Untitled,” Oil on Canvas, 59.1 X 70.9 Inches

SUBMIT

Artists, makers and designers are welcome to apply with works in any medium: painting, drawing, film stills, sculpture, fiber, textile, collage, drawing, photography, woodwork, ceramics, mixed media and etc.

WINTER 2019 GUEST CURATOR Margaret Winslow, Delaware Art Museum

CREATE! BLOG

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2 t a b l e o f CONTENTS

0 8 2 4 ART MIAMI FAIRS HIGHLIGHT INTERVIEWS EXHIBITORS 2018 Dive in deep and get to know exciting new contemporary talent and creative entrepreneurs shaking up the art world.

1 0 6 1 1 2 ARTIST SPOTLIGHT HIGHLIGHTED ARTISTS Don’t miss brilliant new work by Artists on the rise highlighted by leading contemporary painter guest curator, Kaly Scheller-Barrett. Andrew Salgado.

1 1 8 CURATED SECTION Exciting artists from all over the globe carefully curated by Kaly Scheller-Barrett, associate director of Hashimoto Contemporary. .

3 Create! Magazine 4 image courtesy of charlotte keates FEATURED ARTISTS

DIANE PRIBOJAN 120 CHARMAINE KOH 122 CHARLOTTE URREIZTIETA 124 MADELINE ZAPPALA 128 BEN DALLAS 130 MAX SECKEL 132 ELIZABETH JUNG 134 ANNE CECILE SURGA 136 MADISON PARKER 138 ANNA TEICHE 142 LYDIA KINNEY 146 ANGIE ZIELINSKI 148 SCOUT DUNBAR 152 JIMMY VIERA 154 LINDSEY A. SCHULZ 156 ANDREA TAYLOR 158 SARA ALLEN PRIGODICH 160 ELLIE JI YANG 162 MOLLY SCANNELL 166 RAUL GONZALEZ 168 MEGANNE ROSEN 170 MEGAN MAGILL 174 LESLEY GOLD 176 ISABEL CHUN 178 HEDDA NEELSEN 180 FORREST LAWSON 182 ERICA GREEN 184 ALY MORGAN 186 AMY MEISSNER 188 SOPHIE TREPPENDAHL 190 ANASTASIA PARMSON 192 STACEY BEACH 196 TJ KELLEY III 198 VAL SHAMMA 200 YURIA OKAMURA 202

5 Create! Magazine EDITOR: Ekaterina Popova

DESIGNER: Shelby McFadden

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Amanda Yamayev

GUEST CURATOR: Kaly Scheller-Barrett

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS: Alicia Puig Christina Nafziger

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6 Dear Reader,

As I sit down and think about the fact that the magazine has been around for two years, I am filled with awe, gratitude, and excitement for things to come. As you can imagine, any creative project has its challenges and setbacks. I have been fortunate to meet an incredible team of writers, curators, and editors along with the incredible art community that keeps this publication going year after year.

Because of your support, we have celebrated our two-year anniversary and are excited for things ahead. Even in this digital age, there is something so special about exploring new art through print. Our passion lies in helping our readers and collectors discover new talent, or get to know familiar names in the art world on a more intimate level. From an artist's perspective, there is nothing more magical than seeing your own work on glossy pages of a quality magazine.

Reflecting on the past two years, we are proud to serve a diverse and global community of artists and we're so thankful to celebrate together with a few of you at Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in October. We hope to continue engaging with you in person at curated events and through our new platform, the Art & Cocktails Podcast.

Before you dive in to this juicy edition and explore what's happening in Art Miami and the emerging contemporary art scene this year, I want to encourage you to start that project you keep thinking about, whether it's a new ambitious body of work or creative business venture like a zine or gallery space. If it's been on your mind for a few months or years and you just haven't pulled the trigger, start researching how you can make it happen. It's hard work, time consuming, and will make you crazy at times, but I promise you it's worth it. You will build an entire tribe, discover your strengths, and potentially help change the course of the art world.

Thank you for being a part of our thriving art community.

Cheers!

Ekaterina

7 Create! Magazine ART MIAMI FAIRS HIGHLIGHT EXHIBITORS 2018 WWW.ARTMIAMI.COM

In its 29th edition, Art Miami maintains a preeminent position in America's modern and contemporary art fair market and is globally recognized as a primary destination for the acquisition of the most important works from the 20th and 21st centuries.

LANDAU CONTEMPORARY AT GALERIE DOMINION INTERVIEW WITH TIM DUNN & SARA LANDAU

WWW.GALERIEDOMINION.CA

ANTONI CLAVÉ DIPTYQUE ET DEMI II Oil and collage on canvas 209 x 350 cm. / 82¼ x 137¾ in. 1994 Landau Contemporary at Galerie Dominion, Montreal, Canada

10 BRIEFLY TELL US ABOUT YOUR GALLERY AND WHAT TYPE OF ART YOU SPECIALIZE IN.

Landau Contemporary acquired the Dominion Gallery, Canada's oldest and most prestigious private art establishment in October 2005. The gallery offers a stunning showcase for modern masters alongside an exciting ensemble of contemporary international artists including Yves Zurstrassen, Christoph Kiefhaber, Kwang-Young Chun and Tony Scherman. Landau Contemporary is also the exclusive North American dealer for the Austrian master, architect and artist Friedensreich Hundertwasser. "Landau Fine Art was already well established as one of the world's leading galleries specializing in early 20th century international art," explains Canadian art dealer Robert Landau. "Dominion represented a unique opportunity to offer the works of living artists under the umbrella of their more famous 20th century predecessors.” The partnership between Landau Contemporary at Galerie Dominion and Landau Fine Art guarantees a wealth of choice for art lovers and collectors to experience, in an extensive exhibition space exceeding 20,000 square feet in a stunning Victorian landmark on Sherbrooke Street West.

WHAT CAN VISITORS EXPECT FROM YOUR BOOTH THIS YEAR AND WHAT SPECIFIC WORKS SHOULD THEY PAY ATTENTION TO?

History will come alive at Landau Contemporary at Art Miami, where we will be featuring an exceptional collection of paintings and sculptures from the Estate of Antoni Clavé, which will be presented alongside Britain’s most celebrated modern sculptor, Henry Moore, among others. Both of these extraordinary exhibitions will include works that span over 40 years of the Artist’s careers. These are only two of the highlights that will be on exhibit exclusively at Art Miami this December, where Landau Contemporary will feature over 100 artworks in 2,000 square feet of exhibition space.

WHAT TIPS WOULD YOU SHARE WITH NEW ART COLLECTORS OR FAIR VISITORS?

We encourage collectors to take the time to really look and interact with the works on display. Great artworks repay the attention they are given, and the more you look the more you have an opportunity to see. Experiencing and engaging with art is a slow burning process, so don’t try to absorb everything in one visit.

11 Create! Magazine OSBORNE SAMUEL GALLERY INTERVIEW WITH PETER OSBORNE

WWW.OSBORNESAMUEL.COM

BRIEFLY TELL US ABOUT YOUR GALLERY AND WHAT TYPE OF ART YOU SPECIALIZE IN.

High quality British and American art including Moore, Chadwick Sam Francis, Jim Dine.

WHAT CAN VISITORS EXPECT FROM YOUR BOOTH THIS YEAR AND WHAT SPECIFIC WORKS SHOULD THEY PAY ATTENTION TO?

Rare unique works by Chadwick not seen before, a remarkable Sam Francis painting, new works by Jim Dine.

WHAT TIPS WOULD YOU SHARE WITH NEW ART COLLECTORS OR FAIR VISITORS?

Do not try and do too much, spend more time at fewer locations. Come early.

GALERIE TERMINUS GMBH INTERVIEW WITH WILHELM J. GRUSDAT

WWW.GALERIE-TERMINUS.DE

SIGMAR POLKE “Untitled,” Oil on canvas, 59.1 x 70.9 inches. 2007

14 BRIEFLY TELL US ABOUT YOUR GALLERY AND WHAT TYPE OF ART YOU SPECIALIZE IN.

Art is not only our business, but it is also our passion. Specifically, we see our role as the mediator between collectors and artists. A very special vision is necessary to recognize a work of art as a potential masterpiece and as a valid manifestation of form and ideas. Only when all of these come together, can an artwork truly radiate that very special aura to which a viewer immediately feels drawn. An exceptional work of art has much more to offer than that which meets the eye. It is this quality to which the Galerie Terminus aspires.

WHAT CAN VISITORS EXPECT FROM YOUR BOOTH THIS YEAR AND WHAT SPECIFIC WORKS SHOULD THEY PAY ATTENTION TO?

At this year’s Art Miami we present the highlights of our current program and exciting new additions consisting of famous artists as well as young talents. We bring these two perspectives into context with each other at the fair, both as contrast and as correspondents. On the one side, we show big names and great American Pop-Artists such as John Chamberlain, Roy Lichtenstein, Mel Ramos, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Frank Stella, Andy Warhol, and Tom Wesselmann. On the other side, we bring young contemporary artists into focus with the Germans Christian Awe, Jan Davidoff, and Tatjana Tartakovska. We are very proud to also be able to include exciting new works from our current program by Georg Baselitz, Sigmar Polke Gerhard Richter, and Günther Uecker. To round things up, it is our very special pleasure to exclusively present a number of early works by Georg Baselitz as well as an exquisitely typical work by Sigmar Polke.

WHAT TIPS WOULD YOU SHARE WITH NEW ART COLLECTORS OR FAIR VISITORS?

Our presentation boils down to the bottom line which we wish to present to our fair visitors and all new art collectors: Always be on the lookout for works by artists with an international standing who are able to touch your heart and mind.

15 Create! Magazine TOM WESSELMANN Little Still Life #15 Oil, plastic and plaster relief on board 12.1 × 8.9 × 1 in. 1964 GALERIE VON VERTES INTERVIEW WITH QUIRINE VERLINDE

WWW.VONVERTES.COM

BRIEFLY TELL US ABOUT YOUR GALLERY AND WHAT TYPE OF ART YOU SPECIALIZE IN.

Founded by Laszlo Vertes, the eponymous gallery was conceived as an international exhibition platform specializing in 20th- and 21st-century art. Centrally located on the Bahnhofstrasse in Zürich the gallery builds and manages private and public collections, organizes exhibitions and gives lectures on art and art market related subjects. “With Vertes I tried to create a democratic space for the exploration and understanding of the inexhaustible diversity of art and its creators.“ Exceptional pieces by Albers, Calder, Chagall, Chamberlain, Condo Ernst, Francis, Kusama, Lichtenstein, Miró, Richter, Soulages, Vasarely, Warhol and Wesselmann are permanently on display in the 200 square meter gallery in Zurich.

WHAT CAN VISITORS EXPECT FROM YOUR BOOTH THIS YEAR AND WHAT SPECIFIC WORKS SHOULD THEY PAY ATTENTION TO?

For the 2018 Edition of Art Miami we are showcasing a bold selection of 20th and 21st century paintings, works on paper and sculptures. Specific focus points are a variety of stabiles by Alexander Calder, mesmerizing Infinity Nets and Infinity Dots by Yayoi Kusama, intriguing portraits by George Condo and vibrant abstract works by Gerhard Richter.

WHAT TIPS WOULD YOU SHARE WITH NEW ART COLLECTORS OR FAIR VISITORS?

Collecting is about art, its creators, the history behind it, the development of our personal taste, spirituality, connection and a way of life. Collecting is piecing together the story of you a a collector human being in this world. The price and the name of the artist are of minor importance. What is important is the connection you feel with a particular work of art and that from the moment it hangs on your wall you keep discovering new elements that you did you did not see before. A work of art invites the beholder to stay and linger and adds an element of joy and wonder to every home.

17 Create! Magazine PRIVEEKOLLEKTIE CONTEMPORARY ART | DESIGN INTERVIEW WITH GEORGIA MOWRY

WWW.PRIVEEKOLLEKTIE.ART

BRIEFLY TELL US ABOUT YOUR GALLERY AND WHAT TYPE OF ART YOU SPECIALIZE IN.

Priveekollektie Contemporary Art | Design is a leading international gallery specialised in contemporary art and collectible design. Based in The Netherlands, Priveekollektie actively works with a range of collectors, represents internationally recognised artists and designers, and provides a platform for up-and-coming talents to showcase their exceptional pieces.

WHAT CAN VISITORS EXPECT FROM YOUR BOOTH THIS YEAR AND WHAT SPECIFIC WORKS SHOULD THEY PAY ATTENTION TO?

Priveekollektie exhibits pieces each year at Art Miami that have never been shown in America before. With a focus on the best artists with a European identity, we plan to bring new, exciting and interesting works based upon our three pillars: concept, quality, and value. The works shown feature a highly curated selection of new and exclusive works. One of these works to look out for is the hand tufted tapestry, Luxuria 99, by Dutch artist Catharina van de Ven.

WHAT TIPS WOULD YOU SHARE WITH NEW ART COLLECTORS OR FAIR VISITORS?

Priveekollektie recommends three things to visitors and collectors: to explore the restaurants and nightlife, to visit the private collections that specially open during the week but are normally not open to the public to view, and to have sheer enjoyment of the art crowd and audience that arrives in Miami for this week only.

GALERIE FORSBLOM INTERVIEW WITH KATARINA SILTAVUORI

WWW.GALERIEFORSBLOM.COM

JACOB HASHIMOTO Reaching Desperately for the Darkening Sky Through Geographies of Time and Season, 2018 Acrylic, paper, bamboo, wood and Dacron 167.64h x 152.40w x 20.96d cm 66h x 60w x 8.25d in BRIEFLY TELL US ABOUT YOUR GALLERY AND WHAT TYPE OF ART YOU SPECIALIZE IN.

Galerie Forsblom, founded by Kaj Forsblom in 1977, holds a unique position on the Nordic art scene as one of the largest and most international contemporary art galleries by bringing international established artists to its exhibition spaces in Helsinki and Stockholm. While the exhibition programs consist of a wide range of media within the visual arts, Galerie Forsblom is highly profiled as presenting excellence in contemporary painting as well as sculpture.

WHAT CAN VISITORS EXPECT FROM YOUR BOOTH THIS YEAR AND WHAT SPECIFIC WORKS SHOULD THEY PAY ATTENTION TO?

Galerie Forsblom showcases both established American artists, such as Peter Halley, Jacob Hashimoto, and Keith Sonnier and young Finnish rising stars, Toni R. Toivonen and Reima Nevalainen. Our booth presents a coherent synergy between playfulness and harmony – the booth is curated with a joyful spirit as Peter Halley’s bright-colored, neo-geometric conceptualist works juxtapose Jason Martin’s large-scale monochromatic sculptural paintings which consist of thick surfaces of oil or acrylic gel. The booth prevails a lingering harmonic atmosphere with Jacob Hashimoto’s works, which combine Japanese handicraft tradition with Anglo-American minimalism, Stephan Balkenhol’s raw and spontaneous wood sculptures, and Bernar Venet’s dynamic steel sculptures and arches, playing with gravity and three-dimensionality.

WHAT TIPS WOULD YOU SHARE WITH NEW ART COLLECTORS OR FAIR VISITORS?

Be curious and ambitious. Let passion be your guide and trust your instincts. Buying art can be fun – and don’t be afraid to go big!

21 Create! Magazine LESLIE FEELY GALLERY INTERVIEW WITH DAKOTA SICA

WWW.LESLIEFEELY.COM

BRIEFLY TELL US ABOUT YOUR GALLERY AND WHAT TYPE OF ART YOU SPECIALIZE IN.

Leslie Feely Gallery is located on the Upper East Side in New York City. We specialize in Post War and Contemporary Art.

WHAT CAN VISITORS EXPECT FROM YOUR BOOTH THIS YEAR AND WHAT SPECIFIC WORKS SHOULD THEY PAY ATTENTION TO?

This year we have a dedicated a section to Richard Diebenkorn, highlighting works from every period of his career. Including examples of early abstract drawings, stunning figurative works, and an impressive Ocean Park. Another star of our booth is “First Run" a rare large-scale painting by Friedel Dzubas - this never before seen work is a Dzubas masterpiece. It will be accompanied by smaller paintings that illustrate the artist’s contributions to color field painting. We are also proud to present the works of Kikuo Saito. These large-scale gestural abstractions sing with color!

WHAT TIPS WOULD YOU SHARE WITH NEW ART COLLECTORS OR FAIR VISITORS?

I recommend that visitors ask questions. It is very rewarding to talk with people about the work of an artist they may or may not know. Art Miami is an inclusive fair where experienced and new collectors come to learn and grow their collections.

22 FRIEDEL DZUBAS First Run, 1972 Acrylic on canvas 96h x 96w in 24 INTERVIEWS Dive in deep and get to know exciting new contemporary talent and creative entrepreneurs shaking up the art world. BY GILLIAN KING WAVES, WATERSCAPES AND WANDERLUST INTERVIEW WITH ARTIST NINA BROOKE BY ALICIA PUIG

Nina Brooke is an artist who creates abstract aerial paintings of the sea and shorelines based on her experiences surfing and traveling around the globe. Her paintings are light-hearted and alluring, characterized by choppy, dynamic brushstrokes that evoke the movement of the water and pops of color from the myriad of beach umbrellas or surfboards populating her compositions. She studied at Falmouth University and at the Newlyn School of Art and is currently based in the UK. Check her out on Instagram - where I first found out about her work - to keep up with her newest paintings, see her beautiful studio and of course to follow the endless feed of enviable beach photos!

ARTIST STATEMENT: I have been painting in my studio in Cornwall for the past 8 years, developing my style as an artist. This space is for experimenting and recreating subjects of interest, particularly the sea - I am constantly drawn the watery depths and mysterious colours. The inky blues and sparkling greens are forever changing and they represent a constant creative adventure for me. I use a range of different mediums including oil, acrylic, texture, and watercolour to keep my work fresh. My favourite point of view is an aerial perspective, and I have been working on a series of paintings based on a bird's eye view of some of the world’s most beautiful places.

27 Create! Magazine WHERE DID YOUR INTEREST IN ART COME FROM? WERE YOU ALWAYS A PAINTER?

My interest in art came from my childhood - I’m from a creative, travel-obsessed family and i’ve always enjoyed photography, drawing and painting. I suppose the real shift came when I left school and went to study art at Falmouth University, followed by a series of brilliant courses at Newlyn School of Art where I honed my own style and became transfixed with the idea of the aerial perspective. I always knew I wanted to be an artist full time and I am so grateful that I get to do this for a living. A good friend gave me the push I needed to bite the bullet and make this my career. I’ve always been drawn to the nature of paint and the way it captures such a variety of colours and tones - so yes - I think I’ve always been a painter, deep down!

