1 Create! Magazine t a b l e o f c o n t e n t s

SUBMIT 05 LIST OF FEATURED ARTISTS Artists, makers and designers are Artists selected by guest curator Hannah welcome to apply with works in any Stouffer for the inaugural edition of medium: painting, drawing, film Create! Magazine stills, sculpture, fiber, textile, collage, drawing, photography, woodwork, ceramics, mixed media and etc.

JANUARY 2017 PRINT ISSUE GUEST CURATORS Erin and Justin Nathanson: Southern Gallery, Charleston, SC 09 INTERVIEWS Exclusive interviews with CREATE BLOG Ashley Longshore, Adam Wallacavage, Danielle Krysa, We welcome submissions to our blog! Kim West, Portia Makoma, E-mail your best work to and Hannah Souffer. [email protected]

SUBSCRIBE Please visit our online store at www.create-magazine.com to subscribe to our publication

FOLLOW US 37 CURATED SELECTION twitter.com/createmagazine_ Vibrant and diverse section featuring the work of artists chosen www.facebook.com/create.art.magazine by Hannah Stouffer. instagram.com/create_mag

2 3 Create! Magazine f e a t u r e d a r t i s t s

JAIME BRETT TREADWELL 5 2 BRIAN SPOLANS 5 8 ASHLEY BEVINGTON 6 2 ALLISON BAMCAT 6 6 ANNA BELLEFORTE 7 0 BEN WILLIS 7 4 BROOKE LILIA NASSER 7 8 YURIA OKAMURA 8 6 DONNA FESTA 9 0 ANNE CECILE SURGA 9 4 VIRGINIA CHIANG 1 0 2 GARRY D HARLEY 1 0 6 DIANE PRIBOJAN 1 1 0 EVIE ZIMMER 1 1 4 FENG GUO 1 1 8 JOSHUA FLINT 1 2 2 KEN WOOD 1 2 6 KIRINI KOPCKE 1 3 0 LEE MUSGRAVE 1 3 8 LING CHUN 1 4 4 MATHEW TUCKER 1 4 8 MICHAEL DRUMOND 1 5 2 MOLLY CATHERINE SCANNELL 1 5 6 NERS NEONLUMBERJACK 1 6 2 RACHEL STRUM 1 6 6 REBECCA RUTSTEIN 1 7 0 SHANNON FANNIN 1 7 6 STELLA DIMING ZHONG 1 8 2 SID DANIELS 1 8 8 GUDRUN LATTEN 1 9 0 HAYLEY-QUENTIN 1 9 6

4 5 Create! Magazine e d i t o r i a l EDITOR: Dear Reader, Ekaterina Popova

DESIGNER: Welcome to the first edition of Create! Magazine. We are excited to share a diverse array of Shelby Schena art, design, and interviews in our colorful issue. We launched this publication to promote fresh, unique work of creatives from around the ASSOCIATE EDITOR: world. Each edition will be filled with vibrant contemporary art, craft, design, and inspiring Amanda Yamayev stories of the makers behind it. Going forward, the magazine will be released bimonthly in a limited edition print and digital format. GUEST CURATOR: Our first issue contains two different sections: interviews with incredible individuals from Hannah Stouffer the creative field and a curated section of artists hand-picked by our guest juror, Hannah Stouffer. FIND US ON We hope you join us and dive into this issue, which is packed with groundbreaking artists and twitter.com/createmagazine_ makers who will leave you feeling inspired. www.facebook.com/create.art.magazine instagram.com/create_mag

Yours Truly, GENERAL ENQUIRIES: [email protected] EKATERINA POPOVA Editor-in-Chief SUBMISSIONS FOR BLOG PUBLICATIONS: [email protected]

6 7 Create! Magazine — i n t e r v i e w s

We’ve taken several creatives and picked their brain about what inspires them! Please enjoy these exclusive interviews with Ashley Longshore, Adam Wallacavage, Danielle Krysa, Kim West, Portia Makoma, and Hannah Souffer.

8 9 Create! Magazine a s h l e y l o n g s h o r e

ASHLEY LONGSHORE is a Louisiana-based painter, gallery owner and entrepreneur. She is the owner of the Longshore Studio Gallery, located on Magazine Street in New Orleans. Longshore’s art focuses on pop culture, Hollywood glamour, and American consumerism and has been compared to the artwork of Andy Warhol. She has been recognized as a “modern Andrea Warhol” by the New York Post, and was on Brit + Co’s list of “16 Female Artists You Should Know.”

www.ashleylongshore.com

— b r i e f l y d e s c r i b e y o u r a r t i s t i c b a c k g r o u n d . w h e n d i d y o u k n o w y o u w a n t e d t o b e c o m e a p a i n t e r ? Honestly, I was such a wild, dramatic, hyper-energetic child. My mother had me in every extracurricular activity you can imagine, except for painting because I don’t think she thought I could be still enough to do it. So, funny enough, when I was 18 years old I went and got a paint set and a drum kit. I sat down and immersed myself in painting and drumming. I have to tell you, seven hours went by before I even knew it. It was very meditative.

I guess the answer is that I was born an artist and it just took me two decades of my life to realize that this was the craft I wanted to pursue. And now I love it, and it is my most favorite thing I do. My time on my easel is sacred.

— w h a t w a s y o u r e a r l y w o r k l i k e ? h o w i s i t s i m i l a r a n d / o r d i f f e r e n t t h a n w h a t y o u a r e d o i n g n o w ? Right out of the gate, my work was very colorful, figurative. Of course, you are talking about a difference between an 18-year-old girl and a 40-year-old woman. Now I have a much better definition of who I am, of where I stand in society, the country that I live in. I am much better traveled. I have a much better hold on what I am saying with my artwork than I did in the beginning.

But if you go back to the start, my work was still very colorful and bold. My art is not what you get to match the throw pillows on your sofa. I have collectors who buy my art, and then they build a whole damn house around it!

10 11 Create! Magazine ASHLEY LONGSHORE Applause Self Portrait

— w h e n w o u l d y o u s a y y o u experienced a breakthrough i n y o u r a r t c a r e e r ? w h a t w a s t h a t l i k e ? I knew from a very young age that I did not want to work with galleries and did not want to go the traditional route with my career. I had so many galleries tell me I was not marketable. At this time the internet was coming about, and all the sudden we had social media. ASHLEY LONGSHORE My Skinny Jeans Are Trying To Kill Me Very early in my career, I was using Mailchimp and Constant Contact. I would have art shows in people’s houses, people who were friends of my family. I would start to build up my email list. I knew if I began to build my foundation this way that I could make a lot more noise.

I think it’s been the same amount of hard work and not giving up as it has been opportunities coming in my direction because I wanted them. I’ve gone out seeking them. I’ve been this hunter out in the art world trying to find my way in an industry that is quite fickle.

When I first got the opportunity for Anthropologie to use my artwork as a collaboration, that was very exciting for me, and I knew these opportunities would only validate the current clients I had. Meaning that if somebody had bought a painting from me that cost $150, how excited would they be to know I was chosen by the brand for this collaboration? I’ve worked every day in my career making sure that these people who are spending their hard-earned money feel really good about the investment they made and about living in their homes with my thoughts painted on their walls. It’s a very intimate thing.

— w e a r e i n s p i r e d b y y o u r p o s i t i v i t y a n d i n c r e d i b l e s e n s e o f h u m o r . h o w d o y o u h a n d l e b a d d a y s a n d

m o t i v a t e y o u r s e l f ? We all have bad days. I have been moving very quickly lately and had a lot of opportunities, and an artist gets tired! When you have all of this inertia built up, you just have to find a way to motivate yourself. I find now, in this world of social media, that sometimes I post things and am talking to myself. I’m giving myself a fire-up. To see people’s reaction, it gets me even more motivated to get my ass out there and make something happen! “Action solves The other thing is, I travel all over the world. There isn’t another country in the world where a female artist has as much opportunity as I do in the United States of America. - A.L. It would be very much of injustice to sit around crying, scratching a broke ass, being upset when there is so much to do and so little time to do it in. It ain’t hard for me to get a lot of issues” motivated. There is too much for me to be positive about, so I have to pick my ass up and work! Work changes everything. Action solves a lot of issues.

