zachary Carlisle Davidson
“Texture and layering are intertwined in my work to help me be inventive with depiction in both pictorial and non-representative works. In a romantic sense, it gives me feelings of animism. It’s the kind of stuff that draws me in when I see it elsewhere in others’ artwork, random things I see once and items I engage with on a more routine basis.”
Haley Takahashi
“Art History is my first love. I knew I wanted to be an artist when I got to see Botticelli’s Primavera at the Uffizi in Florence when I was 12. Soon after, I became infatuated with Japanese Ukiyo-e. I felt a deep resonance with the artform that was so purely Japanese and striking in its style. I saw myself in the prints and felt pride in the representation they provided. Ukiyo-e is a touchstone for my work. By bringing its recognizable style into contemporary settings I create a space for my own mixed-race identity. “
Joanna Cortez
“My work has always in some way dealt with ideas of economic migration and the search for shelter/stability. I reference some of the places, good and bad, that I’ve lived in. I reference Mexican blankets, nature, chainlink, and other domestic imagery that’s meaningful to me.”
Lauren Skelly Bailey
“Lately I am revisiting old pots. I am building new layers of coils, smoothing them, and incorporating more glazed forms in this new layer onto the surface of something that has already been fired. The process of firing the work starts over, and the layers keep being applied until deemed done. This second chance of being something else is important to my practice in the studio and out of it.”
Carson Fox
“The stand-alone sculptures are more improvisational as they are made, and I may work on them for months before they are resolved, cutting things off and fussing with the surfaces. Installations are more directed, as I usually have a vision for what it should be and it is a matter of making the pieces that will create it.”
Susanna Koetter
“I’d say most of my work is begins with the appropriation of images, signs, and materials that don’t have an explicit author, but belong more in a collective psyche as terms marked by an inherent ambivalence: country, race, sex, body; the way that flags both indicate where you are, and and also designate the distance to be read far away.”
Sandy Williams IV
“I think a lot of my work lately has been to participate, and to think about how I can help in the world. So I usually start with an idea, and the materials follow. Sometimes that process results in an object, but often it can be a role, or a record, or about the process itself.”
Valeria Divinorum
“A major theme in my work is the human connection with nature and the organic expressions that emerge from that relationship. In flowers, fractal patterns appear and geometric compositions become apparent. Through these geometric patterns we can witness the perfect balance of life and creation.”
Kellyann Monaghan
“My paintings describe and explore through the physicality of the paint: billowing, tumultuous clouds, a plane of land gashed apart by an earthquake, a frightening wave of water, the rapid deluge of floods, the rising ephemeral smoke from a fire.”
Juan Hinojosa
“In America we are bombarded with advertisements in more ways than ever before. And thanks for the pandemic, I have been glued to my TV and my iPhone as my only source of information, entertainment, and communication. That being said, the power/cleverness of advertisements has led me to focus on the use of color when building a collage. Color can be a delicate playground for which to exist in.”
Dante Migone-Ojeda
“In a certain sense, the fire has become another artist's tool for me as I've started to learn how to predict how and where the wood will burn, and I really lean into that control. At the same time, fire is fire, you know? So it can be really hard to know exactly what it will look like.”
Cara Lynch
“I collect, make, accumulate, and assemble. My work emerges from play and experimentation in the studio. It is a back and forth process, a conversation between my subconscious and conscious self..”