IT SEEMS THAT YOUR STUDIO IS VERY SIGNIFICANT TO YOU BOTH IN TERMS OF THE LOCATION AND THAT IT HAS GIVEN YOU THE SPACE TO DEVELOP YOUR STYLE. WHAT IS IT LIKE? ARE THERE OTHER ARTISTS NEARBY? WHAT ARE NECESSARY THINGS FOR YOU TO HAVE IN YOUR CREATIVE PLACE?

I am lucky to have a studio in London and a studio in Cornwall. I love both spaces and I get a very different energy from being in each location. London is the most wonderful city, and I love spending time in the thick of it, visiting galleries, seeing friends and spending long nights working on new paintings, with the buzz of the city around me. It’s also a great place to meet new people and show my work in new spaces (I have a show coming up on Portobello Road in September, more information will be posted on my website soon). My studio in Cornwall is a very different experience. It’s located in a quite corner of the North Coast, a short walk from the sea and cliff paths. There are a few artists in the area, and a great community of supportive friends and small businesses, so there are always plenty of visitors and opportunities to show people what i’ve been working on. My studio in Cornwall gives me space to breathe in the energy of the surrounding sea and landscape, whilst thinking about new projects. For the space to feel right, I need heaps of natural light, which I am lucky to have in both studios. In terms of must-have items - I'm always listening to music whilst I work so an energising playlist is essential, plus plenty of herbal tea and an organised to-do list! Whilst working on commissions or preparing for a show, I need to know exactly what needs to be done to stay on track.

28 29 Create! Magazine HOW OFTEN DO YOU DEDICATE TIME TOWARDS WORKING IN YOUR STUDIO? WHAT IS A TYPICAL DAY LIKE?

I spend most days in the studio and I’m pretty strict with myself about the working week. I’m a morning person, so I’m up early and in the sea (if I’m in Cornwall!) or out for a swim if I'm in London. I need to do some exercise to get my creative brain in action. After that, it’s usually an easy transition into working on my paintings - I tend to have a few on the go at once and I move between then until they feel resolved. The day can disappear if I’m very involved in a project, and I can be quite consumed by making. If I’m in London, I dedicate time at weekends to seeing other exhibitions and getting out for the evening with friends; and when I’m in Cornwall the beach is just irresistible (come rain or shine, I’ll be there).

HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU DEVOTE TO PAINTING VERSUS BUSINESS TASKS?

I try and get business tasks out of the way first thing, so I can concentrate on painting. It's so distracting to look at emails and messages as they come in, so I try to avoid that whilst I’m in the studio, I just find that much more productive for myself.

YOUR ART HAS TAKEN YOU TO SOME INCREDIBLE PLACES! (OR IS IT THE OTHER WAY AROUND?) TELL US ABOUT A FEW OF YOUR FAVORITE TRAVEL AND ARTIST RESIDENCY EXPERIENCES.

I’ve been so lucky! Sri Lanka was incredible - I spent a week as Artist in Residence at Ceylon Sliders in Weligama Bay, a totally magical spot with perfect waves, amazing people and a really inspiring ethos. I made a lot of preliminary paintings and sketches whilst I was there, which are still informing some of my paintings at the moment. From there I went to Hawaii - a crazy, vibrant life force which again gave me so much space to be creative. I was lucky to be travelling with some great girlfriends, and the experience was pretty special. I got to exhibit my paintings in Aloha Superette on Waikiki Beach with the wonderful Bree Poort. Those are probably my highlights from 2017-2018 (so far!)

WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT BEING AN ARTIST?

I love the freedom to create and the incredible release I get from being in and around the sea - which is my main source of inspiration. I am constantly amazed by new places, and compelled to recreate the colours and scenes I see in amazing places all over the world. It’s hard to describe the compulsion I have to paint, but without it, I really don’t know what I’d do with all of my energy. It’s much more than my job, it’s my life.

WHAT IS CHALLENGING ABOUT BEING AN ARTIST? HOW DO YOU OVERCOME THESE OBSTACLES?

It can sometimes be tricky working on my own and making ALL the decisions, but I share my studio in London with a friend who is great to bounce ideas off, and I have a strong network of friends, clients and supporters who are there for me if I need a second opinion (or critique on a new work!). Sometimes there can be so much to do it’s overwhelming, but I’m thankful to be busy making paintings - and I get it all done in time (usually…).

YOU MENTION MORE PAINTING AND TRAVELING FOR THE REST OF THIS YEAR. CAN YOU SHARE A BIT ABOUT YOUR UPCOMING PROJECTS AND PLANS FOR 2019?

Yes, after a hard working spring, summer and autumn filled with exhibitions I am planning on travelling to Mexico and Costa Rica early next year. I have heard so much about these beautiful destinations that I want to see from a birds eye view. I have just purchased the latest DJI Drone and am looking forward to taking it everywhere I go. I am so excited about what next year holds - travelling to new places I have never been before, seeing new cultures and surfing new breaks! I will be posting all my latest travels and artwork on my Instagram feed so I can take you everywhere I go and show you my aerial take on it!

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w w w . n i n a b r oo k e . co . u k

BY GILLIAN KING POSTGRADUATE PLANS AN INTERVIEW WITH EMERGING ARTIST ROSABEL ROSALIND KURTH-SOFER BY ALICIA PUIG

After graduating with her BFA in late 2017, Rosabel Rosalind Kurth-Sofer wasted no time in kickstarting her career as an artist, setting up a home studio in LA for a few months before travelling to Vienna to participate in a Fulbright Grant. She primarily creates drawings and prints, often turning to her own body as a subject in her striking, imaginative works. Read on to learn about the artists who inspire her, how constructions of identity have influenced her art and why she has a love/ hate relationship with painting.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: Rosabel Rosalind Kurth-Sofer is a visual artist who approaches the body, particularly through self-portraiture, as both an act of self-care and a mode of activism. Her images often involve grotesque and exaggerated caricatures as a way of questioning concepts of identity. With lighthearted portraiture and snapshots of intimacy she gives face and voice to the underestimated, the misunderstood, and the insecure. She engages with ambiguity in gender, in form, in space, and in material, as a way of disorienting the viewer’s relationship with their own bodies, themselves. Kurth-Sofer needs to create images in order to keep up with her ever-shifting relationship with her own ever-shifting body. Art-making for her is a process of upkeep, as imperative to her daily life as watering her plants and shaving her eyebrows. Though her drawings are frequently fantastical they bear very relatable and topical concerns of life in the 21st century, particularly under our current administration. She works from a home studio in Los Angeles, California, but is currently abroad in Vienna, Austria on a Fulbright Grant to research images of Anti-Semitism. During this time she will produce a series of self-portraits inspired by her findings in relation to her own Jewish identity. In June of 2019, she will have a solo show at Improper Walls Gallery, a contemporary art gallery located in Vienna. Here, her work will shift to examine both her relationship with her Jewish body as well as her female one. Rosabel graduated with a BFA in printmaking and drawing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in December 2017. You can see more of her work on her Instagram account @rosabelrosalind or on her website www.rosabelrosalind.com

35 Create! Magazine WE'D LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCE AT SAIC SINCE YOU ARE STILL A RECENT GRADUATE, BUT ALSO TELL US ABOUT WHEN YOUR INTEREST IN ART BEGAN. YOU CLEARLY HAVE A STRONG FOUNDATION AND INTEREST IN DRAWING, WAS THAT SOMETHING THAT DEVELOPED GROWING UP OR LATER ON?

I got a really wholesome artistic education from SAIC! It directed my focus a lot more on theory and execution of concept rather than technical skill…which has both its advantages and disadvantages! I’ve loved drawing since I was a kid, and that creative instinct stuck strongly with me while I grew up. Art school seemed like the most reasonable direction when applying to college in my teen years.

HOW HAS THE TRANSITION OUT OF SCHOOL BEEN OVER THE PAST YEAR?

The transition out of school has been relatively smooth! I am grateful to have a supportive community and family, who allowed me space and time to regroup. I travelled alone for three months after graduation and since then I’ve been selling my drawings and steadily working on commissions! One project I’m excited about is a long-term graphic-novel-picture-book-memoir of sorts. It will likely end up being a collection of visual short stories, poetry, and hybrid literature. All autobiographical. But also my Fulbright grant gives me a plan for at least a year, so that relieves a ton of post-grad stress!

I THINK THAT FOCUSING ON VARIOUS CONSTRUCTIONS OF IDENTITY IS AN INTERESTING AND COMPLEX THEME TO TACKLE IN YOUR WORK. WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO MAKE WORK ABOUT IDENTITY AND DO YOU FEEL THAT IT IS A TOPIC PARTICULARLY SIGNIFICANT NOW CONSIDERING POLITICS, SOCIAL MEDIA, GENDER ISSUES, ETC?

I absolutely think identity plays a critical role in the conversations that are occurring in today’s cultural and social politics. Before I even understood the complications of identity I was making very figurative images and exploring ambiguity within the body. I grew up in LA and body image played a huge role in my understanding of beauty. In Hollywood, image is everything, I grew up steeped in diet culture, plastic surgery gossip, and glamor. When I was pre-pubescent I played a lot around West Hollywood where the

36 gay, trans, and cross-dressing community really shook my notions of identity. And then I attended a high school in North Hollywood where 90% of the student population was above-average attractive. This really left me with a jaded attitude where, only through my art, could I reject these ideals and alternatively explore the body’s potential. I think I rejoiced in identity because it functioned as a defense mechanism against the anxiety of feeling awkward inside of my own body. And then soon it became a celebration of myself, and a vehicle for self-love. My obsession with dysmorphia translated into a lot of other sectors of identity, speaking to any size, shape, gender, race, ethnicity, etc. We all share these weird, gross bodies in common, and they deserve our praise, honor, and love.

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37 Create! Magazine WHO ARE SOME OF THE ARTISTS THAT HAVE HAD AN IMPACT ON YOU/YOUR WORK?

Well, I absolutely love David Hockney, I think his line and compositional skill are out of this world! Louise Bourgeois was the first artist that really spoke to me in regards to identity, the feminine, and the conceptual body. Right now I’m looking a lot at R. Crumb, Lilly Carré and David Shrigley. Their work makes me laugh! When I was in elementary school I used to collect Garbage Pail Kids and, looking back, the design of each card had a huge impact on my interests both conceptually and compositionally... The central focus on a single grotesque character in an almost iconographical way. I play with that a lot. I also think I was really impacted by the hours I spent in temple, staring at the lines between the stained glass panels in synagogue.

WHEN I CAME ACROSS YOUR INSTAGRAM PROFILE AND THEN YOUR WEBSITE, I WAS REALLY DRAWN TO TWO IMAGES: "SELF PORTRAIT AS SUPPER I" AND "SELF PORTRAIT AS SUPPER II." CAN YOU EXPLAIN A LITTLE MORE ABOUT THESE TWO WORKS AND YOUR CHOICE TO DISPLAY THEM TOGETHER IN AN INSTALLATION FORMAT?

It all started with a 30 x 36 inch limestone block. I knew I wanted to put my face on some form of poultry. At the time I was really invested in my print series of self- portraits as various edible creatures, so I was excited to push the limits of size by drawing such a large image to print! When I printed the chicken, I knew I wanted to include it in my final undergraduate exhibition at SAIC. The second self-portrait facing and accompanying it is just a black pencil drawing of my face on a turkey’s body. I wanted to see what a print and a drawing looked like side-by-side, and how the different qualities of mark-making interacted. Especially because at the time I had totally fallen in love with the lithographic process but dreaded the lengthy, time-consuming aspects of printing. So I was almost hoping to see if I liked the look of the drawing more than the look of the print. But the drawing didn’t even come close- I love print for this reason. Once I had these two pieces, I carved a rubber block and printed a wallpaper of cracked, animated eggs to pattern behind them. I wanted the space I created to look playful in contrast to the grimness of their stares.

WHAT WOULD YOU CONSIDER TO BE YOUR MOST AMBITIOUS ARTISTIC PROJECT TO DATE?

This past summer I painted a 3x15 foot long acrylic painting on panels that took absolutely everything out of me. The composition was inspired by the Last Supper, but I replaced Jesus and his apostles with women eating cake. I spent the summer in LA and this piece became a very direct criticism of the creepy diet culture I found 38 myself living in. This was definitely my most ambitious piece, but that could simply be due to the medium. I really, honestly, dislike painting, but I learn so much more when I’m faced with decisions of color, composition, depth, transparency and all of the other factors involved in creating a successful painting. It challenged me in ways I hadn’t felt in a while, and I pretty much refused to leave my house for three weeks! It’s interesting, my love-hate relationship with painting. There’s really nothing like the brief moments in the midst of painting where I feel like I’ve fallen in love again with the medium— where I can happily call myself a “painter” without reservation! But those moments are fleeting. Right now I wouldn’t call myself a “painter.” But I always come back to painting when I feel I need to be challenged again.

39 Create! Magazine CONGRATULATIONS ON BEING AWARDED A FULBRIGHT GRANT TO VIENNA, THAT SOUNDS LIKE IT WILL BE AN INCREDIBLE EXPERIENCE FOR YOU! WHAT LED YOU TO APPLY AND HOW WAS THE PROCESS? WHAT WILL YOU DO THERE?

Thank you very much! My freshman year of undergrad I had a professor named Judith who suggested I apply for a “Fulbright” after graduation. At the time I had no idea what this meant and considering I had only just begun college, I dismissed it. Judith and I continued to meet for coffee throughout the next few years of school, until one year she went on sabbatical to Vienna. When she returned to Chicago, she raved to me about the city and, as a Jewish woman herself, told me stories about her experience at the city’s Jewish Museum. It was in a cafe in Evanston, over biscotti and tea, that I had a revelation. I was a Junior at the time and had remembered her suggestion that I should apply for a Fulbright, so I went home and did some research. I am fascinated by mythology but couldn’t find anything particularly interesting on the subject of “Jewish” mythology. Then I found that the Jewish Museum Vienna owned a collection of 5,000 Anti-Semitic art objects and it all came together. The mythology within hate imagery totally took my breath away. I grew fascinated by the grotesque half-human-half-other creatures that have been used to represent Jews since the beginning of image-making and I started reading books on the history of anti-Semitism while simultaneously brushing up on my Judaic studies. The Fulbright application process was very similar to applying to college, it was long and terrifying and exciting all at once. I spent many a late night trying to reach various people in Austria via landline. The time-zones don’t make it easy! I leave for Austria in only a few days and while I’m there I’ll be investigating the Antisemitica in the Jewish Museum Vienna’s Schlaff collection. Then, in response to my studies, I’ll produce a series of self-portraits in an attempt to repurpose this offensive imagery into something celebratory. I’m anticipating some emotional difficulty, but overall I think this project is very important on both a personal and larger cultural level! By the time this article comes out, I’ll be in midst of it, so if you’re interested to see what I’ve produced thus far, you can find me on Instagram @rosabelrosalind!

WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS AFTER THE RESIDENCY? YOU HAVE A SHOW PLANNED FOR 2019 - DO YOU HAVE ANY OTHER EXCITING NEWS TO SHARE FOR NEXT YEAR?

As of now I’m allowing myself some time to sink into this project and not concern over future plans. I have no clue what these next nine months will look like for me, or where I’ll end up after this. I have been speaking with a few curators and galleries, both in Austria and America, about potential projects when I return. I have also been in talks with some Jewish institutions who seem eager to share this project in the United States. I am really excited to see what the future holds!

A BIG IMPORTANT ART BOOK NOW WITH WOMEN INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR DANIELLE KRYSA, JEALOUS CURATOR BY EKATERINA POPOVA

FIRST OF ALL, I'M A HUGE FAN OF ALL YOUR BOOKS, PODCASTS, BLOGS, AND YOUR ART! THANK YOU FOR ALL YOU DO FOR THE ART COMMUNITY. TELL ME WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO WRITE YOUR LATEST BOOK “A BIG IMPORTANT ART BOOK - NOW WITH WOMEN”?

Thank you! Well, it started about twenty years ago, when I was an art history minor at university. The only women we learned about were Frida and Georgia. I love them, but surely they weren’t the only two women making art? My professor assured me that there were zillions of female artists, however “they weren’t considered worthy enough to document.” Huh? Jump to 2017, and I started to realize that the majority of my podcast guests were women, not because I set out to only interview women, but theirs seem to be the stories I wanted/needed to hear. After a bit of research, I realized women still aren’t being documented as seriously as male artists, and so that’s when I knew I HAD to write this book. ps. It was turned down by 5 out of 6 publishers because they weren’t sure “people would buy a book about female artists.” Huh, again?! Thankfully, Running Press disagreed.

43 Create! Magazine ESPECIALLY IN THIS POLITICAL CLIMATE, IT'S MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER TO TALK ABOUT THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF WOMEN. DOES THE BOOK FOCUS ON CONTEMPORARY FEMALE ARTISTS? WHAT CAN WE EXPECT TO SEE INSIDE?

Yes, it does - 45 of them to be exact. That said, I also wanted to honor the women of the past, and provide jump-starters for the artists of the future. Here’s how it breaks down: The chapters in this book, fifteen in total, are each centered around an art genre/theme covering many recurring categories from portraiture to narratives, from humor-based to culturally-inspired. Each chapter begins with a project for the reader—a project that will get them into the studio, inspiring them to become the next great artist of their generation. These creative jump-starters are supported by the in-depth profiles (and artwork) of 45 contemporary artists - their style, medium, and techniques, lending inspirational insights into that particular genre. Sprinkled throughout those contemporary bios, are ‘did you know’ sidebars featuring 30 remarkable artists from the past - some started art movements, others defied society’s gender rules, and all of them proved their art was worthy and important.

WHAT WERE YOUR FAVORITE DISCOVERIES OR REVELATIONS FROM WRITING THIS BOOK?

Oh, there were so many. A few revelations made me really angry - for example, how hard it is to find information on the historical women. You really have to dig, not only to find the women in the first place, but then to find any kind of real information on their lives and work (see the next answer for more on this!). On a happier note, I loved discovering that all 45 contemporary women featured in the book are, in fact, just people. Yes, they are accomplished artists doing amazing things, but they’re also just people with families and bills to pay. It’s wonderful to realize that if they can do it, through grit and determination, so can any of us.

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44 HOW LONG DID IT TAKE FOR YOU TO EXECUTE THIS MASSIVE PROJECT, FROM GATHERING YOUR MATERIALS TO WRITING AND EDITING?