12 13 Create! Magazine "you ur " have t yo ion o m keep uit ake sure you int that — y o u w e r e f e a t u r e d i n p r o m i n e n t publications s u c h a s ea to f o r b e s e l l e d e c o r a n d i n s t y l e i n y o u r o p i n i o n w h a t r , , . s open i n i t i a l l y g o t y o u n o t i c e d b y t h e s e b r a n d s ? h o w h a s t h i s

e x p e r i e n c e c h a n g e d y o u r perspective o r a p p r o a c h ? I think that being true to myself and unique, using every opportunity I had and not going the traditional route got me noticed by these brands. Also, what you have to know is that I live in New Orleans, which is a great city where I feel very comfortable being creative. The past fifteen years, I have been marketing myself throughout the entire world. I knew I didn’t want to live in New York City, but I knew I could get there, get noticed, hustle my way around and get people talking. I could do it by doing things my way.

Now I have a book coming out in February with Judith Regan, who is such a powerhouse, a New York staple. This woman made Howard Stern, and she sued Rupert Murdock and won.

This is a time when women in business are helping each other out, and it’s not just the good old boys club anymore. All this stems from having an opportunity and being an entrepreneur. Knowing that if I can create a brand and make a name for myself, there is no reason why I should ever be the starving artist. I should be able to make enough money to create any idea I ever think of. Along with that, I am very gracious and very joyous and maybe being Southern makes me stand out when I get into bigger cities. I am not the jaded, bitchy American girl. I used to price shop for tortilla chips and now I am buying Chanel. It’s an exciting time to be in business. ASHLEY LONGSHORE Gucci Pig — i f y o u c o u l d g i v e a p i e c e o f a d v i c e t o y o u r y o u n g e r s e l f , w h a t w o u l d i t b e ? People ask me this a lot. When I look back on my career, there is no way I could work harder than I have worked. There is no way I could have gone after more opportunities that I have gone after. Ever. Maybe, I would tell myself to be less worried. But I also feel that the fear of missing out on opportunities is very motivating and propelling. My best advice to myself would be to listen to my gut. The same way I look at a painting and know that it is finished because I know that gut feeling is the same way I know if a business deal is going to be ok. It’s the same way I know if a client is a buyer or not. It’s the same way I know between right and wrong, and it’s this little voice inside of me, and you have to make sure you keep your ears open to that intuition. That feeling you have will make sure to lead you the right way not only in your art but also in your business.

14 15 Create! Magazine ASHLEY LONGSHORE Lil Wayne With Zebra Background

— d o y o u b e l i e v e o u r c u r r e n t w o r l d i s a b e t t e r p l a c e f o r a r t i s t s t h a n i t o n c e w a s ? i f s o , e x p l a i n . Huh! Abso-fucking-lutely and I’ll tell you why. This is going to be my greatest legacy, to hopefully encourage artists to self-represent and to use all of this amazing technology to keep 100% of their profit margin, to know who their clients are, to understand the intimate relationship between the buyer and artist. When someone pays money to live with your thoughts, that’s a very intoxicating, exciting, intimate relationship.

I don’t believe in having a gallerist that is going to rob me not only 50% of my money but also in most situations I would never know who my collector was. I want artists to use this incredible technology in this age of images. It is the best, most powerful time to be an artist. Also, social media makes the world a tiny place. Someone in Australia could be loving my work the same as someone who lives two blocks from my studio. It is remarkable. There is no other time in history when artists had these opportunities to get their images out there the way we do now.

— w h a t a r e y o u m o s t p r o u d o f i n y o u r a r t ASHLEY LONGSHORE Giant Metamorphisis c a r e e r s o f a r ? That would have to be the countless e-mails and messages I’m getting from other artists who are inspired to put themselves out there and be brave enough to go for it, put their images on social media, and try to make it full time as an artist. It’s a scary thing to be brave enough to do that. For anyone to tell me that I inspired them to do that, is such an honor. For all the artists that I mentor, the artists that I collect, for all the energy that’s coming and going in the universe, I am most grateful for that more than anything in the world.

16 17 Create! Magazine ADAM WALLCAVAGE The Rapture

ADAM WALLACAVAGE was born in 1969. He currently lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended the University of the Arts in Philadelphia where he received a BFA in Photography in 1995. In 2001, Wallacavage taught himself the art of ornamental plastering and began making octopus shaped chandeliers. His chandeliers have been exhibited in galleries in São Paulo, Rome, London, Miami, Los Angeles, Vienna and New York. In 2012, Wallacavage had a solo exhibition at the Philadelphia Art Alliance titled Shiny Monsters. His chandeliers have been featured in publications such as The New York Times, New York Times Magazine, New York Magazine and TIME Magazine. Beyond making sculptural works, Wallacavage is also an accomplished photographer. In 2006, Gingko Press published Monster Size Monsters, a book documenting fifteen years of his photography.

www.adamwallacavage.com

a d a m wallacavage

— w h e n d i d y o u d i s c o v e r y o u r i n t e r e s t i n s c u l p t u r e ? w h a t w a s y o u r e a r l y w o r k l i k e ? It might sound weird, but I think it was building forts as a kid. I made tree fort, underground forts, and a fort over the stream next to the house I grew up in. I remember really going for it with the designs. After that, I would say going to Eyes Gallery on South Street in Philadelphia in the mid-1980’s and being inspired by the Mexican paper mache sculptures I saw there. I tried recreating what I saw and started making these two- headed giraffe sculptures probably inspired by Salvador Dali.

— h o w d i d y o u g e t s t a r t e d o n c r e a t i n g y o u r b e a u t i f u l chandeliers ? I bought a Victorian Brownstone in South Philadelphia back in 2000. The first-floor interior was turned into a doctor’s office in the 1940’s so most of the ornamental elements were taken out and modernized. I wanted something opulent, and since I had taken a molding and casting class in art college, I realized I could make something quite elaborate with a few bags of plaster and some latex molds. The better I got with this technique led to more confidence, and that was when I decided to try making my own chandeliers for my home. I made five octopus chandeliers for my Jules Verne themed room and after that, I just never stopped making them.

18 19 Create! Magazine ADAM WALLCAVAGE Dead Mantra ADAM WALLCAVAGE Blue Green Chandelier

— w e l o v e y o u r w o r k a n d t h e otherworldly o r g a n i c f o r m s y o u c r e a t e . w h e r e d o y o u c o m e u p w i t h y o u r

i d e a s a n d w h a t a r e y o u r r e f e r e n c e s ? Well, I just mentioned where the octopus came from, and it is my most popular and my favorite to make, but I’m inspired by Art Nouveau and art forms from nature. Ice formations, bats, sea creatures, snakes, birds, then silly kitsch.

— w h a t i s a t y p i c a l d a y i n t h e s t u d i o l i k e f o r y o u ? Lately, I’ve been all over the place, so time in the studio is erratic. ays I’m working today but going to the beach in the afternoon. I live in Philadelphia, but the beach I go to is about an hour and a half drive “I’m alw away. There’s really never a typical day for me ever. bout — h o w d o y o u b a l a n c e y o u r t i m e a s a n a r t i s t w i t h y o u r p e r s o n a l l i f e ? thinking a I’m always thinking about art no matter where I am. I go out as much as possible and even if I see a band, I’m always thinking about photography as well and seeing if I can document everything I’m seeing. art no matter 20 21 - A.W.Create! Magazine where I am.” ADAM WALLCAVAGE Dead Mantra

I made a living as a photographer for a long time, starting with shooting for skateboard magazines and moving to shooting bands and street art in the mid 1990’s then to commercial photography. I stopped shooting professionally but it only helped my passion for documenting things.

— w h a t i m p o r t a n t l i f e e v e n t o r p i e c e o f a d v i c e h e l p e d y o u d i s c o v e r y o u r u n i q u e v o i c e a n d v i s i o n ? I went through a divorce 10 years ago and it forced me to really figure out a way to keep the house. I basically had to triple my income right away. This was also at the time where I was getting away from commercial photography. What happened is I found confidence in my own work and with that came the ability to sell my art. I’m quite fortunate for that. It came from making something I loved first but realizing what other people might want as well. My art comes from a deep place, but I don’t care to make that part of it an issue. If a child likes it, that is all that matters to me.