I had one year to do everything before I had to hand off my manuscript to Running Press. I was interviewing, researching and writing at least eight hours a day … and I loved every single second! Mind you, halfway through the year I realized there were not enough hours in the day to do everything I needed to do, so I finally put up my hand and asked for help (not something I’m very good at!). A woman named Yael, a recent art history grad, had reached out when I first announced the new book and volunteered to help gathering the historical info. After resisting for six months, I finally decided to take her up on the offer. THANK GOODNESS. Yael, you are my art history fact-digging hero!

DO YOU HAVE ANY BASIC TIPS FOR CREATIVES WHO ARE INTERESTED IN WRITING A BOOK THEMSELVES?

First things first, you don’t have to write a whole book before you approach a publisher. They just want the general gist, and a plan to prove that people might actually buy it (ie. building up your social channels to show that you have a community behind you is never a bad idea.) That said, self-publishing is also a way to go. If you have an idea that you just have to get out, then write it, illustrate it, and make it happen!

WHERE CAN WE LEARN MORE AND SUPPORT YOUR BOOK AND BOOK TOURS?

The book is being sold around the world in most major bookstores, gallery gift shops, and lots of lovely independent shops… and online, of course! And because I love meeting the people who follow my blog, listen to my podcast, and read my books, I’ve scheduled a whole bunch of talks and book signings in Canada and the USA. Dates, ticket info, etc. can be found on the “Speaking” page of my site. (www.thejealouscurator.com/ blog/speaking/). Hm, I guess people WILL buy a book about female artists.

45 Create! Magazine BY GILLIAN KING JAMES BULLOUGH THE VOICES OF STREET ARTISTS

BY CHRISTINA NAFZIGER

Berlin-based street artist James Bullough creates murals that you will not soon forget, as his incredible skill in painting is just as impressive as the scale of his work. The figures in Bullough's work are in mid-motion floating in air as they are dissected and fragmented through the artist’s distinctive style. The lines and angles formed in this aspect of his work create striking visuals that intensify the vibrating motion held in his subjects. Living in an urban mecca for street artists, Bullough also hosts VantagePoint Radio, where he talks with other artists working in this realm about their process and techniques, while really getting to know each artist’s personality. I have been a fan of Bullough’s work for a while now, and was fortunate enough to see a couple of his paintings in L.A., which did not disappoint. After listening to VantagePoint Radio, I have a new respect for the artist as he documents these oral histories of the street art scene, archiving the stories of these important artists of our time.

47 Create! Magazine BY GILLIAN KING WERE YOU FORMALLY TRAINED IN PAINTING? HOW DID YOU GET YOUR START AS A PAINTER AND MURALIST? WHICH CAME FIRST: PAINTING ON CANVAS OR PAINTING ON CITY WALLS?

I was never formally trained as a painter. My degree from college was in art education which is far more a teaching degree than it is an arts degree. After graduating I became a middle school art teacher, but it wasn’t until about seven years later that I decided to start painting myself. I found an accomplished local still-life oil painter who had an ‘open studio’ type of situation and I began dropping in once a week with my paints, a canvas, and a 6-pack. Together with a group of about 10 other aspiring painters, we came every week and basically learned how to paint through osmosis. A couple years later I quit my teaching job, sold everything I owned and moved to Berlin to be a full time painter. It was only then, and in my 30’s that I became reacquainted with my teenage love of graffiti and picked up a spray can for the first time. Oddly, by learning more traditional painting techniques before experimenting with spray paint, it freed me from the confines of how spray paint was intended to be used. I was able to naively experiment with it as a new art tool and found that portraiture came quite naturally to me, which likely would not have been the case if I had come up painting graffiti as a youth.

TELL ME A BIT ABOUT YOUR INTEREST IN THE FIGURE. WHAT DRAWS YOU TO THESE MOMENTS OF MOVEMENT THAT YOU CAPTURE IN YOUR WORK?

Other than the typical Freudian motivations, I’m not really sure why the female figure has become my main focus. I started painting women the moment I picked up a brush and haven’t stopped since. I love painting flesh and find it to be extremely challenging, but also rewarding. As my work progressed over time, hair and movement became much more of a staple, which reinforced my focus on the female figure. My earlier portrait paintings were mostly from the waist up, or even from the shoulders up, because I worked from photos and that’s what I had. Any time I wanted to show more of the figure I was always bothered by their interaction with the objects around them such as the chair they were sitting in or even just the ground they were standing on. I wasn’t interested in the setting, only the figure, but when I omitted the surroundings the posture and weight of the figure seemed awkward. To solve this, I started working with figures falling or jumping, and that’s when everything changed and became more about movement and tension and drama. Now I work quite often with dancers and performers and I ask a lot of my models to try and get powerful images that evoke non- specific emotions, which can be felt and read by every viewer differently.

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49 Create! Magazine BY GILLIAN KING DO YOU PAINT FROM LIFE OR DO YOU USE REFERENCE IMAGES? DO YOU PERSONALLY KNOW THE SUBJECTS OF YOUR PAINTINGS?

I organize photo shoots with models and take hundreds of photos in various outfits and from various angles and lighting setups. I’ve created a huge database of images on my computer and every painting starts with me filtering through hundreds of photos until I see something that sparks my interest. I do most of my preliminary sketching in Photoshop by taking bits and pieces from many different photos to create one striking image. It is extremely rare that a painting of mine comes from one single photograph. I normally start with a photo that I like but then take an arm or a leg from another image (maybe even a different model from another photo shoot), and then a foot from another image, and so on until I’ve built something that feels both believable and dynamic. Once I’ve got the figure to a place where I’m happy with it, I then begin the process of fracturing or distorting it. By the time I put brush to canvas I’ve already been working on the reference image for countless hours.

LET’S TALK ABOUT YOUR RADIO SHOW VANTAGE POINT, WHICH YOU CO-HOST WITH TOM “AUTO64.” CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THE MOMENT YOU DECIDED TO CREATE THIS PODCAST SERIES? WHAT BOUNDARIES DO YOU AIM TO PUSH THROUGH THE DIALOGUE THAT TAKES PLACE THROUGH VANTAGE POINT?

VantagePoint Radio (www.VantagePointRadio.com) was an idea I had after living in Berlin for a few years meeting so many different and interesting artists. I found myself time and time again sitting in a bar in deep conversation with different artists about their work and techniques. I found it really inspirational and informative. It just seemed logical that other people would be interested to hear these conversations, so I started recording them with my friend and producer Tom Phillipson and it was that simple. I felt that visual artists are only accessible two dimensionally, through their artwork and maybe through their written responses to interviews in magazines and such, but that leaves so much missing. Hearing an artist speak and discuss their work in long form gives such a rich insight to the artist as a person, from the things they say to the sound of their voice or an accent they might have. Being that I am an artist myself also adds an element to our conversations that a non-artists interviewer wouldn’t be able to access. We get deep and nerdy sometimes and that’s part of what makes the show so great. I also decided from the very first episode that every guest will choose 4 songs that we will play throughout the interview to break up the talking and give more insight to their personality. I think the formula is perfect and we’ve got seriously devoted fans who agree.

51 Create! Magazine WHO ARE SOME OF THE ARTISTS YOU’VE INTERVIEWED IN THE PAST?

Because Berlin is such a magnet for street artists and muralists, we were able to get some of the biggest names in the game and once the ball started rolling it never really stopped. We’ve now done over 100 individual one hour interviews with some of the most influential people in the urban contemporary art world from gallerists and museum heads like Thinkspace Gallery, Jonathan LeVine Gallery, and Yasha Young, to the top artists in the scene like D*Face, Dan Witz, Anthony Lister, Sandra Chevrier, Ron English, Tristan Eaton, Faith 47… the list goes on and on. What we’re most proud of is that we feel we have thoroughly documented the scene in a way nobody else has done and although there’s still a lot of ground to cover, we feel like we’ve made a significant impact.

ORIGINALLY FROM THE U.S., WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO MAKE THE MOVE TO BERLIN? HOW IS THE STREET ART SCENE THERE AS OPPOSED TO WHERE YOU WERE LIVING IN THE U.S.?

Moving to Berlin seemed to be something that my life was headed towards for years before I even realized it. The first time I left the US was in 1989 for an international swim meet in Berlin. I was in 6th grade and already very obsessed with graffiti and hip hop culture, but when I saw the Berlin wall covered in spray paint it sparked something in me that never left. Ironically, it was only 30 days later that the wall unexpectedly came down. Fast forward twelve years or so and I am living in Australia where I fall in love with a girl from Berlin. Over the next five years I visit the city (and the girl) at least once a year and absolutely fell in love. I married the German girl and for the next five years we live together in Baltimore but visited Berlin often, and all the while I was becoming more and more interested in street art and painting and feeling like I needed a change in life. Berlin has long been one of the cultural centers of graffiti and street art in Europe and worldwide. Especially in my early visits, the city was just covered in paint. By the time I moved here in 2010, things had changed a bit but there were still plenty of places to paint and plenty of people painting. My dabbles in graffiti and street art eventually gave way to a serious focus on large scale murals and studio paintings, but the vibe of the city and my early days living here still lives in my work.

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY MOTIVATES YOUR PRACTICE MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE?

My main motivation is and always has been other artists currently working and pushing themselves and their careers forward by always evolving and maturing their work and their practice. Up until a few years ago that focus was mostly on the artwork, but as my art making practice has turned into a career and a business, I now look at other artists as business men and women as well. I see an artist’s career as a separate but parallel kind of art project. Some are very good at it and others not so much. Some are better 52 at the career part than the actual art making and somehow there’s room for everyone if they can just figure out what works best for them. My primary goal is and always will be to make outstanding art and continue evolving and pushing my work forward, but lately the business side of things has really got my interest and is motivating me to try new things and evolve in that area as well.

WHAT PIECE OF ADVICE CAN YOU OFFER ARTISTS THAT ARE STILL DEVELOPING THEIR VOICE?

First thing is to just keep making stuff. Most of us are not that good for quite a long time, even when you think your art is getting pretty good it’s probably not yet… but it will be. If making art is your thing and you’re passionate about it, then just keep making it and don’t expect instant success. Eventually, you will start to settle into a style and at some point hopefully you will start to get a sense that people are responding to something that you’re doing. When that happens, take note of it and focus on that thing for a while. Really perfect that one thing and make it so that every time someone sees your work it’s undeniably yours. Consistency is huge when you’re trying to stake your claim in the art world. Also, diversify yourself and give people multiple ways to discover you and rediscover you. In my early days I was making studio paintings for group shows, painting murals and posting images of them all over the internet, hosting my own radio show, working in a gallery, and going to every art event that I could. Each one of these outlets was a way for someone to find me and, in the beginning, that’s one of the most important things. 53 Create! Magazine BY GILLIAN KING EDRA SOTO CREATING COMMUNITY THROUGH ARTISTIC PRACTICE

BY CHRISTINA NAFZIGER

Edra Soto is a Chicago-based artist and curator who creates socially engaging work that provokes dialogue and participation within her community. I first came across her work at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, where an iteration of her ongoing project OPEN 24 HOURS was installed. This project beautifully transforms discarded bottles in the artist’s neighborhood into something not unlike stained glass windows as they sit upon rejas, which are ornate fences that can be found all over Puerto Rico, where Soto grew up. This installment also included workshops where people from the community could join Soto in decorating these bottles, bringing a piece of the installation home with them. In addition to her own artwork, Soto also runs The Franklin, a unique structure housed in her backyard where local artists can create site-specific installations. Soto and I talked about her personal artistic practice as well as The Franklin and its mission in the community.

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55 Create! Magazine BY GILLIAN KING WHERE DID YOUR JOURNEY AS AN ARTIST BEGIN? WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO CHICAGO?

It all began when I was a child. During my elementary school years in catholic school, I remember lunchtime taking place at an outdoor space where children gathered in small circles. This was not instructed, but rather voluntary behavior. So many times I questioned myself as a child: “Why do people do this?” I couldn’t understand or configure it. Now, I understand this behavior as our natural way of segregating. This thought has become the foundation of my practice. I was also very shy and hardly could speak for myself. There was a lot of internal dialogue happening during my childhood. This handicap, as I call it, led me to seek ways of manifesting the large-scale world that I wanted to construct for others and myself. I came to Chicago after living 27 years in Puerto Rico, seeking higher education in the arts. I was immersed in a commercial art world that I couldn’t understand at the time. I experienced validation and certain success, but it didn’t feel it was a good fit for me at the time. It still isn’t, but I don’t dismiss it completely. I just don’t make it my focus or my reason to do or make.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR ON-GOING PROJECT OPEN 24 HOURS. WHAT INSPIRES THE BEAUTIFUL DESIGNS AND PATTERNS FOUND IN THE STRUCTURES IN THE INSTALLATION?

My ongoing project Open 24 Hours engages social and civic responsibilities towards the restoration of the pride and state of sanitation of my neighborhood. Since December of 2016, I started collecting littered glass bottles of alcohol found at Franklin Blvd. in East Garfield Park, a historic, African American neighborhood. Every morning I walk my dogs around the block and collect between four to ten (plus) empty bottles of alcohol as a memento to the community’s consumption. The bottles are stripped of labels, cleaned and arranged in a classic still life (connecting to art history, thinking of the tradition of Italian painter Giorgio Morandi). The still lives represent the documentation of one day of collecting. By stripping the bottle labels, I remove an immediate connection to a specific demographic, providing a wider entrance for audiences who become curious about the meaning behind my documentation. The title OPEN 24 HOURS refers to the neighborhood areas that are 24 hours a day highly visible to the community and rarely, if ever, cleaned by the city. The decorative patterns framing the project reference vernacular architecture from Puerto Rico. Domestic iron rejas - Spanish for fence - became ubiquitous in the architecture of post-war Puerto Rico, due both to the security they provide and their ability to allow for ventilation. Today, these rejas have become a piece of the island's visual landscape. I have chosen to render representations of reja pattern designs I find in Puerto Rico to create architectural interventions that I title GRAFT. Transplanting rejas to locations outside Puerto Rico alludes to the aesthetic and nostalgic qualities of these rejas and points at overlooked histories of conquest and enslavement, while also hinting at a sort of neo-colonization, in which the vernacular architectural style of a colonized people is appropriated for cultural cachet.

57 Create! Magazine MANY OF YOUR PROJECTS INCLUDE AN ELEMENT THAT ENGAGES WITH YOUR AUDIENCE, WHETHER IT BE THROUGH WORKSHOPS OR BY ALLOWING VIEWERS TO TAKE A PIECE OF YOUR WORK HOME WITH THEM, SUCH AS IN YOUR PROJECT OPEN 24 HOURS. WHEN DID YOU INTRODUCE THIS COMPONENT IN YOUR WORK? HOW IMPORTANT IS AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT AND PARTICIPATION TO YOUR PRACTICE?

I started bringing other disciplines into my practice during my grad school years at SAIC (1998-2000). The first project that acted on activating various disciplines in one single space was the “I Love Chicago Project” back in 1999 at my MFA studio space. I found great inspiration from creative people I met during my first years in Chicago. For example, my roommate Susanne and my boyfriend Dan - now my 58 husband - both were musicians, and I decided to invite them to preform at my studio space. This was the first project I did that depended on the voices of others to be fully realized. Including other disciplines in my work allows me to integrate a variety of voices, instigating an expansive dialogue between experts in a variety of fields in the work. This strategy not only finds a variety of ways of informing the work but also potentially speaks to a variety of publics. I’m always hoping to be as inclusive as I can possibly be. In my ongoing architectural interventions titled GRAFT, I generate a literary component in the form of a take-away publication to complement this project. Bilingual essays, in which writers from a variety of disciplines, such as art history, art, architecture and politics amongst other fields, reflect on rejas (fences) in the contexts of their individual fields of expertise. Most exhibitions might have an end, but this is always available. Examples of these publications can be found on the PDF section of the website edrasoto.com

WHEN DID YOU OPEN THE FRANKLIN? WHAT IS ITS MISSION AND WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACHIEVE?

The Franklin opened in 2012 with the exhibition LIVING by Example - the title LIVING comes from Martha Stewart LIVING Magazine, alluding to DIY culture – at Northeastern Illinois University Gallery. This exhibition was a collaboration between my husband Dan Sullivan, which marked our first collaboration. At the gallery, we created an installation with The Franklin and objects from our personal art collection. Soon after the exhibition, we moved The Franklin into our backyard. The Franklin then became our artists-run project space that allows artists and curators to engage with the East Garfield Park community through cultural events. We created The Franklin in response to our relationship with the Chicago artist-run community. We first considered the existing exhibition models available within the artist-run community (studios, apartments, domestic spaces), and then we created a unique model in keeping with the DIY philosophy. It is an outdoor model inspired by gazebos, with a ventilation system, movable walls, a deck and a ceiling. Artists and curators are encouraged to consider the weather conditions the work presented will be exposed to. We also thought that Chicago needs a space that addresses its distinctive weather!

WHAT KIND OF CHALLENGES HAVE YOU FACED EXHIBITING WORK IN SUCH A UNIQUE SPACE? CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT A HIGHLIGHT YOU’VE HAD RUNNING THE FRANKLIN?

The weather will be the one great challenge. Artists need to be constantly reminded that things can fly away from the space. A lucky and true fact is that The Franklin is tough enough for the Chicago weather. We haven’t faced significant damages so far. We have had many highlights, but one of my favorites was having Luftwerk’s installation at The Franklin. Their installation titled INTO AND OUT OF at The Franklin ended up being a maquette for what later became a monumental sculpture titled Portal exhibited at Garfield Park Conservatory. Portal was partly fabricated by Navillus Woodworks, my husband’s company. 59 Create! Magazine THE FRANKLIN IS SUCH AN INTERESTING SPACE ARCHITECTURALLY; WITHIN IT YOU FEEL LIKE YOU ARE BOTH INSIDE AND OUTSIDE. CAN THIS SENTIMENT BE FOUND IN THE STRUCTURES YOU CREATE AS PART OF YOUR OWN ARTISTIC PRACTICE? DO YOU THINK OF THE FRANKLIN AS AN EXTENSION OF YOUR WORK AS AN ARTIST?

The Franklin consolidates my early concepts and needs to bring a variety of disciplines into one space. I’ve always seen The Franklin as an extension of my practice. It is a space that instigates collaboration and integration and the only agenda we have is to preserve our sense of freedom for years to come. With my ongoing project Open 24 Hours, framed by the fences of my architectural interventions titled GRAFT, I’ve been able to host performances and somewhat recreate the interactivity and sense of agency that The Franklin offers to all its collaborators.

WHAT ASPECT OF YOURSELF, OR YOUR LIFE, INFLUENCES YOUR ARTISTIC PRACTICE THE MOST?

My upbringing in Puerto Rico is perhaps the part of my life that has consistently led the discourse of my practice. The relationship between Puerto Rico and the US is also a constant in my work. Living 27 years in Puerto Rico, and now 20 in Chicago, makes the “migratory minds” align. But I also think my fantasies of leisure time often inform my work as well.

WHERE IS OPEN 24 HOURS GOING NEXT? DO YOU HAVE ANY UPCOMING PROJECTS YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE WITH US?

Open 24 Hours is up and running, still. I will be presenting an intervention at the High Desert Test Sites in Wonder Valley, California, curated by Ski Club Milwaukee on October 27 and 28; a photo documentation from this series at the Albright Gallery of Lake Forest College opening on November 13; a selection of the daily still-life by-chance compositions with the found bottles at the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel from November 2 to November 26. There’s more on the way but possibly the most significant iteration of Open 24 Hours in scale will be at the Cleve Carney Art Gallery of College of DuPage from August 20

60BY GILLIAN KING to October 12 in 2019. Other current and upcoming projects that I’m excited about - that I can share - are an exhibition titled Monarchs: Brown and Native Contemporary Artists in the Path of the Butterfly curated by Risa Puleo is on view at Southwest School of Art and Blue Star Contemporary through January 6 of 2019; an installation at Untitled Miami Beach at Luis De Jesus Los Angeles booth; and more in Illinois, California, Cuba and Puerto Rico.

61 Create! Magazine BY GILLIAN KING PHOTO CREDIT: MARCEL LE BACHELET REIMAGINED AND REMEMBERED INTERVIEW WITH CHARLOTTE KEATES

BY EKATERINA POPOVA

Borrowing from technical blueprint and architectural drawing, Keates’s work draws on the ideals of organic architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Hugo Haring and Bucky Fuller. Interiors recall the modish geometry of 1960s and ‘70s design, shown here in communion with elements from the natural world. Trees push through flat concrete, while perspectives unfold in sheets of glass. These images of modernist leisure leave one with the feeling of having entered a space only recently vacated, dramatising stillness without surrendering movement. These are environments that suggest, technically as well as artistically, indistinct human activity and motion. If, as Kevin Lynch argues in his essay The Image of the City (1960), architecture is ‘construction in space’ and therefore a ‘temporal art’, then Keates’s paintings, replete with geometric and trapezoidal imagery, are the artist fracticalising the no-less concrete practice of the architect. Keates's work is interdisciplinary, meta-textual – serene, airy landscapes that shock the viewer with ‘more than the eye can see, more than the ear can hear’, evermore settings, corners and aspects ‘waiting to be explored’.

63 Create! Magazine BY GILLIAN KING WHAT INSPIRED YOUR RECENT BODY OF WORK AND WHAT WOULD YOU SAY YOUR CURRENT PAINTINGS ARE ABOUT?

My recent paintings draw inspiration from old Kodachrome slides, sourced from an American families estate who travelled the world in the 50's and 60's. The first batch of 100 slides that I received came with a handwritten inscription 'The Kennedy Trip' and this became the source material and trigger for my research into the portrayal of the 'American good life', with a more specific interest in Californian and Floridian architecture. Within one recent painting titled 'Everything Started With You' the space depicted is loosely based on the Racquet Club in Palm Springs. This is where Marilyn Monroe was supposedly first scouted and photographed when she was 23 by Bruce Bernard who she went on to have a relationship with, and later wrote him a note saying 'Remember Bernie, Everything started with You'. Palm Springs is also one of the rumoured locations for the supposed love affair between JFK and Marilyn Monroe, further intertwining the connection between the title of the slides and the inspiration sourced.

Recently I have been working on a grid of 36 little 22cm x 22cm paintings to be shown as a part of 'The Kennedy Trip' at PULSE Miami in December. Inspired by the slides, but also based on an individual colour or quotation from Kassia St Clair's book 'Secret Lives of Colour'. I have been using it as a process, exploring colour theory and colour choices, trying to push and test my boundaries within colour and the physicality's of paint.

WHAT DO YOU HOPE THE VIEWER FEELS OR EXPERIENCES WHEN LOOKING AT YOUR WORK?

I hope to trigger a feeling or memory within the viewer, it's important that they feel something. The viewers own experiences and imagination play as much a part of the narrative as my own. Whilst a moment or space may be deeply personal to me or somewhere that I have reimagined and remembered, I hope that it can evoke a sense of emotion. The story is left entirely ambiguous to unfold as the viewer wishes it to. For me this part is incredibly important, to outline too much of a story or try and explain too much would change the entire dynamic of my work - I think this is perhaps why figures are never present in my spaces.

65 Create! Magazine BY GILLIAN KING NAME A FEW EXPERIENCES IN YOUR CAREER SO FAR THAT PUSHED YOU AND YOUR WORK TO THE NEXT LEVEL.

I think my big three month trip around the States and Canada a couple of years ago really solidified why I am working the way that I do, and encouraged me to not try and force anything. After taking that time away from the studio I felt my work shift and I became more confident and experimental within my practice. Showing at London Art Fair earlier this year then shortly after being selected for the Columbia Threadneedle Prize were huge achievements for me and I knew this year was going to be a good one. I've been talking about showing my work in Miami Art Week and so a solo exhibition at PULSE feels entirely appropriate and pretty exciting to be able to show this collection of works in the exact place where they were first inspired. The act almost becomes a journey in itself, a sense of 'returning' or 'coming home'.

HOW DO YOU LIKE TO SPEND YOUR TIME WHEN YOU ARE NOT IN THE STUDIO?

I do yoga a couple of times a week, and play the piano. I'm not particularly a city person so escape to the seaside and country whenever I can, but I do really love everything that London has to offer - visiting galleries and getting inspired.

BEST TIP OR LIFE ADVICE YOU WOULD LIKE TO PASS ON TO OTHER CREATIVES.

Probably to just keep making work. Even when you feel stuck or unsure about what you are doing, if you keep working through it you tend to get somewhere in the end. Sometimes it is enough to just make work and not think too hard about the outcome. Making sketches, painting something that doesn't seem that relevant or even writing phrases or quotes can create clarity in your mind and often those things that didn't seem overly relevant to begin with, find their purpose. I feel lucky to be able to do what I love for a living every single day, and sometimes when you feel stuck, you just need a day or two to remember why you love it and get back on track.

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67 Create! Magazine LIV & DOM TWIN CERAMISTS AND ILLUSTRATORS IN THEIR 68 BERTHE AND ALMA T-SHIRTS STANDING UP FOR WOMEN ARTISTS INTERVIEW WITH LIEZEL STRAUSS, ART GIRL RISING

BY EKATERINA POPOVA

69 Create! Magazine HOW DID YOU GET INVOLVED IN THE ARTS? ARE YOU A CREATIVE YOURSELF?

I painted from a very young age but my parents convinced me that a creative life would not pay the bills. (Sounds familiar, right?) But I found my creative expression when I started an art business, Subject Matter, seven years ago. I work with incredible artists. I haven't painted for 15+ years, but I picked up a brush last month—I’m shit scared and excited at the same time!

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO START ART GIRL RISING?

Earlier this year on international women day, I saw NMWA’s #5womenartists campaign on Instagram. I was totally shocked by how underrepresented women artists were and I started researching the numbers. It just couldn’t be true, but it was! Later that evening I was on the treadmill watching Queer Eye on Netflix, one of the guys were wearing a Tshirt with four men’s names on. It sparked the idea immediately: how about five women artists’ names on a T-shirt? Thank you Queer Eye and NMWA! The next morning, I emailed everyone I knew with a mock-up of the shirt and the idea behind it and the website link (I created a v simple site on a free template from Shopify) - the orders started coming in. Things really started springing into action when Danielle Krysa (The Jealous Curator) posted it on her Instagram. I woke up to 70+ orders and for the next four days, it didn’t stop. I’m forever grateful to Danielle. I had more than 150 orders before I had a T-shirt supplier, so it was a little stressful, but it all worked out in the end and I'm finally happy with the quality. We donate £5 from every sale to Women for Women, as I wanted to raise money with this project for a good cause too.

HOW DO YOU HOPE TO INSPIRE AND INITIATE CHANGE THROUGH YOUR PROJECT?

The idea with the T-shirt is that it will spark conversation when you wear it. The design is super simple; I didn’t want it to distract from the message. I’m very grateful to hear that people wear the T-shirt and then others ask, “Who are those people on your chest?” It opens a conversation. How is it even possible that women only make up 3-5% of collections in museums and galleries in Europe and North America? I still can’t get my head around this. But I really believe it can change. If every curator and art buyer considers this fact, things can only change. Call me an optimist!

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70 NAME A FEW OF YOUR FAVORITE FEMALE ARTISTS.

I have learned so much from posting about a new female artist on Instagram every day! Even though I’m in the art world, it has been a huge eye-opener for me…

FAMOUS ONES: LESSER KNOWN ONES Helen Frankenthaler Lakwena Julie Mehrethu Danielle Krysa Eva Hesse Camilla Bliss Amy Sherald Stephanie Shneider Lubiana Himid Jenny Woods Louise Bourgeois

WHAT IS NEXT FOR YOU AND WHAT CAN WE EXPECT IN THE FUTURE FROM ART GIRL RISING?

I’m working on a few collaborations with Subject Matter, my other baby. We are doing an all-female show in London later this year. We are also launching an art competition for young women in Johannesburg, and I’m working on a collaboration with an artist in Tokyo for a special AGR edition later this year.

HOW CAN WE SUPPORT YOUR PROJECT AND LEARN MORE?

People have been so incredibly kind about this project. Thanks to everyone who has reached out — it means a lot.

THERE ARE THREE WAYS:

You can buy a T-shirt and wear it as much as possible so that it can spark conversation, drive awareness, and hopefully help facilitate change - WE NEED MORE WOMEN IN MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES AROUND THE WORLD. Whenever you visit a gallery or museum, ask the information desk, curator or whoever is around (and friendly enough to speak to you to point out the work of the female artists, you will be shocked to see how few there are. By asking this question, you will realize the underrepresentation but also bring awareness to the curators. People won’t always act kindly when you ask, but be brave be bold. It’s the only way we can bring about change.

Continued support on Instagram is always a winner; it feels like a wonderful community.

71 Create! Magazine BY GILLIAN KING A GLIMPSE INTO ANOTHER’S WORLD INTERVIEW WITH ANNA SHUKEYLO

BY EKATERINA POPOVA

Anna Shukeylo is a visual artist and curator, born in St. Petersburg, Russia. She graduated from Pratt Institute with her MFA in Painting and from Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts with BFA/ Certificate. Her work has been exhibited throughout New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New Jersey, and internationally in Paris, France. Exhibitions include solo exhibitions at Manchester University (Fort Wayne, IN) and Museum of Russian Art (Jersey City, NJ) as well as group exhibitions at Morris Warren Gallery (New York, NY), Causey Contemporary (New York, NY), Lemmerman Gallery (Jersey City, NJ), Flushing Town Hall (Queens, NY) and more. She has nominated for the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant and featured in Fresh Paint Magazine and artcritical.com’s Art Pick among others. Shukeylo is currently a full-time Fine Arts Lecturer at Kean University, NJ.

SHARE A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR CREATIVE BACKGROUND. HOW DO YOU FEEL GROWING UP IN RUSSIA HAS INFLUENCED YOUR WORK?

I started art school at age 4; I actually had to take an entrance exam. Russians always take everything so seriously; just imagine a room full of 4 and 5 year olds taking an art test! Anyway, I started studying arts pretty seriously at a very early age and it quickly became a way for me to communicate early on. When I moved to the US in 1999, I was in middle school, and already knew I wanted to apply to an Academy for College. I was trained classically at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Then I followed my now husband to New York and applied to Pratt Institute for my MFA. It was in Grad school where I returned to the influences of my Russian childhood as a subject in my work. After a visit to my childhood home in St.Petersburg, I was drawn to spaces I used to know as home. I researched the ways we remember patterns and the associations we develop around combinations of patterns and colors. That’s how textiles made it into my work. I was heavily influenced by Gaston Bachelard’s Poetics of Space and Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre. I think in a way I was trying to process how I loved the memories of the two dear apartments in St. Petersburg (including both my grandparents’ apartment and my childhood home), so much more than the reality of them. I wanted to paint my impressions and memories rather than the way the spaces really existed.

73 Create! Magazine HOW HAS YOUR ART EVOLVED OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS SINCE ATTENDING PRATT FOR YOUR MFA?

After grad school I didn’t stray away much from the subject matter, but a move from a basement apartment with no view to a 6th floor apartment opened up a whole new world to me: the world of my neighbors. I’ve been painting windows focusing on glimpses and fragments of stories of others. This also reignited my love for experimenting with color and painting light. I became the ultimate voyeur. My work also became significantly smaller and much more intimate. I really wanted my viewer to come up close and look into window without really realizing it. After a while I wanted to see more, which brings me to my most recent paintings where I’m painting spaces that I imagine are behind those windows. These are the spaces where I’m watching my unsuspecting subjects in privately homely acts. Privacy is a very subjective thing, often overlooked by the subject in my work, perhaps on purpose.

YOUR CURRENT PAINTINGS HAVE EXCITING AND SOMETIMES VOYEURISTIC ELEMENTS. WHAT DO YOU LOVE TO THINK ABOUT WHEN CREATING YOUR PIECES?

I like to think about human nature. We are these creatures living beside, above, below and across the street from each other, not really realizing the nature and complexity of the stories just on the other side of the wall. We are so close yet so distant. The voyeurism is not just peeking into other’s lives but analyzing my own curiosity. I like to obscure my image with color or darkness. I play with contrast and values of color. I try to tell the viewer my side of the story through paint.

WHAT ARE SOME ARTISTS THAT INSPIRE YOU?

I have always worshipped Edouard Vuillard. I love how he can say so much with so little paint; Create space with so little contrast, and the things he does with color are just magical. I’m also influenced by installation artists Doris Salcedo and Anne Hamilton. There is something about how both of these artists speak about presence and absence that captivates me. I want my own work to feel like that. Doris Salcedo’s furniture pieces with concrete tell a story of occupied and inaccessible space. Those specifically relate to my paintings where there is a restriction to access. The window, the wall, the hidden angle, just like a concrete block is meant to act as a barrier. I like the wanting of voyeurism, yet knowing it’s something taboo.

WHAT DO YOU LOVE TO DO IN YOUR SPARE TIME AND WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE SPOTS IN NEW YORK CITY?

I love going to museums and drowning myself in art of course, after all that’s what New York is all about. I also love good theater and opera. It’s really hard to choose a favorite spot! I think one of my favorite spots is the garden in the middle of Frick. It’s always such an escape in the middle of this beautiful mansion. It allows for contemplation and though of the art immediately after viewing. I also love the heather garden in Fort Tryon Park. It’s a mini botanical garden not far from The Cloisters and always has some color, year round. It’s hard to believe it’s in Manhattan.

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78BY GILLIAN KING SPOT ON NEO-POINTILLISM BY PJ LINDEN BY ALICIA PUIG

I was first introduced to PJ Linden’s work back in 2013, while I was interning at a gallery in Philadelphia. The then manager of the gallery was the proud owner of one of Linden’s trademark phone cases, so when I asked her where she had found such a unique cover she told me a bit about the artist “Wonderpuss Octopus” and I was intrigued. Fast forward to this year, when I saw her memorable moniker pop up again at another group show with the gallery, prompting me to revisit her work. The same qualities that interested me years ago drew me in again: the texture, the precision, the craftsmanship and the endless patience needed to execute her pieces. She has cultivated a style that is distinctively hers and made her own niche at the intersection of art, commercial work and fashion. ARTIST STATEMENT: I have been adapting the use of dimensional fabric paint to create second skins or aposematic pelts for unconventional canvases for a while now. This process began with the sublimation of technology, transforming the common cellular flip-phone (I started pre-smartphone era) or camera into animate, hallucinogenic matter using patterns and textures found in nature, primarily aquatic life (shagreens of shark skin and stingray, urchin spines, and fish scales) and/or reptilian hides. I work on five to ten different pieces at once (larger scale works can take up to several hundred hours), rotating works and building up paint layers to create a spiked, spinal effect. Each stroke is applied with a needle or eyedropper, a drop at a time. After six-to-forty-eight hours of dry time, I paint a new layer and repeat; applying the sequential tiers of acrylic is a bit like icing a cake. But the overall effect is a barbed pointillism entirely my own. I’m exploring this kind of neo-pointillism meets my own futurist cabinet of curiosities, alluding to Ernst Haeckel’s Kunstformen der Natur (Art Forms in Nature), transfiguring the biological into the supernatural, connecting it with the saccharine, synthetic experience of consumer culture, this overflow of stimulation and color saturation in this sea of perfected, mass-produced products. People ask me if my works are machine made, (no) but I think in a way I am playing with this running commentary about the factory artist—which what so much of high art has become—I am opposed to this system of art-overseer-directing-their- hired-hands—yes I (obviously) paint with my own hand, however obsessive and painstakingly detailed my process may be. It is important to be connected to the physical labor of art. What is creation when it’s outsourced?

79 Create! Magazine 80BY GILLIAN KING ARTIST BIOGRAPHY: PJ Linden is a New York City and Pennsylvania based fine artist known for her abstract, three dimensional work. She paints with machine-like precision, creating microscopic patterns on found objects, fashion, and technology. Linden got her start working with Patricia Field, creating custom, one-of-a- kind art and fashion under the name Wonderpuss Octopus. At Field's iconic, namesake boutique, Linden's work caught the eye of celebrity clients including Beyoncé, Willow Smith, Kelly Osbourne, and Solange Knowles. Linden has since collaborated with and created pieces for Miley Cyrus, KidRobot, Norma Kamali, The CFDA, Alife, Sharon Needles, Pearl Liaison, Kiehls, Samsung and Swarovski. Her work has been featured in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Marie Claire Italia, Culture Magazine, Plastik Magazine, PAPER Magazine. She has shown alongside art heavyweights such as Andy Warhol, Shepard Fairey and Kenny Scharf, and has exhibited at The Hole Gallery, Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Reverse Space, Superchief Gallery, Art Basel Miami, The Museum of Sex, and The Museum of Ice Cream. She continues to work as an international muralist and the resident artist for The House of Yes.