22 23 Create! Magazine DANIELLE KRYSA View

d a n i e l l e k r y s a

DANIELLE KRYSA has a BFA in Visual Arts, and a post-grad in graphic design. She began her fine art career as a painter, but has found a home for herself in mixed media collage. Danielle is drawn to strong, simple compositions – add to that her love of hunting for vintage images in every thrift shop she wanders into, and voila, the painter becomes a collage artist. (Danielle is the writer behind the contemporary art site, The Jealous Curator. She is also the author of Creative Block, Collage, and Your Inner Critic Is A Big Jerk – all of which are published by Chronicle Books).

www.thejealouscurator.com

— h o w h a s y o u r e x p e r i e n c e r u n n i n g t h e j e a l o u s c u r a t o r i m p a c t e d y o u r p e r s o n a l a r t p r a c t i c e ? Running The Jealous Curator exposes me to a lot of art. A LOT. Probably the two most important things that have made a difference to my own work would be the following:

1. I’ve learned that there’s a gigantic range of art in the world, and there is a place for everyone. Your work won’t be a fit for every gallery or every buyer, but there is a place for what you create – you just have to find it.

2. Before TJC I felt quite lost when it came to my own work. I was all over the place. Probably within in the first year of writing daily posts I started seeing a pattern in the work I was really attracted to – negative space, vibrant colors, a touch of humor – I realized that this is where I wanted my own work to go, and I haven’t looked back!

24 25 Create! Magazine — w e a r e i n s p i r e d b y y o u r b a c k g r o u n d a n d k n o w t h a t l o t o f a r t i s t s s t r u g g l e w i t h s i m i l a r o b s t a c l e s w h e n i t

c o m e s t o t h e i r “ i n n e r c r i t i c ” . w h a t a d v i c e w o u l d y o u

g i v e t h o s e l o o k i n g t o g e t b a c k i n t o t h e s t u d i o a n d

o v e r c o m e t h e f e a r ? I know this fear well, and it can be absolutely crippling. The way I got back into the studio, and managed to nudge by my annoying “inner critic”, was with small baby steps. I did quick projects on scrap paper, because I have a tendency to get a little too “precious” about — w e l o v e t h e c o m m u n i t y y o u c r e a t e d t h r o u g h y o u r whatever I’m making. Inner critics LOVE it when you get too precious about things. A b l o g . h o w d o y o u b a l a n c e y o u r t i m e b e t w e e n f a m i l y l i f e perfect white canvas, a fresh sketchbook – terrifying. You have to allow yourself to play, experiment, make messes, throw things away, start again, make more messes and repeat. a n d y o u r c r e a t i v e c a r e e r ? It’s the only way to sneak past that jerk. The first book I wrote is called Creative Block. I I love the combination actually – to be organizing art shows or interviewing artists for interviewed 50 working artists about how they deal with blocks, doubts, and inner critics. the podcast one minute, and baking cookies with my son the next. However, I did really I also asked each of them to give a quick “unblocking project”, and boy do they work! I struggle with this a few years back – trying to do everything perfectly, all the time. Not would highly recommend trying a few of them. They’ll get you past blocks, and as a lovely very realistic! About 3 years ago, I made a conscious choice to start breaking my days side benefit, they’ll get your inner critic to shut up for awhile. into very clear chunks. If I had scheduled a time to work on my book from 9am - 1pm then that’s the only thing I was doing during that time. I wouldn’t feel guilty about all of the other things I could be doing because this was “book time.” When I’m in the studio making art, I don’t worry about the blog or podcast, etc. because these few hours are “studio time.” The same goes for “family time” – and I have the most amazing men in DANIELLE KRYSA Scorpio my life (my husband Greg and son Charlie), so it’s very easy to set chunks of time aside to hang out with them!

— w h a t a d v i c e w o u l d y o u g i v e a r t i s t s a n d c r e a t i v e s l o o k i n g t o l e a v e t h e i r d a y j o b s ? Have a clear plan. That’s not very romantic, but you’ll sleep better at night! I have just made the jump from full-time graphic designer to full-time Jealous Curator. It’s scary, but I also made sure to pad my bank account so that I have a little cushion for the first six months. It’s really nice not to have a ton of financial pressure on your creative career the second you make the jump. Have projects, relationships, your online shop, etc. set up before you make the leap. That might mean lots of late nights when you get home from your day job, but again it will allow you to hit the ground running. Ok, enough practical talk, let’s get to the romantic stuff! A lot of people are terrified to make their dreams a reality for all sorts of reasons (money, self-doubt, both) but life is short, and if this is the life you want then you have to go get it.

PS. Deciding to make this change now doesn’t mean it has to be FOREVER. Personally, I’m going to give this whole “Jealous Curator” thing my very best shot, but if for whatever reason it doesn’t work, I can always get another design job… or become a barista.

DANIELLE KRYSA Gumqueen 26 27 Create! Magazine “A few days after that interview, I just said “screw it,” and finally allowed myself just to be me.”- D.K.

DANIELLE KRYSA Spouting

— w h a t h a s b e e n y o u r b i g g e s t breakthrough i n t e r m s o f m a k i n g a r t ? Oh, there’s been quite a few. The first one being ACTUALLY making art! I used to keep ideas in my head forever. They had to be perfect before I put them to paper or canvas – and therefore those poor little trapped ideas never made it to paper or canvas. The other big breakthrough for me was embracing humor. When I did my BFA I was criticized for using humor – it wouldn’t be taken seriously if it wasn’t serious – so I squashed that part of my work. In December 2015, I interviewed LA based artist Wayne White, and that changed everything. His work is really blunt and hilarious, and he just puts it out there

DANIELLE KRYSA Waterfall whether it gets criticized or not. A few days after that interview, I just said “screw it,” and finally allowed myself just to be me. What a giant relief – and I’ve never had more fun in the studio. Ever.

28 29 Create! Magazine DANIELLE KRYSA Tux DANIELLE KRYSA Dancefloor

— w h a t i n s p i r e s y o u ? h o w d o y o u c o m e u p w i t h y o u r — w h a t i s y o u r f a v o r i t e t h i n g a b o u t b e i n g a n a r t i s t ? c o l l a g e s ? Being part of the coolest club in the world! Artists just understand other artists, and I could spend all day every day talking to creative people – sharing war stories, working out I love narratives and tend to make stories out of just about anything. I never cut images challenges, celebrating victories. Oh, and the other thing I love about being an artist – out with an intended purpose, I just cut. I have a giant bowl of people on my studio table the high you get when everything is flowing. Ah, it’s like magic. just waiting to be thrown into one of my weird little stories. I spread out several pieces of paper (and now panels occasionally) and start making thick, colorful brushstrokes. Once I have those, I dig through the bowl looking for just the right person to pair with w h a t a r e y o u c u r r e n t l y w o r k i n g o n i n y o u r s t u d i o ? each paint stroke. The moment there’s a match, the title pops into my head – I know I’ve — got something if I actually laugh out loud in my studio. (Crazy art lady, alone, laughing I’m still continuing with my paint/found image collages. At the moment I don’t see an hysterically in her studio. Yeah). end in sight! Lately, I’ve been experimenting with using more paint and working on wood panels instead of paper. I used to be terrified to experiment (I have no idea why), but now I actually find myself looking forward to it. I guess miracles do happen!

30 31 Create! Magazine KIM WEST Marker Memory (Vermillion No. 1)

k i m w e s t

KIM WEST is a painter living and working in downtown Los Angeles, California. Following studies in painting and printmaking at Smith College and Amherst College, West graduated from the painting department at the Rhode Island School of Design. Immediately upon graduation, West began exhibiting in Boston, MA. Her work continues to be exhibited nationally, and is collected and commissioned by everyday people, art collectors, celebrities, corporations, and educational institutions.

www.kimwest.com

— w h e n d i d y o u k n o w y o u w a n t e d t o b e c o m e a n a r t i s t ? s h a r e a b r i e f v e r s i o n o f y o u r s t o r y w i t h u s . I have always painted. My mom was an art teacher, and for as long as I can remember, art and making were tools used daily in my childhood home for fun or distraction. Having said that, I didn’t personally know any artists who identified as such. This was pre-internet, and I didn’t come across (nor seek out) too many accessible stories of how working artists got from A to B. It just didn’t occur to me that being a painter might be a plausible career choice. I liked to read, write, and research, and I enjoyed being on the high school debate team. I figured I should be a lawyer — it had a seemingly knowable path and clear definitions of success. My mom felt differently, and she dragged me to art school tours on college trips when I was only interested in looking at the pre-law schedules of liberal arts colleges, which is where I initially ended up — at a classic New England college. I loved it. But by the end of the first year, I was spending all of my time and energy in the studio, skipping what I should have considered important classes, to paint. My deep shift in focus was rapid and transformative. I wanted to be a better painter. I wanted to be in the studio all the time, and I wanted to be around other people who did, too. I transferred to an art school to study painting full-time.