SO YOU WERE BORN IN BETHLEHEM, PA. PRETTY SMALL TOWN! DID YOU GROW UP THERE AS WELL? WERE YOU INTERESTED IN ART AS A CHILD AND DID YOU GO ON TO STUDY ART?

Haha, yes. I was born in Bethlehem, PA, but grew up in the even smaller town of Canadensis, PA, which is nothing but rural woods. I was so isolated there, I craved the energy of big cities. Luckily, my parents, being artists themselves, were always driving back and forth from NYC, going to shows and openings, and that was very exciting for me growing up. But we’d get there and they would spend all day marathoning museums, and back then I hated how long my father would make me stare at an individual painting like a Mark Rothko, Julian Schnabel, Clemente or Twombly and try to explain to me the art theory behind it or its cultural significance. I didn’t realize at the time that I was getting an informal education on art criticism and modern art history. So from an early age I was forming all these opinions (usually a lot of exaggerated groaning and yawning) towards the minimalists and gestural abstract expressionist painters my parents loved, but to their dismay I always gravitated towards contemporary masters of pop art like Lichtenstein, Oldenburg, Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst and Warhol. At one opening I was handed a coloring book by Keith Haring. I’m really grateful for all these early art experiences. But I was so saturated in art at such a young age that I had an adverse reaction to it. I rejected making art because I wanted to rebel against my parents and I tried to differentiate myself from them. I also saw how much my parents both struggled to make a living through selling their work. So, I was determined to never become an artist myself (though it was still impossible for me not to make art; I was in a sort of art-denial). Instead, I wanted to be an Olympic gymnast, and trained every day, but I got a bad case of the ‘twisties’ (a kinetic mental block that happens to many gymnasts) and sort of just fell back into creating; it happened very naturally. Then, during high school, I began commuting to the School of Visual Arts once a week for life drawing class, and then I went on to attend there after graduation.

81 Create! Magazine HOW DID YOU BECOME CONNECTED WITH PATRICIA FIELD? IS THAT WHEN YOU FIRST BEGAN EXPERIMENTING WITH YOUR TEXTURAL STYLE OF PAINTING? WHAT WAS THE EXPERIENCE OF WORKING IN THIS ENVIRONMENT LIKE?

When I was a kid in the 90’s, attending art openings in Soho, I remember wanting to break free of the pretentious galleries and journey across the street into this rainbow underworld on West Broadway, Patricia Field Hotel Venus. I didn’t know what it was but I loved it! There were beautiful, glamorous people with long eyelashes and platform shoes, smoking cigarettes and eating sushi. At six years old I was entranced. It was a nice foreshadowing for my life to come. Then, in 2009, I was creating hand painted wearable fashion accessories for Susanne Bartsch’s Shop inside the David Barton gym on Astor Place. She had an overstock of these German gummy bear backpacks that she wanted artists to customize. I made a small collection of them and kept my favorite candy sprinkle coated one for myself. I remember wearing it into Patricia Field’s Bowery Boutique one afternoon and one of her beautiful people, Hiraku Morilla, saw the bag I was wearing and brought me downstairs to the legendary, cigarette smoke-filled basement office for an impromptu interview with Field. I became a regular vendor at the shop and was given the freedom to experiment with unconventional canvases and explore new pattern designs. I made countless candy-barnacle encrusted iPhone cases, pasties, bodysuits, swimsuits, balaclavas, bustiers and dust masks. As a designer and vendor there, it was always exciting to swing by and chat with her stylists, who would fill me in on the fun stuff. They’d be like, “Hey PJ, Kelly Osbourne just bought the Royal Jelly Urchin iPhone case, or Willow Smith got the Dragon Eyes iPhone case.” And that’s sort of how everything evolved, it was all very serendipitous. 82 BY GILLIAN KING CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHERE THE NAME WONDERPUSS OCTOPUS CAME FROM AND WHY YOU CHOSE TO USE A PSEUDONYM?

The pseudonym Wonderpuss Octopus seemed appropriate for a street art tag, a decidedly provocative, vaguely feminine, amorphous and magical alias. The Wonderpus Octopus is a real octopus, and somewhat of a shapeshifting wizard. It alludes its predators by redistributing its color patterns and textures. It has a delicate appearance but can disguise itself as a series of venomous creatures, like a lion fish, sea snake, or banded sole flounder. I find myself in a similar performative dance, between working in various mediums, transforming my style from tiny textured spikes to smooth graphic murals. The clever exaction of hands or tentacles in motion is a reminiscent mirror of my gymnastics routines: practice until you create the illusion of perfection. The basic fundamentals of movement for an artist or Octopoda are quite similar; the most important principles are (1) the initiation of the movement (2) the control of that movement; and (3) the efficiency or perfection of that movement. 83 Create! Magazine IT IS AMAZING THAT YOU HAVE BEEN ABLE TO REACH SUCH A DIVERSE AUDIENCE THROUGH YOUR VARIOUS COMMERCIAL PROJECTS AND BY WORKING WITH SEVERAL CELEBRITIES. ANY COLLABS IN PARTICULAR THAT WERE MEMORABLE FOR YOU?

New York City is amazing for connecting with the collective conscience of people in the art, design and fashion community. It actually becomes a very small world after many years and an ever overflowing, evolving pool of tireless artistic contemporaries. The Unleashed Art Basel Miami Activation was a perfect blend of female empowerment and fine art, and I got to collaborate with Norma Kamali, painting one of her dresses to benefit Kara Ross’s non-profit organization that promotes and funds better educational opportunities for girls and entrepreneurship through microfinance for women. The Miley Cyrus collaboration was exciting because there was absolute freedom. She was open to any and all interpretations of wearable art. I made a mini collection for her: a rainbow bloodshot slingshot bodysuit, a magic pelt lingerie set, and neapolitan ice cream sundae pasties with a matching eyepatch which was used for the cover of Plastik Magazine (which was a really cool surprise!). Painting the House of Yes (the infamous ‘best venue ever’ based in Bushwick, BK) is always a wild and unpredictable experience, I never know what they are going to ask me to paint next. It is female owned and operated and I have been their unofficial artist in residence since their genesis in 2009, painting everything for them from vans to box trucks to a giant outdoor mural on the warehouse venue.

HOW LONG IN TOTAL HAVE YOU BEEN MAKING YOUR NEO-POINTILLIST PIECES? HOW HAS YOUR WORKED DEVELOPED DURING THIS TIME?

I have been exploring the use of dimensional fabric paint to create second skins or aposematic pelts for unconventional canvases since 2005. This process began with the sublimation of technology, transforming the common cellular flip-phone (I started pre-smartphone era) or camera into animate, hallucinogenic matter, using patterns and textures found in nature, primarily aquatic life (shagreens of shark skin and stingray, urchin spines, and fish scales) and/or reptilian hides. I continue to discover new possibilities of plastic mutations with paint, and love to challenge myself by adding new levels of difficulty and intricacy to every pattern.

84 85 Create! Magazine AS YOUR WORK IS VERY INVOLVED AND TIME- CONSUMING, COULD YOU SPEAK A BIT ABOUT YOUR PROCESS? WHAT ARE A FEW THINGS THAT ARE NECESSARY IN YOUR CREATIVE WORKSPACE?

Yes, it is very time consuming and I never stop. I bring my work with me everywhere. I can set up a miniature studio easily. I always travel with a bag full of puff paint and tiny canvases just in case. I work on five to ten different pieces at once (larger scale works can take up to several hundred hours), rotating works and building up paint layers to create a spiked, spinal effect. Each stroke is applied with a needle or eyedropper, a drop at a time. After six-to-forty-eight hours of dry time, I paint a new layer and repeat; applying the sequential tiers of acrylic is a bit like icing a cake. I hate to admit it but what I think is most necessary in my studio after materials and paint is WiFi. I love to stream endless content while I paint, just to have some narrative going in the background, usually something that has a million episodes like SVU, or old classic musical show tune clips on YouTube.

DO YOU HAVE ONE PIECE OF CREATIVE ADVICE THAT YOU WOULD GIVE THE YOUNGER VERSION OF YOURSELF?

Trust yourself.

WHAT DO YOU HAVE PLANNED FOR 2019? ANY SHOWS? PROJECTS? GOALS?

I have a few projects and collaborations that are still in the early stages and I’m not at liberty to discuss yet, but I am planning a new series of large scale murals. I recently finished a piece in Vicenza, Italy, called the ‘The Birds, The Other Birds’. All the new work will be re-envisioned interpretations of the classic scallop/fish scale pattern which I incorporate into most of my street art; an imperfect repeat pattern containing various subject matters such as gumdrops, diamonds, popsicles, nipples, etc. My other goal is the transformation of the mass-produced luxury consumer goods into barbed, crustacean sculpture. The more preciously branded the commodity, the better the ‘canvas’ for subversion. Currently I am defacing a pair of brand new, perfectly white Louis Vuitton high tops, a pink suede Marc Jacobs clutch and a vintage Fendi bag. I take great satisfaction in the disruption of machine-made perfection, redirecting the energy of the product design and the consumer’s desire for labels.

a l l i m a g es co u r tes y o f pj l i n d en 86 87 Create! Magazine ADAM D. MILLER AND DEVON ODER CREATING A GALLERY THROUGH

AN ARTIST’S PERSPECTIVE

BY CHRISTINA NAFZIGER ADAM D. MILLER AND DEVON ODER CREATING A GALLERY THROUGH

AN ARTIST’S PERSPECTIVE

BY CHRISTINA NAFZIGER

Artists, friends, and partners Adam D. Miller and Devon Oder both have drastically different aesthetics when it comes to their art. Miller’s practice focuses on drawing, as he uses pattern and symbol-like shapes throughout his body of work, while Oder primarily works in photography, using saturated colors and abstraction in her imagery. However, they both find common ground in their curatorial vision realized in the founding of The Pit Gallery in 2014. This L.A. gallery hosts a wide variety of dynamic and innovative exhibitions that focus on emerging and mid-career artists. Join me in conversation as I discuss with the artists their journey starting this gallery, their upcoming “residency” program, and the perspective gained from being a working artist while running a gallery

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HOW DID YOU TWO MEET AND WHY DID YOU DECIDE TO OPEN UP A GALLERY? AS ARTISTS, DID YOU FIND THERE WAS SOMETHING MISSING IN L.A. AS FAR AS SPACES TO EXHIBIT ART?

We met while getting our MFA’s at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena in 2006. Shortly after finishing the program we were engaged, and then married a year later. We graduated in 2008, shortly after the economic collapse, so it was a difficult time to enter the art world and try and get our careers started. In Los Angeles, many of the galleries closed and there weren’t many opportunities for emerging artists. Adam came to Los Angeles after spending his early twenties in Sacramento, where he was involved in the DIY music and underground arts culture. He and others would book tours for their bands, screen print t-shirts and posters, design / print/ distribute zines, produce their own records, throw art shows in warehouses and coffee shops, etc. So, after finishing at Art Center in 2008, he fell back on his roots and began curating art exhibitions at alternative spaces in Los Angeles. For every show he would produce a zine that would then be sent out to other spots in hopes of securing future opportunities. Since we’re a couple, these projects, in particular the printing and production of the zines, became collaborative in nature. After curating group shows and independently producing these zines for five years, we decided to open our own space in 2014. We didn’t necessarily open The Pit because we felt something was missing from Los Angeles, but rather were inspired by what others were doing and felt that we could do it differently and contribute something exciting and new to the LA scene since so many spaces had closed. In 2013, we were inspired by Laura Owens’ opening of the gallery space 356 Mission here in Los Angeles. That space was massive and had expansive programs, which was very different than what we were interested in doing, but to see another artist put so much into supporting other artists and contributing back to the LA scene was impressive. Also, we loved that the space was raw and provided a different experience to view art rather than in the traditional white cube. Two other spaces that we still feel a kinship with, but have very different programs from, are Commonwealth & Council and Artist Curated Projects. Again, these artists whom we were friends with and respected were creating opportunities to view art that felt genuinely about fostering a community among artists, and championing voices that weren’t being heard or that didn’t have a platform. Initially, The Pit was purely a curatorial platform hosting all group shows; half of the exhibitions were curated internally and the other half by other artists and friends. As The Pit’s reputation began to grow, so did our ambitions for the space, and over time we became a commercial gallery with a roster of represented artists. Although the business model has changed, we are still producing zines and short-run artist books on our Risograph printer and have a dedicated shop for Pit publications, shirts, fine art editions and utilitarian objects. The galleries and shop are also attached to our studios, as we are still active and exhibiting artists.

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DOES THE WORK THAT YOU EXHIBIT TEND TO FOCUS ON A CERTAIN AESTHETIC OR SUBJECT MATTER? WHAT DO YOU WANT YOUR GALLERY TO BE ‘KNOWN FOR’ IF ANYTHING?

We like to think that the program is diverse in both aesthetics and concepts. We find ourselves most drawn to works with relationships to expressionism, craft, and “outsider” art histories and subcultures.

IN REGARDS TO YOUR PERSONAL ARTWORK, YOU HAVE VERY DIFFERENT STYLES. TELL US ABOUT YOUR INDIVIDUAL PRACTICES. DOES YOUR PRACTICE FEED INTO YOUR CURATORIAL WORK? DO YOU EVER GET INSPIRATION FROM THE ARTISTS YOU WORK WITH AT THE PIT?

We are both constantly inspired by the artists that we work with and exhibit at The Pit. Our interests as artists are evident in the program that we’ve put together and we think there’s a large amount of overlapping aesthetic investment and conceptual underpinning that our own work shares with what we exhibit in the gallery. One of the great things about running a gallery while also being an artist is that it creates a context for viewing our own work. We very rarely show our own art at The Pit but it’s difficult to completely separate our work from that of the artists that we champion. Devon is primarily a photographer, and sometimes works in video. Her work is based in nature, and often takes on the form of abstracted landscapes with a psychedelic distortion, or uncanny presence. Her works ranges from bright explosions of abstracted colors with remnants of images in the background, to solemn black and white pictures. The works create abstracted and emotionally charged junctures in time, often referencing natural phenomena, celestial occurrences, and their depictions in film. Adam works in a variety of mediums, but drawing is the crux of his practice. Most recently, he has been creating and exhibiting large scale graphite and color pencil works on paper. The works are bright, a mixture of geometries and shaky organic forms, and referential to primitive and totemic art histories and traditional textiles in appearance and use of pattern. The works explore the intersection between mythology, language, and transcendence through a psychedelic lens.

93 Create! Magazine ARE THERE ANY ASPECTS OF YOUR EXPERIENCES AS ARTISTS THAT YOU BELIEVE HAVE BENEFITED YOU AS GALLERY DIRECTORS AND CURATORS?

While in grad school we both started working for the artist Sterling Ruby who also attended Art Center. Devon was the first office employee, and Adam was one of the first studio assistants. As his studio and practice grew quickly, we were able to be closely involved. While working for this studio in a moment of such transition, we both learned many or most of the nuts and bolts skills needed to run a gallery such as shipping and installation logistics, art database software, vendors, etc. While starting our gallery, Devon simultaneously worked with Dale Davis to archive the history of The Brockman Gallery in Los Angeles. The Brockman Gallery was opened by the artists Dale and Alonzo Davis in 1967 and was an exhibition space for emerging and established artists of color. The sense of community built and the ambition of The Brockman Gallery became a big influence on our gallery. As mentioned previously, Adam’s relationship to underground music and the DIY culture of Northern California has played a large part in how the space took shape and how we continue to push to make it as far reaching as possible.

YOU BOTH RUN THE PIT AS WELL AS THE PIT II. TELL US ABOUT THESE DIFFERENT ITERATIONS AND THE DIFFERENT SPACES THAT YOU DISPLAY WORK IN AND OUT OF A GALLERY SETTING.

Much of The Pit has evolved organically over time, and we’ve been so lucky to have a great landlord who keeps offering us more space in this building. When we opened the gallery, the immediate neighbor was a small one-car garage that was being rented by someone who worked nearby. It’s very small, only about 150 sq. ft. Initially, we planned to turn it into the zine shop, but once we got the keys and took over the space we realized it was too small for even a shop and decided to built it out into a project space gallery and open the zine shop in a different space in the building. Up to this point, The Pit was only group exhibitions and we decided to make The Pit 2 a gallery for intimate solo shows. Now both spaces primarily host solo shows. Due to the small size of the Pit 2, many artists have used it as a space to do immersive environmental installations, which wouldn’t be possible in larger galleries.

WHAT HAS BEEN A HIGHLIGHT FOR YOU SINCE YOU OPENED THE GALLERY IN 2014?

The highlights that stand out the most to us are always of a personal nature. For example, we were able to place seven pieces by a close friend and represented artist of ours in the permanent collection of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary 94 Art, and that was the first major museum to acquire his work. It was a big moment for him, and in turn stands out as one of the greatest highlights of our time running The Pit. It means so much when young artists or students visit The Pit and tell us we inspired them to open an artist-run space. We’ve always hoped that The Pit would inspire other artists to get more active and take control of their own art careers.

I UNDERSTAND YOU WILL HAVE AN ARTIST RESIDENCY PROGRAM BEGINNING THIS NOVEMBER. CAN YOU TELL US ABOUT THIS INITIATIVE AND WHAT IT HAS IN STORE?

In November we are starting a new gallery initiative called The Pit presents. Rather than an artist residency, it will operate more like a residency for gallerists to come to LA and put together an exhibition. We took over another section of our building and made a third gallery space. Rather than programming the space ourselves, we are inviting other galleries from around the world to come to LA and do exhibitions. We are doing swaps with some of these spaces, where The Pit will then go and organize an exhibition in the visiting gallery’s space. We’ll be curating exhibitions in New York and Brussels in the next year. We’re very excited to see what these galleries will bring to Los Angeles and to be able to see work by artists that may not normally have an outlet or opportunity in our city.

I HAVE TO ASK. HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH “THE PIT” FOR THE NAME OF YOUR GALLERY?