32 33 Create! Magazine KIM WEST Opera

KIM WEST Pink Sky Night, Ghost Trees p of memorie grou s.” or — h o w d o y o u c o m e u p w i t h i d e a s f o r y o u r p a i n t i n g s ? y e x p l a i n w h e r e y o u g e t y o u r inspiration . or My work is an on-going series of responsive investigations to what is happening around m me. Ideas for paintings flow through various overarching themes within ongoing bodies of e work. I’m responding to loss, to the idea of finality, and to things that can’t be measured. I play with layers and work with memories to create new, fractured realities that pin down m wisps of either, and bridge the gap. ic I tend to work serially, and each starts with a specific memory or group of memories. f As I work through the paintings, over and over, iconography and motifs within the work i emerge, change and morph — much like the way memory works. The initial starting point c is a memory, but as I’m working, I’m continually responding to color, texture, light, etc., e allowing and encouraging tangible elements in current time to effect the outcome of how p “ the memory is documented. s te a nd h to it w w or ts k s ar eria st 34 lly ch 35 , and ea Create! Magazine KIM WEST Goldon Pothos Marker – Memory (Black No. 1)

“I am after tension between the purposeful and the - K.W. unintentional.”

— h o w d i d y o u g e t s t a r t e d o n y o u r l a t e s t b o d y o f w o r k ? Several years ago, within the span of a short time, I lost people who were incredibly dear to my family and me. Old age, old age, disease, freak accident, suicide, and old age. Processing those experiences showed up in work.

— i n w h a t w ay s d o y o u f e e l y o u r w o r k h a s c h a n g e d o v e r t h e p a s t f e w y e a r s ? My painting continues to get looser, I think. I am after tension between the purposeful and the unintentional. As I go deeper, I am not only becoming more open to following those unexpected and sometimes contradictory moments but courting them.

— w h e n d i d y o u f i r s t s t a r t w o r k i n g o n m u r a l s ? Cherubs above cribs, romantic gardens with the Three Graces for dining spaces – these types of commissioned murals helped subsidize my time in the studio for a few years after graduation. But as far as my current and recent mural work – that is, mural work that is an extension of what is happening in the studio – that work started accidentally, in early 2009. I was asking someone in the front office of my then studio building about a management issue. I happened to have in my hand a flyer for an upcoming gallery show. The person at the desk that day turned out to be the building’s owner, and also a developer, who then asked for a flyer and later came to the show — wondering if I’d be interested in painting on a wall. I was!

— w h a t d o y o u l o v e m o s t a b o u t b e i n g a n a r t i s t

i n l o s a n g e l e s ? Proximity. To expanse, opportunity, enthusiasm, and optimism; to the beach, the mountains, and the garden; and to excellent taco trucks.

36 37 Create! Magazine SILENCE IS ACCURATE transforms public and corporate spaces into tranquil havens which are referred to as ART ESCAPES. These innovative conversions create environments where communities gather to rejuvenate, connect with their inner creativity, improve mood, emotional intelligence and inspire critical thinking. www.silenceisaccurate.com

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— h o w d i d y o u c o m e u p w i t h t h e i d e a f o r s i l e n c e i s a c c u r a t e ? w h e n d i d y o u s t a r t t h i s p r o j e c t ? It started as a passion project. A love for art, creating and storytelling inspired SIA. The idea was to create an artist interview archive filled with some of our generation’s most inspiring visual artists. It led to many magical studios where I interviewed incredible creators and shared that on the platform.

Those encounters left me feeling excited, yet clear-minded and calm. Needing to share these feelings with others offline, I started ‘art experiences,’ which led to more curating, consulting and growing with artists.

— w h a t d o y o u l o o k f o r w h e n y o u s e l e c t a r t i s t s f o r y o u r “ experiences ?” It depends on the concept of the experience. I’m usually drawn to unconventional, process driven work. Art that creates a dialogue about our generation’s identity and environment. With the ‘art escapes,’ the works are meditative, quiet, minimal and likely site-specific installations. KIM WEST Memory MarkerMemory (Vermillion No. 1)

38 39 Create! Magazine — d e s c r i b e w h a t e a c h e v e n t i s l i k e a n d w h a t y o u h o p e v i s i t o r s a n d v i e w e r s g e t f r o m i t . I aim to incorporate some form of silence to each experience.

Art escapes almost always involve sound meditations.

With Erik Otto’s recent opening, SIA hosted a Slow Silent Art Night to encourage a focus on the art of seeing.

For the live painting experience, Sunrise, SIA supplied guests with art tools, and they were encouraged to create alongside Angelo Giokas. Guests expressed, through text and sketches, what keeps them going every day #WhatWakesYouUpInTheMorning.

I hope guests leave each experience or escape feeling different and wanting to explore that. Feeling connected, inspired and perhaps with a new piece of artwork that they want to live with forever. “I hope guests leave each experience or escape feeling different and wanting to explore that.” - P.M. 40 41 Create! Magazine Sunday, November 13th kicks off SIA’s Winter Sunday Conversations at The Three — w h a t a r e y o u r g o a l s f o r s i l e n c e i s a c c u r a t e a n d Jewels. These hour-long sessions will begin with a 15 minute guided meditation. Once w h a t s h o u l d w e b e o n t h e l o o k o u t f o r ? we’re centered and present, we’ll take in the speakers’ presentations and have an open floor conversation. The theme each month will be led by a panel of either artists, curators The best way to keep track of what SIA is up to is through the newsletter, which you may or critics. sign up for on our site. The goal of these talks is for the community to gather, rejuvenate, connect with their Pretty excited about Autumn and Winter 2016! inner creativity, improve mood, emotional intelligence and inspire critical thinking. Erik Otto’s recent paintings and sculpture are currently on view at The Yard Williamsburg My greatest hope is that creating, viewing and living with art brings others as a peaceful through December 15, 2016 (Mondays - Fridays, 11 am - 6 pm). His work explores life’s state of mind as it does me. You could say that’s my goal for Silence Is Accurate. I just constant quest of being and becoming. His skills are insane. want the world to be filled with great art, inspiration, and mindful interactions. I’m curating a group show, ‘Air (Elements)’ opening October 17 through November 5th at 325 West Broadway. The exhibition explores the five-element theory of Chinese philosophy when fused with classic elements.

The artists involved are incredible! Looking forward to experiencing how their works interact, transition and flow within the space.

42 43 Create! Magazine g u e s t c u r a t o r Hannah Stouffer

Hannah Stouffer (b 1981) is an American art director and visual artist living and working in Los Angeles, CA. Born and raised in Aspen, CO, Stouffer relocated to CA in 1999.

With over 15 years experience in fine art and commercial illustration, design, writing, publishing, and curatorial production, Stouffer has proven to be a powerhouse in creative visual media. She is identified as both an art director and visual artist, having maintained a strong presence in both fields, commercially and with her own fine art. Having produced and published 3 contemporary art books, Stouffer is a true tastemaker of visual aesthetics. She is currently a contributing writer for VICE’s Creators Project, while also maintaining her own inspiration source, Lust-After.

In 2015, Stouffer brought her creative vision and expertise to H+ Creative, as the founder of the experiential services agency filling the role of the company’s art director. With H+, Stouffer aimed to create experiences centered on client connectivity through visual production, art direction, consultation, and curation. With abilities are as diverse as the clients she serves, H+ thrives on projects that expand her own conceptual process.

From 2011-2014 Stouffer contributed as the editor for leading art publication Juxtapoz Magazine. As a content creator for nearly four years, Stouffer diligently informed the public through print and media platforms, generating eight online posts per day, and one print feature per month. During this time she produced and curated book titles Juxtapoz Psychedelic and Juxtapoz New Contemporary, in addition to producing the monumental Psychedelic Book Release Exhibition at The Well in Los Angeles, CA.

Before 2011, Stouffer’s career as a commercial and fine art illustrator allowed her work to be commissioned by many high profile clients. Under Jen Vaughn Artist Agency, projects include work for AMEX, Dell, Microsoft, Nike, The New York Times and Wall Street Journal China allowing her creative hand to lead massive campaigns, both nationwide and abroad. Stouffer has been commissioned by Christian Dior, at Art Basel Miami, POW! WOW! Hawaii, KINFOLK in Brooklyn and Pangea Seed in Isla Mujeres, Mexico for large scale site- specific work as well.

With her initial exhibition at the Aspen Art Museum, Stouffer has been showing her work in galleries and museums worldwide since her introduction to visual media. Exhibitions include work at the Japanese American National Museum and The Dallas Museum of Art with solo shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Denver and New York. Stouffer has been present as a juror for the Art Directors Club of Houston and an ambassador of the arts in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, Israel with social startup, Kinetis (to name a few)

www.hpluscreative.com www.hannahstouffer.com

44 45 Create! Magazine — t e l l u s b r i e f l y a b o u t y o u r j o u r n e y a s a n a r t i s t . To be honest, it’s all I’ve ever known and was encouraged to do from a very young age. I’ve w h a t i n s p i r e d y o u t o s t a r t h + c r e a t i v e ? drifted and evolved from a variety of mediums, outputs, and projects and worked as a fine — and commercial artist, illustrator, art director, curator and art writer. I spent four years as the After a good long run as a commercial illustrator, the next viable step seemed to be to extend illustration and erotica editor at Juxtapoz Magazine and am currently a contributing writer my experience in the industry to assist other artists in a similar field. While the landscape of for Vice’s Creators Projects. I recently produced my third visual art book (The New Age of agency and industry work has shifted to more of a digital platform, I’m currently working with Ceramics) and launched a visual agency this year, H+ Creative, representing a roster of top- and representing artists that have a basis in both their own fine artwork and also a drive for tier international talents. That’s about it. I maintain my own art practice and am infinitely doing projects commercially. I’ve always had an infatuation for both the visual arts and the 46 curious. It’s been a good ride thus far. entrepreneurial side of the business, and this allows for both. 47 Create! Magazine — h o w d o e s b e i n g a n a r t d i r e c t o r a n d c o n s u l t a n t i n s p i r e y o u r s t u d i o p r a c t i c e ? It’s really just a further extension of my aesthetic vision and ways in which I can carry my knowledge on. It’s all wrapped up into one nice big, illuminated, holographic, paint covered package. It’s all so intertwined at this point.

— n a m e f e w a r t i s t s o r c r e a t i v e s t h a t h a v e i n f l u e n c e d y o u r w o r k . I wouldn’t even know where to begin, but the start of my career was really fueled by Deanne Cheuk, Si Scott, Andy Warhol and my father, Marty Stouffer.

— W h a t ’ s a t y p i c a l d a y l i k e f o r y o u ? Well, I’m currently drinking tea and typing away on the computer... I’ll probably do this for a little while then take my dog for a run in the park. I’ll make it to the studio and try to wrap my head around a zillion things that all seem to be floating in my mental peripheral. I’ll make a mess, get distracted, make some progress and get outside again for the sunset. I gave up on stress a long time ago, and now I just do what I want. 48 49 Create! Magazine “Creativity can be described as letting go of — s e l e c t e d w o r k s certainties.” Works selected by our guest curator Hannah Stouffer. Hannah Stouffer is an American art director and visual artist living in Los Angeles, California. With over 15 years of fine and commercial art experience, both personal and client-based, Hannah has proven to be a powerhouse and - Gail Sheehy influential tastemaker in visual media.

50 51 Create! Magazine JAIME BRETT TREADWELL

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Jaime Brett Treadwell was born and raised in Drexel Hill, a suburb of Philadelphia. Treadwell studied Painting and Sculpture at the State University of New York at Cortland (1995-99) and earned an MFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania (2002). Treadwell’s work has been exhibited throughout the United States and abroad including New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Boston, South Korea, Vancouver, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dallas, and Chicago. Publications, artist features, and interviews include Juxtapoz Magazine, Hi-Fructose Magazine, New Contemporary (Gingko Press), Blue Canvas Magazine, New American Paintings, JPEOPLE Magazine, Carne Magazine, Direct Art Magazine, Bizzarre Magazine, DVYZE Magazine, Artkolik Magazine, WOWxWOW magazine, Good Game Magazine, Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Miami New Times. Mr. Treadwell lives and works in Philadelphia where he is a full-time Associate Professor of Art at Delaware County Community College.

a l l i m a g e s c o u r t e s y o f j a m e s b r e t t t r e a d w e l l

52 53 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine “I experiment by mashing bizarre

54 55 ingredients* Editor’s Pick together...” Create! Magazine My recent paintings lean toward a series of invented forms, which employ optical deceptions, and often bend the space between ambiguity and certainty. Adopting Op Art tenets, such as shimmering and shifting line and color, and channeling various retro-aesthetics including 80’s nostalgia, sci-fi, futurism, and digital graphics, I experiment by mashing bizarre ingredients together in anticipation of new and unfamiliar interactions.

56 57 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine BRIAN SPOLANS

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I am an artist and instructor based in Southeast Michigan. My work has been exhibited at 500X Gallery in Dallas, Gallery Aferro in New Jersey, Bridge for Emerging Contemporary Arts Gallery in New Orleans, International Print Center of New York, and Published in New American Paintings and Fresh Paint Magazine. I have co-curated the exhibition “Post Apocalypse” at Gallery Project in Ann Arbor, and “Non-Text,” at Eastern Michigan University where I am the area head for printmaking.

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58 59 Create! Magazine I direct my memory towards familiar objects that hold a metaphorical context and then recreate and invent how those objects relate to one another. The images end up representational but symbolic, where the “thingness” of the object is described, but not fully captured or realized. It’s this space, of Uncanny objects, and imitative incompleteness, that I explore.

60 61 Create! Magazine ASHLEY BEVINGTON

w w w . ashleybevington . c o m Ashley Bevington (b. 1990) grew up in the rural lands of Nashville, Ohio. Bevington graduated with her BFA from Columbus College of Art & Design in Columbus, Ohio in 2014. Ashley has participated in many national exhibitions in places such as The Clay Studio of Philadelphia, The Erie Art Museum, The Ohio Craft Museum, and the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center. Bevington has received numerous awards within her field and was awarded a graduate assistantship through Edinboro University’s MFA program. She is expected to graduate in 2017.

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62 63 Create! Magazine My work revolves around the disillusionment of adulthood. As children, we long to be grown-ups. It isn’t until we become adults with responsibilities and analytical tendencies that we realize how good we once had it as children. With added pressure of the media, we tend to have bloated expectations of what our lives should be. I have found that having lowered expectations is a key to happiness. I find the humor in daily negative events in order to avoid ruining a potentially good day. This newly found survival tactic has me utilizing an adolescent aesthetic to regain the pleasure of childhood innocence and playfulness, with a dash of matured melancholy. I coil build the majority of my ceramic sculptures. The pinch marks left behind are similar to stitches holding a wound together. The pinches add a warped/nostalgic feeling to each piece. I use pastel colors as a sense of relief from heavy content.

64 65 Create! Magazine ALLISON BAMCAT

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Allison Bamcat is a contemporary illustrator living in Boston, MA. Using a hyper-flat paint called acryla gouache, Bamcat renders lumpy props and characters suspended in a candy-coated universe, with sentient stuffed animals, botanicals, desserts, and ghosts navigating their way through stark landscapes. The fine craft of her paintings collides with her profession in fashion textile design, resulting in an array of bouncing conversational repeat prints in her range of custom-designed accessories, apparel, and soft goods.

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66 67 Create! Magazine Her hand-sewn bags show her understanding of construction and surface design for a larger commercial audience, while her paintings tell a deeper story of her story as a female artist navigating mental illness. She resides outside of Boston, MA with her husband and two cats. Bamcat enjoys forensic TV shows and peanut butter ice cream.

68 69 Create! Magazine ANNA BELLEFORTE

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Canadian-Dutch artist Anna Belleforte creates aesthetically diverse work exploring the built environment: our attitudes to, the experience of and interaction with architecture, the city, and the broader landscape. Each new series is a new approach in which she aims to uncover or set the stage for stories related to our man-made surroundings, whether in the context of personal or collective experiences. She draws strongly on a professional background in heritage and urban planning. Lives and works in Amersfoort, the Netherlands.

a l l i m a g e s c o u r t e s y o f a n n a b e l l e f o r t e 70 71 Create! Magazine The Architactile series merges soft or organic printed images to create a feeling of space that is more tactile. Through the process of ‘building,’ a new reality is imagined on a 2-dimensional plane, a hyper-realistic architecture that begs to be touched or experienced. The images remain photographic in feel, and mysterious, with some allusion to story potential within the space, but viewers are free to form their own narratives.