Our space was part of an auto mechanic shop in the 1930’s, and there’s a section in the floor with a sunken pit that was used for working on cars. It’s such a unique aspect to the space that we wanted to incorporate it into the title. Plus, The Pit sounds like a punk venue, or a horror movie, both of which we love; the font that we use for the gallery was actually taken from an 80’s horror movie. We wanted the name to convey an idea of the ethos behind the space. 95 Create! Magazine THE BEAUTY AND COMPLEXITY OF THE NATURAL WORLD INTERVIEW WITH ALONSA GUEVARA BY EKATERINA POPOVA THE BEAUTY AND COMPLEXITY OF THE NATURAL WORLD INTERVIEW WITH ALONSA GUEVARA BY EKATERINA POPOVA

Alonsa Guevara is a Brooklyn based artist. She was born in Rancagua, Chile. Her paintings blur the lines between fantasy and reality while celebrating the connection between humankind and nature. A big part of her inspiration derives from her childhood spent living in the Ecuadorian rainforest with her family, growing up surrounded by tropical landscapes and a diverse wildlife. Alonsa received her BFA from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in 2009 and moved to New York in 2011. She was awarded the Elizabeth Greenshields Grant in 2013 while being at the MFA Program of the New York Academy of Art, and after graduating she was granted the Academy's Fellowship award 2015. Alonsa's work has been published in Forbes Magazine, Time Out NYC Magazine, VICE and more, and has been shown internationally including countries like China, Mexico, Chile and many states inside the USA. Her most recent solo show was in May 2018 at Anna Zorina Gallery in NYC.

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97 Create! Magazine WHAT ARE YOU EXCITED ABOUT IN YOUR ART CAREER AND STUDIO PRACTICE RIGHT NOW?

The last ceremony painting I made called “Herencia” has me really excited. This painting will be shown for the first time in December 2018 at CONTEXT Art Miami, in Anna Zorina Gallery BOOTH C215. It is a 4-foot diameter tondo (otherwise known as a circular painting). It’s my first time making a multifigure ceremonial piece using the human body as part of a mandala-like design. (*image 1 and 2) This painting is a portrait of three generations of women, a grandmother, a mother, and a daughter. You may not know this, but I actually make and perform these rituals in real life before I paint them. All my ceremony pieces have felt powerful while performing and making them, but this one, in particular, had a special kind of feminine love and energy. It was an unforgettable moment of love and connection. What still fascinates me about this piece is something the painting began to say during the process. As I was describing with brushstrokes and paint the clear difference and uncanny similarities between these three figures, I grew to see I was depicting the passage of “time” in a timeless image. I couldn't help but see how beautiful the body is throughout its age stages, especially maturer age. I really tried hard to investigated and capture that beauty and essence through this painting. I want this piece to help others see all of life's stages as beautiful, especially the marks and wrinkles we accumulate with time. After all, they are our direct representations of lived life, wisdom, and the pure luck of being alive. In fact, I'm looking forward to seeing my body transform and change with time. I look forward to every wrinkle. Besides this last piece, Lately, I’ve been having a lot of ideas for new and exciting bodies of work related to the "Ceremonies". So stay tuned for what's coming next!

WHAT WOULD YOU SAY YOUR CURRENT PAINTINGS ARE ABOUT?

It’s not easy for me to describe with words what my paintings are about. As soon as I try to describe my work with words, I feel like their being becomes shriveled into a small thing that lacks so much of their meaning. You really need to look at and experience them. What I can tell you is that with my current work I am celebrating the beauty and complexity of the natural world, and simultaneously highlighting our vital connection with nature and our own spiritual selves. My latest works are oil paintings titled Ceremonies and sculptures titled Espiritu. My Ceremony series are large life-size portraits of women that depict a real and imaginary ritual where women are being decorated with plants, flowers, fruits, live and dead animals and Imagined things to create a ritual that celebrates the cycles of life, especially fertility. I include flowers and fruits full of seeds as a metaphor for life and some rotten fruits and dead animals as a reminder that death is always around the corner. (continue on next page) 98

Also, I’m excited about this new series of sculptures that I've been making. They resemble sacred objects and ceremonial instruments. I imagine these objects being used during the rituals being performed in my Ceremony paintings. Who knows, maybe I will be using them in real life for my next piece. I hope that when people see my work they are reminded of our innate love, connection, and reliance on nature. I hope in some small or large way these paintings help us rekindle our own spiritual ideas. I’m not talking about a religion, but rather about the mysteries and complexity of our reality and the fact that we are lucky enough to exist and be conscious of that presence inside an unimaginably large and complex universe.

REFLECTING BACK, WHAT ARE SOME THINGS THAT HELPED YOU OVERCOME CHALLENGES AND HELPED GET TO WHERE YOU ARE TODAY?

Being an artist today is not easy at all! It is a very subjective and often solitary way of living. We are completely responsible for coming up with ideas, deciding what to make, how to do it, when to do it and ultimately how we share our art with the world. It's a lot of work and there is not much room to delegate any of it. A lot of the time it can feel like these decisions that we have to make in our studio can change our lives or alter the whole course of our career, and that easily can be partnered by fear and anxiety. What has helped me the most to have a thriving life and art career is to focus my energy on learning more about myself and to discover what gives my life meaning. This sense of purpose will ultimately drive a feeling of success. It's important to understand what success is for you and not base your success on others or societal norms. It’s essential for us as creative people and really everyone to take the time to discover our actual desires and reflect on why those goals are so important for us. Later, that knowledge will help us to be receptive to other possibilities that may never have considered and that something may make us truly happy. After I know what I want, I think of healthy ways to direct myself towards those goals and I do my best to let go of the ugly fear of failure, that terrifying anxiety of being rejected, as well as the absurd attention that we give to what other people may think about us. The key is not to let those fears stop you, go ahead and try something new, take a breath…trust in yourself…and do it! I always say that it is better to regret the things you’ve done than the things you haven't. As we say in Chile: “Quien no se arriesga, no cruza el río” which means: “Who doesn’t take the risk, doesn't cross the river”, go and jump into that river, baby! Lately, I find that my sense of success is linked with internal pleasure, especially with the love for what I make. Also, I couldn't possibly think I was successful without meaningful connections with my family and friends. More and more I'm finding that the simple things make me the most fulfilled.

100 FAVORITE QUOTE OR MANTRA THAT KEEPS YOU GOING.

These are my mantras that I tell myself: “It’s better to regret what you did, than what you have never done” as I said before, I like to go for it! “Be kind to everyone, we’re all flawed and wise in unexpected ways, go and smile, it's free and it can change people’s lives”. This is one of my most important mantras for life, to do my best to be nice to everyone and spread optimism. I always think about the proverb “One hand washes the other and both hands wash the face”, which refers to collaboration and helping each other, or even that daily routine of working for something that we want and taking it one step at a time to arrive at something bigger. And last but not least, when I was 12 and I used to knit with my Abuela Ines, she always said: “If you are going to make something, make it well, people will admire your work and nobody will ask you how long it takes”. This phrase comes to my head all the time when I paint and I’m always pushing myself to make the best painting I can make, but actually, people ask me all the time how long it takes me, so Grandma, times have changed!

101 Create! Magazine HOW DO YOU PREVENT BURNOUT AND STAY INSPIRED?

This is a very important question. I think a lot of people, including me, are obsessed with the work that we do. It's hard to keep a balanced life between work and your “real life”, mostly because there is no division between the two. Since I've started working fulltime as an artist, I’ve tried to pay more attention to my health, both body and mind. This is really something everyone should be prioritizing if possible. I'm alone for the majority of the day staring at a painting, that can drive you crazy! To stay balanced, I try to exercise and practice some form of mindfulness almost every day. I've almost always had a routine of exercise. It has varied over the years depending on my needs and life — I've done spinning, swimming, running CrossFit, and lately cross-training inside a gym. Believe me, I’m not a very sporty person, you probably wouldn't pick me for your sports team, but I like the feeling I have after and why not to live longer with a healthier body and mind? A healthier body creates a healthier mind and that's all the better for my work! I know that If I don't exercise and eat healthy my work suffers. These past years I’ve had a very specific routine: I wake up in the morning, I drink my cup of coffee and then while listening to meditation music. I spend 10 minutes on my yoga mat doing some stretching exercises, holding different poses and focusing my attention on my breath and body. Believe it or not, most of my ideas come during those 10 minutes of concentration and stretching. I also get a lot of ideas while running or exercising. Some time ago, my husband and I took a very important decision that has changed our lives. We decided to eat healthily! We now eat a lot of vegetables and fruits, and we are cooking at home almost every day for every meal (with exceptions of events and nights-out). Before we changed our diet, we were eating out practically every day and of course, much of that food was low in nutrition. I feel like that was a period of my life was filled with stress and anxiety. Since I started eating healthier and exercise regularly, my inner peace has stayed high and remained constant. And for my mental health, even though one of my favorite things is to be alone painting or making something, I’m also a very social person and I love to see my friends and meet new people. When I'm in the studio, I'm in a state of flow and without realizing it, the day and even the week can pass by in the blink of an eye. It makes it very easy to become obsessed with the work. To find balance. I try to go out and do different things and spend a lot of quality time with my close friends. I think that everyone should prioritize having healthy relationships with friends and family. It is very important to keep a balanced life inside and outside of work, even if those two are one in the same. I think happiness is found in strong and loving relationships with your community. I go out with my friends here in New York as much as I can and I FaceTime with my old friends and my family that are far away at least a few times a week. Also, one of the things that I budget for is to travel and visit my family because that’s a crucial factor in my happiness. Besides all of this, I also have a guitar in my studio, so during my breaks, I play and sing!

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WHAT'S COMING UP NEXT FOR YOU AND WHAT SHOULD WE BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR?

Besides my own studio practice, I’m very excited about a project that I started last year before the holidays, and that I am doing again this year. I am making special miniature paintings at an accessible price for almost everyone. Anyone can commission me to paint their favorite fruits or vegetables. I call these paintings “Mini Fruit Portraits”, and they are original oil paintings on 2 inch round paper. I will be taking a limited number of orders so if anyone is interested, please email me at [email protected] or direct message me through my Instagram @alonsaguevara I love this project because allows me to make more affordable paintings and reach more people. I don’t do prints or any other kind of reproducible work that I could sell for a low price, therefore, I found these small fruit paintings to be the perfect way to make my work available with the same love and detail of larger pieces. Also, I’ve been teaching private classes in my studio in Brooklyn to share my love of painting. I’ve enjoyed working one-on-one with students and getting to know them and try my best to help them with their creative process and career. I'm pretty busy making my paintings, but for 2019, I want to accept 3 new artists that are passionate about painting and that are willing to devote some time and efforts to their art. So if any of you think you would like that, please contact me!

NAME A FEW ARTISTS OR CREATIVES THAT HAVE INFLUENCED YOUR ART.

Many artists have influenced and inspired me, and as time goes by and my interests change, my influences do as well. I couldn’t start without naming the most inspiring artist to me in the present, which is my husband James Razko. We have been working next to each other for 5 years. We are constantly bouncing ideas off each other and nurturing each other's creative process. Also, the fact that we both understand, admire and respect each other work, even with our creative differences, keeps us in a positive environment that doesn't promote competition or judgment. It is so important to have a partner that brings good energy and a constructive contribution to your life. Many of the other artists that I admire have very different approaches to painting. For example, I admired the composition and the abundance in the 16th-century artist Frans Snyder’s market painting, the smoothness and neatness of Ingres' portraits and the honest and intuitive paintings of Frida Kalho. And I am in love with the magical contemporary paintings by Julie Heffernan and Adrian Cox. Also, I was very influenced by Jean-Pierre Roy, Margaret Bowland, Vincent Desiderio, and Inka Essenhigh, who were my mentors at the New York Academy of Art. All these artist's I mentioned are incredibly powerful and I recommend everyone to look them up.

105 Create! Magazine 106 ARTIST SPOTLIGHT Don’t miss brilliant new work by leading contemporary painter Andrew Salgado. ANDREW SALGADO WWW.ANDREWSALGADO.COM

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Andrew Salgado (b. 1982, Canada) is a leading young figurative painter with over a dozen sold-out international exhibitions, including London, New York, Zagreb, Miami, Cape Town, and Basel. In 2017, Salgado was the youngest artist to ever receive a survey-exhibition at The Canadian High Commission in London, accompanied by a 300-page monograph, both of which were entitled TEN. He is the subject of a 2015 documentary, Storytelling, and was featured in 100 Painters of Tomorrow (Thames & Hudson, 2014). In 2015, Salgado curated The Fantasy of Representation, including work by Francis Bacon, Gary Hume, and Hurvin Anderson, including an impassioned manifesto on representational painting. He has received extensive press both online and in print, including GQ, The Evening Standard, The Independent, Artsy, METRO, Attitude Magazine, Globe and Mail (CAN) and Macleans (CAN). He frequently donates to charities including Terrence Higgins Trust, Pride London, Stonewall, and Diversity Role Models. Solo exhibitions include Blue Rainbow at Angell Gallery, Toronto (Oct 2018); the 'surprise', two-day-only Nature Boy at Beers London (June 2018); Dirty Linen / The Nihilist's Alphabet, Cape Town Art Fair and Christopher Moller Cape Town (Jan-Mar 201); A Room With a View of the Ocean, Lauba Art House, (Zagreb, Croatia, June-July 2017); TEN, Gallery of the Canadian High Commission, (London 2017); The Snake, Beers London (2016); The Fool Makes a Joke at Midnight, Thierry Goldberg, New York, (2016); A Quiet Man, PULSE Miami, (2015); This Is Not The Way To Disneyland, Volta Basel, (2015); Storytelling, Beers, London (2014); Variations on A Theme, OAS, New York, (2014); Enjoy the Silence, Christopher Moller, Cape Town (2014); and his first institution-based exhibition, The Acquaintance, Art Gallery of Regina, Canada (2013). Salgado will have works in the 16th edition of Zona Maco, Mexico City (Feb 2019); and his fourth solo show at Beers London is currently scheduled for 1st quarter, 2020.

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112 HIGHLIGHTED ARTISTS Artists on the rise highlighted by guest curator, Kaly Scheller-Barrett ANDRE BOGART SZABO

In my works on paper and canvas, a very simple equation of one line after another leads to complex visual results. An object’s form is repeated and multiplied to create spontaneous compositions that are chaotic, expressive, and minimal all at once. Through this process, the object transcends its own physicality to become movement through space. I primarily use black to avoid the seduction of color and bring attention to the economy of line.

Andre Bogart Szabo is a visual artist living and working in Brooklyn, NY. He has created paintings, drawings, prints, and videos since 2010. Szabo received his BA from Emerson College’s Visual Media Arts department. He has been invited to multiple artist residencies that include The Studios at MASS MoCA, MA; Trestle Artist Residency, NY; and ESKFF, Mana Contemporary, NJ. Szabo was born in Washington, D.C. in 1990.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF ANDRE BOGART SZABO

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VALENTINA SARFEH

Valentina Sarfeh is a painter working in the Northeast USA. She holds a BFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design, and has completed residencies including The Bemis Center for Contemporary Art and Mass MoCA. Her work attempts to break the isolation of selfhood through interrogations of the porous nature of all beings.

My work attempts to capture a silent, intense, anticipatory moment a pause in performance, a lack of action. The moment where the set and the props the stage or exhibition space becomes encompassing and enveloping. The moment the actor finds herself imprisoned by the stage, the bizarre freakishness of her performance revealed.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF VALENTINA SARFEH

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"I DON’T LISTEN TO WHAT ART CRITICS SAY. I DON’T KNOW ANYBODY WHO NEEDS A CRITIC TO FIND OUT WHAT ART IS."

- JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

118 CURATED SECTION Exciting artists from all over the globe carefully curated by Kaly Scheller-Barrett, associate director of Hashimoto Contemporary.

Kaly Scheller-Barrett is a visual artist and poet hailing originally from Bavaria. Drawing heavily from her extensive training in craft technique, Kaly’s work attempts to blur the boundaries between fine art and craft practices, asking the viewer to un- and re-frame their preconceptions of material. Kaly recently completed an MFA in Sculpture at California College of the Arts where she taught Craft Theory and is currently the Associate Director of Hashimoto Contemporary. DIANE PRIBOJAN

WWW.DIANEPRIBOJAN.BLOGSPOT.COM

I am continuing to do representational art and I am continuing to have the subject of the house to be my main focus. Focusing on one subject has opened up a plethora of ideas to manifest. My images have come to evoke a peaceful and serene environment. I reduce information in them, making them minimal. I do not completely consciously choose this way of working nor do I totally control the outcome. I allow for surprise and the unexpected to happen. However, I am actually constantly seeking in painting something within me that expresses what I am feeling and thinking as well as my interpretation of the world around me.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF DIANE PRIBOJAN

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CHARMAINE KOH

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Charmaine Koh lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. A painter and new media artist, Koh's work explores dissonance, sentimentality, nostalgia, and place. In her paintings, this takes the form of imaginary landscapes constructed out of a jumble of common tropes and motifs. Koh holds an MFA in Fine Arts and an MA in Visual and Critical Studies from the California College of the Arts. She has participated in residencies in the US, Italy, the Philippines, and Singapore, and has exhibited both domestically and internationally.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF CHARMAINE KOH

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CHARLOTTE URREIZTIETA

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Charlotte Urreiztieta is a Caracas native, who now lives and works in her studio in Colonia Roma in Mexico City. She is a multidisciplinary artist who received a BA in architecture from Universidad Central de Venezuela in (2002) as well as a MFA in Interior and Graphic Design at the Art Institute of Miami (2007) and just recently (2016) a CFA on Drawing and Painting at The New York Academy of Art in New York City.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF CHARLOTTE URREIZTIETA

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I use painting as an expression of my inner soul and it is an honest exploration of who I am. That is why I prefer to paint women, animals and things that matter to me. Color, high contrast, clean and very graphic compositions are key for my design process. I have painted with oil as well as acrylic, I am open to experimentation and new. I adore the flat solid vibrating colors I achieve with acrylic and the creamy vintage feel I get with oil. I prefer the use the vellum as my support because it is light and soft and allows me to travel with my art. I love also to use white foam for building the sculptures that I recently started painting on. Vellum, foam, color and a clean graphic confident stroke go back to my architecture background and who I am. I am a great believer in energy and how each person can contribute in making this planet a better place. Where love, equality and respect would be the natural quote. I honestly hope I can help improve this planet’s energy with the love and the intrinsic message every painting and art object, I make has.

127 Create! Magazine MADELINE ZAPPALA

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128 Madeline Zappala is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist driven towards creating conceptual archives of our digital experiences. She received her MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University after studying American Culture at Vassar College. Her work is largely informed by her background in photography and her interest in the intersection of collective cultural consciousness, technology and identity. Her recent projects rely on generative and conceptual writing methods to extract alternate narratives hidden in everyday digital interactions.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF MADELINE ZAPPALA

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BEN DALLAS

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Ben Dallas, a long-time Chicago resident, presently lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He received degrees in Art History from Indiana University, Bloomington, and The University of Illinois, Champaign/Urbana. He was Professor of Art at Harper College, Palatine, IL until 2001.