72 73 Create! Magazine BEN WILLIS

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Ben Willis was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio and moved to Arizona to pursue his Master’s of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Drawing from the Herberger Institute for Design an the Arts, School of Art at Arizona State University. Professionally Willis is a Painting and Drawing Adjunct Faculty at Phoenix College and Prepartor at Phoenix Art Museum. Ben’s work has been exhibited internationally and across the United States. In 2014 he was awarded a Contemporary Forum Artist Grant and his work was recently published via International Contemporary Artists (Vol. 10), Figure 50 (Season 2), and Studio Visit Magazine (Vol. 24).

a l l i m a g e s c o u r t e s y o f b e n w i l l i s 74 75 Create! Magazine In graduate school, I was largely interested in oil painting and created a series of portraits that identified the community of artists who shaped my experience in the M.F.A. program.

Since then I had to adapt to working full time and managing a studio practice. I grew tired of trying to render form and wanted to... explore more of what I had learned about color relationships, layering, composition, and texture.

The pattern paintings I make now derive from concepts of optical art. In contrast, my use of materials has allowed me to go beyond creating visual depth, adding a third dimension suspending paint, iridescent pigment, and glitter in many layers of resin.

My patterns do not just end in paint. Their repetitive nature “My patterns do has provided a fluid outlet for collage, digital, mixed media, and installation in my work.

76 77 not just end in paint.” Create! Magazine BROOKE LILIA NASSER

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Originally from Honolulu, Brooke graduated with High Honors from Dartmouth College in 2000 for her thesis, a novel entitled AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A GIRL. She earned my MFA in Film Production from USC School of Cinematic Arts in 2007 and has since written and produced short films, feature scripts, and documentaries. She is currently working as a freelance journalist and photographer, having moved from Los Angeles to Maine in December 2015. Her photography has been featured in Asymmetric Magazine (January 2016) and Nakid Magazine’s Artist to Watch series (June 2015). Her poetry has been published online and in print, most recently in Ink, Sweat & Tears (October 2016). Recent writing credits include articles in Desert Magazine, Ladygunn and Rogue Magazine. Her photography was selected for the Western Mountain Juried Exhibition (September 2016) and the LA Municipal Art Gallery’s Biennial Juried Exhibition (June – September 2015).

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78 79 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine “Seeing these film theories in action on the screen

80 81 * Editor’s Pick was electrifying.” Create! Magazine My Moon series features composites that explore the idea of layering light and imagery, the way one naturally does with ink or paint, but I am doing it with photography. I’ve always been fascinated with the way images, when placed side-by-side, can complement or oppose one another or, at times, do both at the same time. This troubling, exciting, complicated relationship was first introduced to me when I was studying film as an undergraduate at Dartmouth College and watching Dziga Vertov and Eisenstein films. Reading about Soviet montage theory and the Kuleshov Effect and then seeing these film theories in action on the screen was electrifying. It started a 20-plus year fascination with juxtaposition and contextualization and layering in art -- and I explore these ideas with not just my filmmaking but with my writing and photography as well.

82 83 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine Montage (aka editing) has been a lynchpin in filmmaking from its very origins, from the moment people sat in a dark theater and thought a train was barreling at top speed from a train station in the French coastal town of La Ciotat through space and time through a barrage of flickering light and sequential images directly into the theater! Sergei Eisenstein, in “A Dialectic Approach to Film Form,” noted that montage is “the nerve of cinema” and felt that understanding montage was key to understanding film. The Kuleshov Effect, demonstrated by Soviet filmmaker Lev Kuleshov in the early 1900s, shows the significance of editing by experimenting with the order of images. Hitchcock and Truffaut took these early experiments and explored montage theory further with their films. With photography, because it is a seemingly static, two- dimensional artistic medium, I have been challenged to find a creative way to explore layering and juxtaposition. This new Moon series is my most recent expression of that challenge. Hegelian Dialectics at work in art!

84 85 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine YURIA OKAMURA

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Yuria Okamura is a Melbourne-based artist who has recently completed Master of Fine Arts (Research) at the Victorian College of the Arts, the University of Melbourne. She has previously graduated from Bachelor of Fine Arts (Honours) in 2010 at RMIT University, Melbourne. In 2016, she was selected for Abbotsford Convent Studio Start-up Residency and Bayside City Council Residency. Yuria 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 SiemensFine Art Scholarship, and Facetnate Visual Art Grant. Yuria has been showing her work in solo and group exhibitions both nationally and internationally, including Five Walls Projects (Melbourne), Rubicon ARI (Melbourne), Kunstraum Tapir (Berlin, Germany), John Buckley Gallery (Melbourne), Langford 120 (Melbourne), Seventh Gallery (Melbourne), Japan Foundation Gallery (Sydney), and Mølla På Grim (Kristiansand, Norway). Her artwork has also been featured in the 12th issue of the Berlin-based Fukt: a magazine for contemporary drawing.

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86 87 Create! Magazine Building on the utopian language of geometry, Yuria’s practice explores abstract drawing’s potential to construct a holistic and expansive worldview. The geometric forms that appear in her work derive from visual elements seen in various systems of knowledge and belief across cultures including scientific illustration, esoteric symbolism, religious architecture and decoration, and also reference the history of abstract painting. Conflating these through deploying cartography, architecture, and gardens as unifying visual metaphors and motifs, her drawings seek to operate as connective and open-ended contemplative spaces. In this way, Yuria invites viewers to harmoniously integrate diverse translations of the world around us.

88 89 Create! Magazine DONNA FESTA

w w w . d o n n a f e s t a . c o m Festa is a graduate of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she earned a four-year certificate in painting, the University of the Arts, also in Philadelphia, where she received a BFA in painting with teacher certification, and the University of Hartford in Hartford, Connecticut, where she received an MFA in painting.

Donna Festa has work in both public and private collections including the State Museum of Pennsylvania. She has exhibited in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Italy, and the UK. Her work has been published in the special edition book Always Home, 7 x 17: An Art Publication, Issue 1, June 2016, Agave Magazine, vol.3 Issue 2, 2016, Fresh Paint Magazine, February 2016, Quantum Art Review, January 2016, Artvoices Magazine, 7th Anniversary Issue, 2014, Expose Art Magazine, December 2014, Lunch Ticket, Winter/Spring2015, Cleaver Magazine, December, 2013, Fresh Paint Magazine, October, 2013, INPA, vol. 1, 2011, INPA, vol. 2, 2012, and New American Paintings, Mid-Atlantic Region vol. 51, 2004.

Her studio is in her home in Bangor, Maine.

a l l i m a g e s c o u r t e s y o f d o n n a f e s t a

90 91 90 Create! Magazine “We all have them. Those heavy burdens that we carry with us...”

We all have them. Those heavy burdens that we carry with us making our shoulders droop. We push them down, far away from the surface. Bury them with food, drink, pills. Meanwhile, they make our hips wider, our hair grayer, our worry lines deeper. But we manage. Just manage.

92 93 Create! Magazine ANNE CECILE SURGA

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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 200 she entered her first drawing and painting class. She learned classical rules of compositions, anatomy, and harmony of colors along with different techniques such as drawing, pastel, China ink and oil painting. This first classical study of art would be the foundation for the artistic development to come.

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94 95 Create! Magazine Through my art practice, I aim at exploring the values inherent to human nature. I am extremely interested in the question of the definition of the self and how much the social context in which we evolve is responsible in shaping our image. As a woman artist, I am slightly more focused on defining women’s identity. The current consumption society sends out tonnes of messages to every human, thus influencing how we see ourselves and how we want to define ourselves.

I believe there is a psychological triangle between who we really are, what society tells us to be, and the image of ourselves we decide to project onto society. The realization of the self is often placed as the ultimate goal or success in life, and I am exploring whether or not this can be perceptible knowing that we are not 100% in control of who we are. The majority of my works is inspired by the human body. However, instead of following exact anatomic rules, I deform the bodies and proportions, I twist and turn them in order to express my different messages.

I like to create different levels of interpretation in my works, thus giving keys to the viewer to understand the subject I address without offering one single interpretation of the artwork. Each artwork becomes public as soon as it is offered to the viewer’s eyes, and I leave it to the viewer to construct his or her understanding of what is in front of him.

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. This was also the period when she took all the opportunities offered to her to travel and discover the world. Her travels brought her to live in countries such as Mexico, Turkey, in Florida, and in Singapore; and she traveled to even more countries. In 2012, she went to New York City where she graduated with a Master in Art History. Because of her exposure to a multitude of aesthetics and cultures, Anne Cecile is inclined to develop a universal artistic style: a style that aims to be understandable by most people, an art that speaks directly to the heart of the viewer.

In 2013 Anne Cecile stayed at the Fundacion Pablo Atchugarry, Uruguay where she learned how to cut marble. Following this experience marble becomes her favorite material, but she will keep on creating with other material such as papier mache, plaster, and steel. In 2015, she decided to entirely dedicate her life to her artistic practice and open her studio in the Pyrenean Mountains in France. Little did she know these mountains were full of marble as well. She thus integrated French marble to her practice, while keeping on working on Carrara marble.

96 97 Create! Magazine ALAN SINGER

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Alan Singer is an artist, writer, and professor at the School of Art at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. “Both of my parents were working artists, and I learned the most from watching them create. Along with painting and printmaking, watercolor is one of my favorite mediums, and I now teach digital art at R.I.T.. My art has been featured in exhibitions at The Smithsonian in Washington D.C., The Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, MA, and the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse, NY with numerous solo and group shows in galleries primarily in the east.

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98 99 Create! Magazine The artwork I have submitted here for Create Magazine is a blend of art and mathematics. I use programs to help me visualize data, and then I make these transfer monoprints on moist paper that is passed through my etching press to make a good impression.

100 101 Create! Magazine VIRGINIA CHIANG

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Virginia Chiang was born in Virginia and grew up in California. She lived in Los Angeles where she attended the Art Center College of Design and CalArts for fine art and later went on to work various corporate jobs in art and design for the next decade. In 2016, Virginia started making art again. She lives in New York City.

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102 103 Create! Magazine My work is, at the root of it all, a fascination with material objects. It is gathering tangible goods--the functional and accessible objects around me--and dissecting them, messing with them, rendering them dysfunctional or sometimes even more useful...but just in a different way. The viewer is welcomed and invited to examine the results of these experiments by touching, playing, and INTERACTING with them.

I convert objects. I pervert them. I transform them. I imbue them with a renewed purpose that I hope tickles the viewer. Or confuses them. Either way, I hope they’re unable to look at the object the same way again. If so, it is at that moment, the viewer and I are on the same wavelength, crossing space and time to occupy the same point on this earth.

“I convert objects. I pervert them. I transform them.”

104 105 Create! Magazine GARRY D HARLEY

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This series of digital paintings was created using adjacent values, selective areas of colors and lines to create a visual illusion of surface, light, form, space, movement and depth. Each final digital painting is issued as an original (only one).

The tools used in this work were digital, and the printing method is digital printing using the metal sublimation process.

This series is titled FLUIDIZATION….the images are inspired by a process called fluidization which refers to a process where a static, solid-like state changes to a dynamic fluid-like state.

106 107 Create! Magazine Graham Wallas (The Art of Thought) suggests that the creation process includes… preparation, incubation, inspiration, and elaboration. Of these, my work has also been inspired by the works of Josef Albers, Anuszkiewicz, Birren and others and rests on the foundation set forth in The Principals of Harmony and Contrast of Colors and Their Application to the Arts (1855), by Michel E. Chevreul and Charles Martel.

This original work is my personal version of beauty and perfection – this work is from my experience, capability, efforts, and soul. The viewer must bring his or her emotions to make the final connection and find meaning.

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108 109 Create! Magazine DIANE PRIBOJAN

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Diane received her BFA at the Cleveland Institute of Art in drawing and her MFA at Kent State University in painting. She has exhibited her work throughout the northeastern US in solo and group exhibitions. Diane also won the Postmark America Design contest for the post office in Hinckley, Ohio, her hometown. Also, recently she has received a corporate commission at Acme Corporation in Akron, Ohio. Diane is represented by Harris Stanton Gallery in Cleveland and Akron, Ohio.

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110 111 Create! Magazine The house has been Diane’s primary focus lately. Narrowing in on one subject has allowed her to explore and expand on one idea. This focus has caused an explosion of ideas to manifest. In order not to get overwhelmed, she keeps a sketchbook to capture all of her ideas. Along with her interests now, her work is rooted in her past work and influences including the Cubists and Constructivists. She associated with these movements because of the creating and flattening of space, use of color and minimalist qualities.

112 113 Create! Magazine EVIE ZIMMER

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Evie Zimmer is an American artist creating and teaching in Cleveland, Ohio. Her early work consists mainly of traditional portrait paintings, although she had always been drawn to the intricate design and energetic beauty of op-art. Eventually, Evie began to explore her op- art fascination and her work blossomed into her current mesmerizing style. Evie’s work has been described as a “strange loop” of process and product. Her oil paintings radiate an inherent energy field, not unlike traditional mandalas with acidic colors transforming into soothing pastels, and geometric patterns melting into exotically organic shapes. Recently, Evie’s paintings have become more floral and symmetric yet still maintain her unique and recognizable abstract style.

Evie is quite active in the arts community both locally and nationally. Her work has been shown, sold, and published across the country including New York City, Art Basel Miami, various publications and online shows, and digital billboard displays in Baltimore and on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood. Evie is constantly creating new work from her studio in Euclid, Ohio where she welcomes visitors and students.

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114 115 Create! Magazine I have always been an artist. As early as I can remember, I have been drawing and painting. It was a comfort during a difficult childhood and my quiet meditation now. My early work focused on portraits of loved ones and gradually evolved into colorful abstracted faces. From that, my work matured into a visual expression of the non-visual; music, energy, thoughts, and emotion.

Although I have experimented with many mediums, I prefer the vibrancy and versatility of oil paint. It allows me to make smooth gradations as well as hard edges. The scale is also very important. I believe the large size of my paintings allows the viewer to feel enveloped by the work.

I am very meticulous and meditative in my process. Similar to the creation of sand mandalas by the Buddhists, I express my gratitude and sincere appreciation for life and love while I work. New ideas blossom from this reactionary process where I try to balance the polarity of nature and the human experience; often combining geometric patterns with organic shapes and cool colors with warm.

My influences are simple, Op Art. I love it. Although I adore all forms of art, I always find myself standing in front of a Vasarely or an Anuszkiewicz painting much longer than any other. The vivid colors, intricate designs and visual energy are mesmerizig.

“New ideas blossom from this 116 117 reactionary process”Create! Magazine FENG GUO

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Feng Guo was born in 1989 in China, and now lives and works in Brooklyn NY. Feng received his MFA from the Pratt Institute in New York in 2015. Feng held his first solo exhibition at 57w57arts gallery in New York in 2016. Recent exhibitions include BWAC Gallery, Brooklyn NY; First Street Gallery, New York NY; Silvermine Arts Center, New Canaan CT; and Jacob K. Javits Center, New York NY

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118 119 Create! Magazine 120 121 Create! Magazine JOSHUA FLINT

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Joshua Flint received a BFA from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in 2002. Flint has exhibited extensively in the US at galleries such as Robert Lange Studios in Charleston, Sloane Merrill Gallery in Boston, and La Luz de Jesus Gallery in LA. His work has been featured in American Art Collector, Southwest Art, and Poets and Artists. He is currently an Associate Professor at the Pacific Northwest College of Art and resides in Portland, Oregon.

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122 123 Create! Magazine Flint’s work is based on images curated from many sources such as digitized museum archives, vintage shops, and social media platforms. The paintings fluctuate between the familiar and the unknown while simultaneously including the past and present. By rearranging the hierarchy of elements, the paintings become fictions that allow countless interpretations. Layered into works are references to liminality, ecological issues, neuroscience, psychological states, and the history of painting, among others.

The images sourced from out-of-date materials hold a special fascination. Much like observing the ruins of an old, grand building or a church in a state of decay, the characters and objects that populate his paintings are employed to create a sense of ephemerality, imbuing the work with a kind of fascination and disquiet, over the passage of time. Used in this way they serve as reminders that cutting edge trends and novelty will evolve into new iterations or be abandoned altogether. In addition, most of the photos incorporated into the works do not contain elements that were directed or photographed by the artist, all of which allows a certain distance to reinterpret as he sees fit. Flint says, “I can see this person or place in a photograph but know nothing about what is going on beyond those paper borders. That ambiguity, between the seen and unseen, between the real and the imaginary, is where my paintings live.”