The visual form a perceived object or situation exhibits offers a kind of template by which our minds maneuver toward what meaning to give it; thus, the concerns I have in making my art are embodied in its appearances. I’m not interested in storytelling, symbols, and new information. The challenges presented by more perplexing visual presentations have the potential to undermine expectations and reorient viewers to their own processes of perception and thought.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF BEN DALLAS

131 Create! Magazine MAX SECKEL

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Max Seckel is an artist and printmaker living and working in New Orleans, Louisiana. Seckel graduated from the University of Delaware in the Spring of 2009 and moved to Philadelphia the following fall. Volunteered briefly at Second State Press(2010-2011) before shortly thereafter joining and keeping a studio at artist collective Space 1026 (2011-2014). Then moved south to New Orleans in the fall of 2014 where he began volunteering at the New Orleans Community Printshop and Darkroom (2014-Current) and also maintains a personal studio where he paints and also produces small book and print editions via Risograph.

My work aims to explore my own reactions to and perception of the world surrounding me. Informed by memories, dreams, conversations, and just plain looking around and being I assemble a world constructed of absurd and careful references. Objects are clustered together in both outrageous and normal situations, creating a sense of wonder and confusion as the viewer works to make sense of the situation presented.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF MAX SECKEL Max is currently represented by Red Truck Gallery in New Orleans. 132

ELIZABETH JUNG

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Elizabeth Jung is a visual artist based in Chicago. Having lived in different places in Korea, the United States and France, her homes and the memories associated with the spaces became a fascinating subject for her art, which is about constructing imaginary spaces using colors, geometry, and architectural elements. Her process of painting repeats construction, deconstruction, and reconstruction of space and memories, which often results in trompe l’oeil and exaggerated perspectives. Through her colorful paintings, Elizabeth invites the viewers into the scene where they find themselves experiencing tension, confusion, disorientation, and ambiguity. Elizabeth received both BFA and MFA from École Nationale Supérieure d’Art de Bourges in France. Her work was shown at Palais Jacques-Cœur, Centre Hospitalier Jacque-Cœur de Bourges, Betty Rymer Gallery, 900 North Michigan Avenue, Chicago, the U.S. Capitol, DC, the Supreme Court of Georgia, Galex 52, the Chicago Public Library, etc., and she was a recent resident artist at Studios Midwest.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF ELIZABETH JUNG 134

ANNE CECILE

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Anne Cecile was born in 1987 in Lavelanet, France. She demonstrated a natural interest in art and other manual activities during her childhood, and in 2000 she entered her first drawing and painting class. She learnt classical rules of compositions, anatomy, and harmony of colors along with different techniques such as drawing, pastel, china ink and oil painting. Anne Cecile enrolled in a business school in 2006 while studying clay sculpture in the evening. She later graduated with a Master in Business Administration. In 2012, she went to New York City where she graduated with a Master in Art History. In 2013 Anne Cecile stayed at the Fundacion Pablo Atchugarry where she learnt how to cut marble. Following this experience marble becomes her main material. In 2015, she decides to entirely dedicate her life to her artistic practice and open her studio in the Pyrenean Mountains in France.

I am searching the spectrum of the personal and the emotional, and how our contemporary consumerist society affects the way we live, feel and develop the notion of the selves. I am interested in how human continue to be true to their core in this environment despite the daily violence it obliges us to face and to commit to other. My works can be understood as elaborations of emotional reactions to societal issues. As a woman, my work is reflective of the distinctive challenges that I face in my private life, and I believe it shines a light and a commentary on societal issues that are inherent of our time. I decided to pursue my inquiry into identity through the specific lens of Trauma, whether it being physical, emotional or psychological. I am exploring how it affects one or more persons, and which strategies of survival can be found.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF ANNE CECILE

137 Create! Magazine MADISON PARKER

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In 2013, Madison Parker or “MADPICS", graduated from the Art Academy University with a BFA in Photography. Her college years in San Francisco set the trajectory for her to move to LA to pursue the entertainment industry, an almost gravitational pull for any photographer. There she interned and assisted for photographer, Art Streiber. Learning the ins and outs of the industry, she decided to relocate to San Diego, where she currently works and resides. While my diploma may be camera-centric, my heart is anything but. I revel in the wonder of exploring all mediums as ways to capture the feelings, ideas, people, and moments that make up life. I embrace creative challenges, encouraging change. The world around me, something wild yet comforting to behold... something you really need to open your eyes to. I've been lucky enough to grow up in an environment that has inspired me throughout life to try and capture everything I find enticing- whether it be the way sunlight leaks through a window, the shapes of shadows, or what lurks between what we can and cannot see.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF MADISON PARKER

COVER IMAGE CREDITS: MODEL: SUNNY SOOFIANI MAKEUP ARTIST: ANTONIO TREJO

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ANNA TEICHE

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Working in large-scale oil painting, Anna Teiche’s work centers around explorations of human and cultural relationships through use of vivid color, light, and pattern. A graduate of the BFA Art & Design program at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo, Teiche has recently relocated to Seattle, Washington, her hometown. Growing up in the Pacific Northwest, Teiche was always fascinated by color and pattern, especially influenced by her grandmother’s stories of her Scandinavian heritage, and the many Renaissance and Medieval paintings she saw at the Seattle Art Museum as a child. Recently, Teiche completed a public wall-hanging sculpture commission for Cal Poly, which is now on display as part of the permanent collection.

Using bright patterns and vintage fabrics Anna Teiche creates large scale oil paintings and fiber sculptures that feel inviting and friendly at a glance, but allow for more ambiguous, uncomfortable revelations upon further investigation. Through color, pattern, and light Teiche analyzes how bodies interact with each other and the spaces they inhabit, creating narratives that reveal how body language can suggest the underlying psychology of a scene. The work fluctuates between abstraction and figuration, forcing the viewer to find a coherent image in the saturated combinations of fabrics. Using combinations of plaids, stripes, and vintage floral prints, patterns are combined based on color relationships, creating environments that feel pulsating with warm light and pattern, pushing the compositions more towards abstract fragments than real spaces. Referencing the figurative poses found in Medieval and Renaissance painting, Teiche intertwines fabric, color, and seemingly severed limbs to create compositions that are reminiscent of historical paintings, but quickly disintegrate into chaotic scenes of fragmented bodies and dislocated pieces.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF ANNA TEICHE

145 Create! Magazine LYDIA KINNEY

WWW.LYDIAMKINNEY.COM

146 My paintings function with haphazard visual structure and a focus on material. The composition is pivoted on stained substrates and poured surfaces. I push the compositions to balance a suspension of disbelief and a tangible acknowledgment of a made object. The dichotomy of drawn and painted treatments take advantage of the depth and atmosphere implied by wet, amorphous forms and planes. Rigid lines and shapes encounter these surfaces, holding up, constraining, destabilizing, and contradicting their preceding natural flow. The dialog of tense boundaries and soft, moving forms establishes its own environment. I am compelled by a clumsy and imperfect nature of painting, especially with a relationship to a more perfect, cold language of drawing. The precise and angular nature of many of the forms I work with lend themselves to a technical vernacular. I leave proof of artifice; trusting my hand to waiver from perfect lines, and likewise building shapes or planes that are too sharp to read in the proposed physical space. My hand invariably invades the illusion.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF LYDIA KINNEY

147 Create! Magazine ANGIE ZIELINSKI

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Originally from St. Louis, Angie Zielinski received her B.F.A. from Millikin University (Illinois), and M.F.A. from Bowling Green State University (Ohio). Her work has been shown nationally, including solo exhibitions in Oregon and Ohio, and group shows in Tucson, Raleigh, Detroit, Chicago, and Brooklyn. She is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona.

I am captivated by the power of shiny things and loud noises. Mesmerized, I find myself wondering how explosions can be celebratory in one instance and devastating in another. My work examines the paradoxical notions of delight and distress. With careful thought, I connect unrelated moments and memories to create imagined spaces where themes of whimsy, fragility, cause-and- effect, and spectatorship exist. Chain reactions become clear in the work, and delight and distress are conveyed through an abundance of gleaming materials and layered marks. The tactile qualities and color of the materials I work with attract me initially, but I am also interested in their history, their everyday use, and their connection to my thematic interests. Drawing with thread is decisive—any missteps remain visible. Embroidery is traditionally a quiet activity, yet my imagery combats this calm practice by describing a contagious action, captivity, and explosions in stitched form.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF ANGIE ZIELINSKI

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SCOUT DUNBAR

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Scout Dunbar received her BFA from Alfred University in 2011. She has exhibited nationally and internationally in venues such as Robert Blackburn Printmaking Studio, NYC (2013), Limerick Printmaking Studio in Limerick Ireland (2013), Air Gallery in Brooklyn, NY (2014) and Cornell University in Ithaca, NY (2017.) In 2012 she completed a fellowship at the Ink Shop Printmaking Center in Ithaca, NY, followed by a studio internship at Dieu Donne, a contemporary paper-making studio in Brooklyn. Her work has been featured in publications in the Ithaca Times, Studio Visit Magazine and the Edinburg Press. Originally from Ithaca, NY, Dunbar currently lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF SCOUT DUNBAR

151 Create! Magazine

My new series, Yarn Paintings, converges traditional and untraditional materials on canvas to explore color, texture and textile. Informed by the American Southwest, my palette embraces the muted hues and contrasting textures found in the New Mexican desert. Ethereal fields of subdued pinks and creams are dissected by pockets of pattern and line to create a balance of positive and negative forms. As is true with color, materials are multilingual and can say different things depending on the context in which they are placed. Juxtaposing gritty sand with soft yarn and creamy paint creates a gentle push and pull; a dialogue of opposing forces I then work to harmonize. This series in particular is informed by textiles and craft-culture, as it is being created in tandem to an on-going rug collection I am making. Captivated by yarn scraps left over from the rug hooking process, I continue to explore the fiber’s potential by adhering it onto a flat surface.

153 Create! Magazine JIMMY VIERA

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I am a painter and printmaker currently living and working in Portland, Maine. For years now in my art practice I have been both interested in gesture and object and the relationship they share spatially in my work. Most of my curiosity with gesture and mark making comes from the pleasure of very quickly creating something that resonates with you and wanting to preserve it. This idea of elongating a quick moment in time is carried into the physical process of painting as well. The shape or mark is made, then re-drawn on the masking, and finally the masking is cut. These steps make for a careful examination of why this particular moment is so enticing, this allows for more time with each shape rather than just attempting to create a mark directly on the support. The paintings serve as faux spaces in which gestures and shapes sit on the panels the way ephemera, imbued with fond memories, sit in people’s homes. Looking through my sketchbooks for the right gestures, I act as a collector adding items to shelf. Both the collector and I layer items from different times and places. By taking a wobbly line I made today and placing it in a painting with a cylindrical shape I made three months ago, I am able to collage my gestures into a piece with more history than if I had been just painting intuitively.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF JIMMY VIERA

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LINDSEY A. SCHULZ

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Schulz’s practice is about the preservation and mapping of personal and cultural histories through rigorous methods of production. It's an impulse to record things and to display as data for analysis. Her work often employs a scientific approach to experiences, breaking down complicated emotional states or bodily realities into a series of mathematical decisions informed by archival impulses. The intimate experiences are exhumed in attempt to order information and frame meaning. Schulz focuses on labor, repetition and death through preservation to discuss the ways in which we perform for each other. The resulting works carry a tension that come from the attempt to order aspects of life that fall outside of easy categorization, or any categorization at all. She is drawn to subjects that reveal a vulnerable and repulsive side to ourselves we rarely choose to dissect; deinstitutionalization, environmental concerns, unreliability of memory, family dynamics, etc. Using these subjects as a point of departure, she choose to wade in discussions of intimacy and mortality. Though the initial subject matter tends to appear bleak, the process exhausts our anxieties. The work appears clean, organized, and comforting as a method of digesting emotional turmoil. Lindsey A. Schulz was born and raised in Santa Rosa, California. She received her BFA from Otis College of Art and Design in 2011, and an MFA in 2015 from California Institute of the Arts. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF LINDSEY A. SCHULZ

157 Create! Magazine

ANDREA TAYLOR

WWW.ANDREATAYLOR.CA

Andrea makes work in an attempt to satisfy an obsession with visceral responses to visual art. She seeks to access the power and the vulnerability of the feminine embodied experience, creating works for her own exploration and, equally, to engage in conversations with other works and with the body and mind of the viewer. Andrea’s sculptures are, in a way, self-portraits as the artist continues to attempt the impossible – to show what it feels like to live in a body. These abstract figures have grown out of years of drawing and painting the 19th century Serpentine Dance stills from Loïe Fuller’s dance performed by an unknown dancer and filmed by the Lumière Brothers. Titles often reference the body or dance and movement. Andrea thinks of the abstract figure – a stand in for her own figure – as picking up bits and pieces from the various times she travels through. These are evidenced in the drawn marks, painted areas and sections of fabric and needle felting. There is a sense of time shown through artist’s hand evident in the work and the process of its creation. The artist turns the sculpture as she works on it, responding as much as a painter as a sculptor in her sense of composition and form - the embodied mark intentionally left by the trace of her hand. Andrea holds an MFA in Visual Art from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She completed a Spring Intensive artist residency at Banff Centre, May 2017, and two collaborative artist residencies with Margery Theroux at Anvil Centre August 2017 and at Miranda Arts Project Space in Port Chester, NY in 2015. She had solo shows in 2016 at Malaspina Printmakers and at Back Gallery Project in Vancouver. Andrea teaches Continuing Studies at Emily Carr University of Art & Design in Vancouver.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF ANDREA TAYLOR

159 Create! Magazine SARA ALLEN PRIGODICH

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Sara Allen Prigodich makes mixed media sculptures that reflect on the perceived structures of one’s memories. Her ceramic sculptures are physical representations of our psychological incongruities: the doubts, questions, and shifts in perspectives through which we view the memories of our lives. Sara received her BFA in ceramics from the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford and her MFA in ceramics from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Her professional experience includes positions such as studio assistant, ceramics department technician, resident artist as well as instructor. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally in both juried and invitational exhibitions and has work in both private and public collections. Sara has spent the last two years as an art instructor at a state university in New York and has recently relocated to the Philadelphia area.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF SARA ALLEN PRIGODICH

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ELLIE JI YANG

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Ellie Ji Yang is a Korean artist currently living and working in Brooklyn, NY. She holds an MFA in Illustration from the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York, and a BFA in Cartoon and Animation from Chosun University, South Korea. She is known for her cheerful and raw unfiltered drawings, and has been recognized for her work by the Society of Illustrators 60 , American Illustration 37, Nylon Korea, ITS NICE THAT, 3x3 Magazine and Creative Quarterly. Ellie’s work is heavily inspired by the innocence of childhood and the colors and intricacies of nature. Ellie has showcased her work in numerous galleries, including The Museum of Illustration, Kenektid X Gallery, Grumpy Bert, Okay Space Gallery and Ouchi Gallery.

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I began my works by imagining a setting where I would like to live and play. As a visual creator, I constantly search for vibrant colors and beauty found in nature. I am drawn to all things cheerful, peaceful, and whimsical. While creating these worlds, I imagine myself dwelling in them, which slowly fills me with a sense of relaxation and happiness. Each work depicts a different atmosphere with various stories happening at once. I often begin working with line drawing as ideas emerge, focusing on composition and harmony all the while. I do not start with a specific plan. My images come to life and inform what will come next. I allow the drawings to react to one another on the surface and guide my process. This open approach is joyous for me and creates space for chance and discovery. By utilizing mixed media, I tried to express different imageries with freedom and diversity. I mostly used acrylic and gouache and finished the details with colored pencil. Mark-making plays an important role in my work. I believe it is one of the most essential elements in conveying visual and emotional texture. I also created some components digitally to avoid limiting myself to physical mediums.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF ELLIE JI YANG

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MOLLY SCANNELL

WWW.A-COLLAGE.COM

When I look at an image, I see it for what it can become. Realism is riddled with anxiety-induced pressure. I prefer collage. I manipulate to expand the story, creating digitally and in real life with keys and clicks and scissors and glue. I often distort or erase faces. Replace identity with landscapes, color and shape. This allows viewers to bring their own impressions. I crave the tactile. Evolve with mechanical pencil, Moleskine and hand-made executions. The permanence of analog affords success and failure. There is learning in both and hand-made means there is proof. That’s as real as if gets.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF MOLLY SCANNELL

167 Create! Magazine RAUL GONZALEZ

WWW.ARTISTRAULGONZALEZ.COM

Born and raised in inner-city Houston, multi-dimensional artist Raul Gonzalez explores topics such as work, fatherhood, construction, labor, the working class, identity, and abstraction through versatile methods of painting, drawing, printmaking, performance, and dance. Now living in San Antonio with his wife and two daughters, Raul spends his days as a stay-at-home-parent. Raul’s work is often inspired by being a stay-at-home father, challenging stereotypes, and finding beauty in chaos. Raul’s foundations in drawing, painting, and self-taught dancing have allowed him to create a world of narrative, cultural symbolism, color, and energy. His work ranges from paintings of construction scenes on concrete to colorful abstract installations made of cardboard and duct tape. He has danced 4 ½ miles across San Antonio as a way to “paint a line in space”. He shares drawings of himself as a stay-at-parent and uses his artwork to express himself and educate. Raul recently launched Werk House SA, a short-term rental space/ art gallery that’s conveniently located in his backyard. Raul has a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting (Magna Cum Laude) from the University of Houston, and a Master of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Texas at San Antonio. Raul has shown artwork throughout

168 the United States, including solo or group shows at McNay Art Museum, grayDUCK Gallery, Miami University Ohio, Artpace, Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, Lawndale Art Center, MACLA, Mexic-Arte Museum, Centro de Artes, and Forum 6 Contemporary. Raul was a recipient of a 2016 National Association of Latino Arts & Culture San Antonio Artist Grant and a Surdna Foundation Grant through the Guadalupe Cultural Center in 2017. In 2018, Raul completed an artist studio residency at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art in North Adams MA. Raul’s artwork has been featured by Glasstire.com, the Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express News, San Antonio Current, The Austin Chronicle, and Whataburger. Raul’s artwork is included in public collections such as the McNay Art Museum (San Antonio, TX), The National Museum of Mexican Art (Chicago, IL), Mexic-Arte Museum (Austin, TX), National Hispanic Cultural Center Art Museum (Albuquerque, NM), the University of Texas at San Antonio, and the City of San Antonio.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF RAUL GONZALEZ

MEGANNE ROSEN

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I just moved back to Springfield, Missouri after residing in Oakland, California for two years where I recently graduated with a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. I completed my Master of Arts (MA) in Studio Art and Theory at Drury University in 2011. My recent projects include my thesis exhibition at Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco; the publication of “Isoluminance, Racial Trauma, and the Stamina of Perception: Amanda Wallace’s Field | House” for the Wattis Institute of Contemporary Arts and contemtporary.org; my curation and participation in Artifice & Nature, a four person exhibition at CCA; and my inclusion in group exhibitions in Davis, California; Ventura, California; Woodstock, NY; and Newport, OR. I just returned from artist residencies at LACAWAC in Aerial Lake, Pennsylvania and Byrdcliffe in Woodstock, New York. My next solo exhibition will be at Bookmarx in Springfield, Missouri and opens December, 7, 2018.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF MEGANNE ROSEN

171 Create! Magazine

Observation and curiosity drive my studio practice. Through the investigation of and experimentation with different kinds of materials, I express discontent with the current political climate as well as reflect on my experiences growing up in the American Midwest. My work explores entropy, artifice, consumerism, and my place in the lineage of abstraction in contemporary and modern painting and its relationship with installation art. I compose mixed media pieces which are layered in visual dialogues. Some of the works reference the body in scale and are costume-like. The work evokes an intimate recollection of garments worn, skins shed, and packaging discarded. Each assemblage or installation is a partnership between the materials I work with and the sociopolitical, cultural context of our times. Currently, I am working on a series of oil paintings on transparent acetate. For these works, my palette is inspired by the alluring sheen of oil spills on pavement and the iridescence of polluted sea foam. The intersection of the natural and the artificial is a site of challenge, conquest, and cohabitation. This work explores toxicity through artifice and decay. As light filters through the paint and acetate, ephemeral auras are projected on the walls creating an additional layer of color. When the works are rolled, they become core samples. Black holes of color with little universes enclosed inside. When the various iterations of this series are placed in proximity to each other, a visual conversation emerges between painting and sculpture, density and light, toxicity and beauty.

173 Create! Magazine MEGAN MAGILL

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Megan Magill is an artist based in Chicago and Maine. She received her Masters from Northwestern University and her MFA from Maine Media College. Her work has been exhibited in group and joint shows nationally and she was recently a semi-finalist in the Print Center's International Competition. My Business is Circumference was featured at the Detroit Center for Contemporary Photography and The Habit of Winning was featured in F-Stop Magazine’s portfolio issue with an interview by William Cox and in a print publication with LDOC . In the fall of 2017 her work was published in American: Authors, Interpreters, and Composers a book series created by Patricio Binaghi of Paripe Books and designed by Matt Wiley of the New York Times Magazine.

PROJECT STATEMENT-VENUS WITH FOLDS I begin each piece with a xerox copy of a woman's painted portrait. Most of the paintings are well known, and others were found through a google search for 'famous portrait paintings' which I then narrowed down to paintings of women. So far all have been painted by men and folded by a woman but this is not a requirement...it's just what predominates when you search for 'famous.' I don't have a preconceived idea of how each piece will look...I just start folding and re-folding until I've made something that feels right to me. The process is in part a visual exercise is seeing something new in something that already exists. A way of keeping my options open and my optimism up. Photographing them after I've folded them extends the process.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF MEGAN MAGILL

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LESLEY GOLD

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Lesley Gold is an artist living in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She has an energetic appreciation and love for traditional craft and values the meditative nature of a repetitive handmade process. Lesley's ambition as an artist is to learn and master traditional skills and techniques in fibers and wood. Her work is driven by obsessive compulsion and centered around craftsmanship. Lesley graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2009 with a BFA in Fibers and from the Cabinet and Furniture Making program at North Bennet Street School in 2016.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF LESLEY GOLD

177 Create! Magazine ISABEL CHUN

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Isabel Chun is a recent graduate of Columbia University, where she studied Visual Arts as well as the History and Theory of Architecture. Her work was shown at Columbia’s LeRoy Neiman Gallery this spring. She is unsure where she calls home—she was born and raised in Hong Kong and has just moved from New York, NY to Cambridge, MA, where she is maintaining a studio practice and pursuing a Master in Architecture at Harvard University.

“A Room for Two” is a collection of three mixed media sculptural works: a chair, a window, and a table. With humor, I take both personal and idealized images of home and reinvest them with physical form. My objects play with both the flat and sculptural, are constructed with materials both real and fake, and depict images that coalesce then break apart. In this way, these sculptures still straddle the worlds of illusion and reality. Using a wide range of materials and processes—such as glazed ceramic, printed textiles, plaster casts and woodblock prints—my work invites viewers to investigate what is familiar yet puzzling. Home is sometimes an idea, sometimes a physical place—either way, I reflect on home as where desires for intimacy and stability confront distance and transience. In my work, images of the home serve as a way for me to converse privately with the viewer while also creating something that is evocative beyond my own intentions.

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HEDDA NEELSEN

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In modern culture, materialism is king, and any talk of the soul, spirituality, or god is not a commonplace occurrence. With my work I’ve been exploring what it means to depict our inner world in conjunction with the physical world we perceive around us. I strive to unite these two perspectives, to join what may be considered spiritual with that which is considered material. Still-life painting has always been a tradition steeped in symbolism and has historically reminded the viewer of their own mortality. In my work I hope to remind the viewer of the interconnectedness of life, utilizing yarn as my vehicle to highlight the complex and emergent nature of things. Certain objects I portray in my paintings could be interpreted as having otherworldly references, such as crystal balls. I also incorporate sex toys and weaponry in some of my work, which to me reflect our subconscious, or the parts of ourselves we’d rather not think of. Through painting inanimate objects, my work elevates the subject matter to convey a deeper understanding of the world around us, and within us. By conjoining the material and mental worlds, I explore the notion that the two are not so different.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF HEDDA NEELSEN

181 Create! Magazine

FORREST LAWSON

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Forrest Lawson is a multi-media sculptor who explores complicated issues experienced within the LGBTQ+ community. Lawson has participated in multiple exhibitions throughout Florida, was featured in Artbourne magazine in 2017, and was commissioned to install a public art sculpture on the University of Central Florida campus. Lawson will obtain his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Central Florida in December 2018 and plans to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree upon graduation.

Through sculpture and assemblage, my work explores the array of complexities experienced by individuals within the gay community. I create work to reveal internal and external resentments with a variety of mediums and symbolism. As a tribute and a memoir, my practice touches on feelings that resonate personally and universally. I hope for viewers to engage with the work emotionally, and to question their own similar or dissimilar experiences. My work is merely a glimpse into the often unknown or unrecognized struggles of being gay.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF FORREST LAWSON

183 Create! Magazine IMAGE BY WES MAGYAR, FROM THE EXHIBITION, FRAME OF REFERENCE AT RULE GALLERY/DENVER. ERICA GREEN

WWW.ERICAGREENSTUDIO.COM

Erica Green is a fiber-based artist who lives and works in Boulder, Colorado. Erica received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in Ceramics from the University of Nebraska and completed a two-year post-baccalaureate program in Ceramics at the University of Colorado. Her work has varied from clay sculpture to thread drawings to fiber installations. She has exhibited work in notable galleries such as RULE Gallery, Redline Contemporary, the Firehouse Art Center, The Diary Center for the Fine Arts and was included in the Art of the State show at Arvada Center for the Arts in Arvada, CO. She has also participated in several artist in residencies around the country including receiving a fellowship at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY.

My work focuses on the seemingly unending process of repairing and rebuilding one's self. I 'mend' or knot simple fibers and thread together in meditative and obsessive manner. The work gradually becomes a visual accumulation — a visual record — of the time it takes to heal. Each moment, each struggle amasses and blends and eventually becomes impossible to distinguish. Looking back, the viewer sees that this fundamental human undertaking is simultaneously strong and fragile, messy and disciplined, heavy and light. This work tries to find comfort in such fraught moments.

ALL IMAGES PROVIDED BY RULE GALLERY

185 Create! Magazine ALY MORGAN

WWW.ALYMORGANART.COM

Led purely by a natural sense of curiosity, Aly Morgan follows each spark of inspiration until it leads to a new discovery - either about herself, the world or her place within it. It’s a practice she calls “following the golden thread” and as the cornerstone of her studio practice, it has led to the use of many unconventional mediums and materials in the journey of finding her creative voice. Her early works were heavily influenced by her days as a jewelry designer and were created using items such as wire, fine silver and found objects. Now specializing in hand painted and found paper collage, she works intuitively to create compelling combinations of shapes and color to convey stories of life, growth, and connection. As a self-taught artist, she has focused on unraveling her own definition of art over the last year and in doing so, has created a large body of work that reflects not only her current inspirations but also explores themes such as womanhood and self-discovery. Her most recent series, Native Tongue, explores the relationship between an artist and what inspires them. In celebrating the translation of inspiration into one’s artwork, she has used her own visual inspirations to create abstract linguistic characters with layers of color, shapes and texture. As she continuously builds an intimate language of forms that are all at once familiar yet foreign, she challenges the viewer to seek their own interpretation.

Inspiration is everything to me. It is what motivates me, leads my creative process and ultimately, what nourishes my soul. This piece from my Native Tongue series is a celebration of the place where curiosity and inspiration meet. I am fascinated by color and what it can convey, and I am continuously exploring ways to combine color and shape in order to translate a thought or feeling into a recognizable form. While I continue to explore various techniques, I am most drawn to creating my own collage material as well as collecting found papers and images to incorporate into my work. Although they are humble materials, they allow me to create endless combinations of colors, shapes and textures. I am most inspired by finding beauty in unexpected places, so while my work is often feminine in color and theme, it is also heavily influenced by my love of long forgotten and neglected objects. I feel my most compelling pieces are ones that marry color with rich organic texture while inviting the viewer to explore and take away their own meaning.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF ALY MORGAN

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AMY MEISSNER

WWW.AMYMEISSNER.COM

Alaskan artist, Amy Meissner, combines traditional handwork, found objects and abandoned domestic textiles to reference and revere the work of women. She has shown internationally, with textile work in the permanent collection of the Anchorage Museum, the Contemporary Art Bank of Alaska and the Alaska Humanities Forum as well as many private collections. Her solo exhibition Inheritance: makers. memory. myth. – a body of work crafted from 13 months-worth of globally crowdsourced vintage linens and personal narratives from over 70 contributors -- debuted at the Anchorage Museum in May 2018, and is slated to travel through 2021. Her background is in clothing design, illustration and creative writing.

My work with needle prods the literal, physical and emotional work of women — gathering the collective thrum of women’s abandoned handwork and combining with my own to generate a new mythology. I approach this textile work with the traditional skills taught in girlhood, confronting an expectation of beauty, decoration and domesticity with a raw female gaze. The resulting narrative does more to reveal an emotional truth about a life than any partial or assumed history; completing a story feels human, crafting by hand even more so.

This is time-based work. A landscape. An act of slicing apart, then piecing oneself back together.

IMAGE COURTESY OF AMY MEISSNER

PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN ADAMS

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ANASTASIA PARMSON

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Anastasia Parmson is an Estonian artist with Siberian roots and a French education. She is currently living and working in New Zealand. Parmson’s drawing career began from early childhood. It is during her MFA studies at Strasbourg University that she began pushing the limits of drawing by combining it with other mediums such as video projection, sculpture, ready- made and poetry, winning awards for animation and drawing installation. In 2010 she served onboard a marine conservation vessel in Antarctic waters. The voyage resulted in a series of light box drawings titled Ship Life. These were the focal point of Parmson’s first solo show at Rundum Artist-Run Space in Tallinn, Estonia. In 2017 Parmson created a public art installation for Kilometre of Sculpture festival at Tallinn Art Week, drawing a 200m (656ft) long line through the heart of her hometown. Her latest project – a site specific installation Untitled (my space at may space) for Out of Line exhibition at MAY SPACE gallery in Sydney – is the next step toward Parmson’s vision of creating a whole world in drawing. These milestones have helped Anastasia define her artistic practice and inspire curiosity toward new unexpected possibilities to innovate contemporary drawing as a medium. In future projects she intends to expand drawing into large scale installations with video mapping as well as virtual- and augmented reality.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF ANASTASIA PARMSON

191 Create! Magazine SOPHIE TREPPENDAHL

WWW.SOPHIETREPPENDAHL.COM

I paint because I love the way shadows and light can completely change an object or a place. I want to capture that feeling of being temporarily overwhelmed by the thing in front of you - when it feels both otherworldly and ordinary. I paint because I love the people around me and the way they make me feel. I paint the things I want to keep. The quiet at the river, the sun on my favorite shirt, the shadow on my best friends face.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF SOPHIE TREPPENDAHL

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Through painting, I aim to capture not the likeness to an image but the overwhelming feeling of the space or a memory. In my studio, I work from recorded observations, often photographs and drawings, that then serve as a springboard to explore pattern, color, light and shadow. When creating, the representation becomes secondary, my primary focus becoming the painting process itself. As I translate reflection, pattern, and shadows through paint, the image lends itself to abstraction, manipulation and exaggeration. Through this, the painting takes on new life. And instead of creating a hollow representation of a moment that once was, I hope to create something altogether new - a painting imbued with the vibrance of that instance, the glow of how it felt, and the love of translating it through paint. I am currently living and working in Richmond, Virginia. I am from St. Francisville, a small town in Louisiana. My mother is an artist and thanks to her I started painting as a kid, I did my first oil painting at age 4 (with her help, of course). I moved to South Carolina for college and received my BA in painting and printmaking from College of Charleston. After graduating I remained in Charleston and worked for a magazine for a few years before leaving for traveling, a stint in New York, and finally landing in Richmond, Virginia. I teach at a few community non-profits here in town, and work in my studio at a shared space called Studio Two Three.

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STACEY BEACH

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Stacey Beach lives and works in Berkeley, CA. She received her MFA from California College of the Arts and has exhibited in California and New York. Beach makes two-dimensional works of fabric, both solid and patterned, incorporating hand-drawn and screen-printed elements. She works with collage, beginning with a pared down vocabulary of shape and form. Beach allows the fabric to make its own moves once it is sewn and stretched on a panel, allowing the wrinkles and pulls in the textile to add to the composition. The works embrace awkward and uneasy relationships, exploring the concepts of beauty and anti-beauty, construction and decay, form and void.

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF STACEY BEACH

197 Create! Magazine TJ KELLEY III

WWW.TJKELLEYIII.COM

TJ Kelley III (b.1990) is an artist from Boston, Massachusetts. Working through a variety of visual media, he intends to explore social histories within storytelling using objects, patterns, and writing to examine the way our personal narratives distort the stories we hear and tell. Recalling early lithograph printed poster design and commercial iconography, he utilizes a bright but limited palette to render images of objects, assembling them together in provocative formations to engage the viewer’s own visual history to inform a story within the work. While TJ’s paintings and drawings remain the primary focus, in recent years he has begun a more immersive art practice by incorporating sculpture, bookmaking, and installation to create a unified expression across media and presentation. TJ Kelley III lives and works in Boston, Massachusetts. He received his BFA in Illustration with distinction from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2013. TJ is the curator of Extension Gallery, an alternative art space above Orchard Skateshop in the Allston neighborhood of Boston.

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VAL SHAMMA

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Val Shamma is a visual artist and ceramist born in State College, PA. His work investigates consumer electronics through form and function. He received his BA in visual arts and archival studies at The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

My practice incorporates personal narratives and timelines of technological progress that are synthesized by consumer electronics. I see electronic devices as objects of devotion, vessels that contain and inform memory, sites of visceral interactions between the animate and inanimate, mediators of communication, and signifiers of change. My sculptures, made of clay and found technology detritus, are recognizable but resist immediate identification. I draw from design languages that emphasize serial rigidity, intuitive functionality, and visual simplicity, but my work is offset from manufactured aesthetics. I imbue my work with a tactile softness that is a natural product of using my hands as my primary tools and of referencing my own distant experiences. The gentle corners, smoothed additions, and hazy surfaces of my work point toward incomplete memories of interactions with objects. I aim to make forms that are a convergence of private and cultural experience, using the visual aesthetics and symbolism of functional devices, both real and imagined, as catalysts.

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201 Create! Magazine YURIA OKAMURA

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Yuria Okamura's art practice focuses on geometric drawing on both paper and walls. She collects, rearranges and transforms abstract symbols of various cultural and religious traditions. In this way, her work brings together and reinterprets various idealities from across cultures and histories in the hope of invoking a renewed sense of wonder into our contemporary worldview. She maps and reconfigures geometric patterns and symbols that reference esoteric symbolism, occult diagrams, religious architecture and decoration, and spiritualist abstract painting through the use of diagrammatic aesthetics. By doing so, she examines the implications of harmonic ideals that seem to be universally embedded in the orderliness of geometry, and how such ideas might be reinterpreted in the new interrelated compositions. Yuria also deploys wall drawing to unify the diverse geometric forms and to create immersive drawing installations through the use of architecture and gardens as visual metaphors. By incorporating spatiality in this way, she explores abstract drawings' potential to operate as open-ended contemplative spaces for reimagining possibilities of metaphysical harmony and connectivity. Yuria is a Melbourne-based artist whose drawing practice explores harmonic ideals through the use of geometry and diagrammatic aesthetics. She has completed Master of Fine Arts (Research) at the Victorian College of the Arts, the University of Melbourne in 2015, and Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) in 2010 at RMIT University. In 2016, Yuria was selected for Abbotsford Convent Studio Start-up Residency and Bayside City Council Residency. She has received a number of awards and scholarships, including Stuart Black Memorial Travelling Scholarship, Ursula Hoff Institute Drawing Award, Lloyd Rees Memorial Youth Art Award, RMIT Honours Travelling Endowment Scholarship, RMIT Siemens Fine Art Scholarship, and Facetnate Visual Art Grant. Yuria has been showing her work in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including C3 Contemporary Art Space(Melbourne), Anna Pappas Gallery(Melbourne), Five Walls (Melbourne), Rubicon ARI (Melbourne), Kunstraum Tapir (Berlin, Germany), Langford 120 (Melbourne), Seventh Gallery (Melbourne), Japan Foundation Gallery (Sydney), and Mølla På Grim (Kristiansand, Norway).

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