124 125 Create! Magazine KEN WOOD

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Ken Wood’s recent solo exhibitions include ‘Snakes and Ladders’ at the Sidney Larson Gallery in Columbia, MO (2016), ‘Each to Other’ at Fort Gondo in St Louis (2015), and ‘Scripta Volant (Written Words Fly)’ at the Print Center, Philadelphia (2014). He has shown his work at the International Print Center New York, the Contemporary Art Museum St Louis, Normal Editions Workshop in Normal, IL, the Luminary in St Louis, Manifest Gallery in Cincinnati, Big Medium Gallery in Austin, Flatbed Press and Gallery in Austin, Wonder Fair Gallery in Lawrence, KS, the Leedy-Voulkos Art Center in Kansas City, and the Aqua Art Fair in Miami. His work has been published in Art in Print, Graphic Impressions, The HAND Magazine, and Fresh Paint Magazine, and his paintings and prints have been included in the collections of Twitter, STL Venture Works, Rice University, and the cruise line The Norwegian. He lives in St Louis, MO.

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126 127 Create! Magazine In recent prints, I have explored the relationship of line to line and color to color using big, simple gestures. In the ‘Writ Large’ series I used a set number of plates and printed them in different combinations and orientations (and with different colors and levels of opacity), trying to play up contrasts of saturation, color, and gesture while creating structure and space on the page. Each plate consists of a single gesture painted on with large brush tools that I make myself. These marks are applied using a thick mixture of carborundum and acrylic medium, thus maximizing their texture. The large scale of the line and the detail of the texture invite scrutiny; I’m trying to get people to stop and pay attention to what three simple, distilled lines can convey.

128 129 Create! Magazine KIRINI KOPCKE

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Kirini Kopcke is an artist and educator living and working in New York City. Before that, she studied and lived in Oxford, UK for seven years. She holds a combined BA and MA in History and Politics from Oxford University (Christ Church) as well as a Master’s in Contemporary Arts from Oxford Brookes.

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130 131 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine 132 133 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine “Simultaneously compelling and repulsing...”

Kirini’s practice explores materialism and plenty. Simultaneously compelling and repulsing, her works depict a heightened reality dripping with excess and full of fantastically shiny things scaled to improbable sizes. She is particularly interested in the emptiness of these dazzling objects: how an object - a rhinestone, a plastic pearl - can mimic preciousness so keenly but be essentially worthless, tacky. Her work necessarily places femininity - girlhood and womanhood - at the center of this exploration of materialism, addressing questions about what we value, collect, and wear from a feminist perspective.

134 135 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine Using found digital images, often blurry screenshots, she layers image over image in Photoshop before painting the final work onto canvas or board. This process brings to her painted a pronounced digital quality: pixels are sometimes visible, edges are jaggedly cut, and stock gradients are frequently incorporated. This embrace of the digital places her work firmly in the now and raises questions about what is real and what is manipulated or created. In painting these digital - and thus ephemeral - images, she seeks to re-evaluate that which is false, tacky, and feminine.

136 137 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine LEE MUSGRAVE w w w . leemusgrave . c o m

Lee Musgrave is the recipient of an American National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, and his work has been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions. He specializes in abstract painting and photography. His paintings were featured in a major exhibit at the Museum of Northwest Art last year, and he recently received several international awards for his abstract photography which was featured in the Berlin Foto Biennale in Berlin, Germany and in Novus Conceptum at the Hannah Burch Gallery, Houston, TX. Lee lives in High Prairie, Washington.

138 a l l i m a g e s c o u r t e s y o f l e e m u s g r av e 139 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine By selecting and isolating settings from their context, I pull images from reality into vernacular abstraction. In this way, the photographs explore the relationship between impartial objects and personal perception, focusing on the subtleties that produce multiple layers of experience.

Though my photography is considered abstract, it is completely realistic. I use realism as a medium – as a means to record my personal non-verbal responses to what I see before me and how immersion in it makes me feel whole. I am primarily a romantic who through selective cropping of realistic images reveals my personal inner world of mystical experiences.

The only computer processes applied to my photographs is the cleaning or cloning over of small distractive spots.

While chance runs counter to most people’s conceptions of art, it has been a vital component of it since its very beginning, and the images I capture are evocative of that history.

To me, the inescapable appeal of these images is immediate and expressive of spontaneous gestures that are based on insights gained from my many years of creating abstract work.

Most contemporary photography has been occupied with recurrent narrative, political and gender-based themes… and probably always will be. When it turns inward to express beauty and visual aesthetic pleasure it usually drifts toward surrealism and fantasy, but still well within the representational genre. At the root of those creative processes is the sixth sense of instinctive intellectual drive. It flashes before our eyes, holds us and pulls us in and says ‘don’t miss this.’ That trice is what abstract photography is all about. It goes directly toward one’s inner thoughts, makes us pause and takes us beyond provocation and coincidence to a visual epistle that transcends our fundamental understanding of life.

140 141 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine It is my habit to crush or cut up waste materials before discarding them and often I throw some of it onto a light pad in search for serendipitous “visual” surprises. If what I see holds my attention I photograph it. By chance among the objects on the pad the day the Fiddle Diddle Series was photographed were a rubber gasket, three different gauges of wire and several bits of plastic wrappers (including the red bean image). Seven days later, when I shot the Joyous Misbehavin’ images on the pad were parts of a child’s pinwheel, several broken objects including flower shaped hair clips, hors d’oeuvres picks, a bubble wand, plastic shot classes, spoons, and a knife as well as the rubber gasket and some of the assorted wrappers.

The light passing through and around these odd assortments of objects held them together in an engaging way and created a wonderful array of color tints and tones. I photographed each random grouping then shook the pad to see if the effect held in a new arrangement. It did, so I photographed them again and repeated that process several times… occasionally adding and or discarding objects as I proceeded… ending with these two enchanting series whose visual appeal transcends their social statement about our consumer-centric society and concentrates instead on the elegance found within the chaos.

The resulting photographs provide an opportunity for viewers to embrace unpredictability within an approach that values intuition and expressionism… where serendipitous encounters channel risk in the experience of observing and honoring the historic art principle of ‘taking advantage of chance.’

Cropping the photographs is my way of featuring their individual charisma and creating dynamic compositions of visual aesthetics. Further, I prefer a visual language that explores and refines the shallow picture plane and cropping accentuates that preference.

My objective is to place the viewer at the moment with each image; to suspend them between imagination and reality thereby suggesting the unseen: those elemental phenomena we live by like vim, verve, and oomph.

142 143 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine LING CHUN

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Ling Chun (b. 1990) born in Hong Kong, a society that built upon a hybrid system of western and eastern. A foreign exchange program brought her to the United States at the age of seventeen. She then earned her BFA in visual communication design and ceramics from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2012 and her MFA in ceramics from Rhode Island School of Design in 2016. Chun has been focusing on the physicality of materials separating from their stereotype and cultural reference by questioning their authentic use and redefining them in her language. She has been an artist in residence 2012-13 at Seward Park Clay Studio in Seattle, Washington, a summer artist resident at Arquetopia in Puebla, Mexico in 2015 and c.r.e.t.a.rome, Italy in 2016.

She is now a current long-term resident 2016-17 of Archie Bray Foundation, Helena, Montana, where she continuous her studio practice.

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144 145 Create! Magazine As an object maker, my acts of making are driven by spontaneous gesture and expression and informed by the multifaceted nature of both my cultural identity and my studio practie—ceramics, color, painting, and hair. Ultimately, my intention is to activate my chosen materials in such a way that they become conductors of new meaning.

146 147 Create! Magazine MATHEW TUCKER

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Mathew was born In Harpenden, United Kingdom where he lived with his sister and parents until the age of two. He was then brought up, and Educated in U.A.E (Abu Dhabi), Qatar, Bahrain, St. Lucia and England as his family moved around due to the nature of his father’s work. Mathew first studied Art and Design at West Surrey College of Art and Design and later at London College of Printing (London Institute). He then lived and worked in London for ten years before moving to Ireland in 2006 to teach surfing and to study for a BA (Hons) degree in Fine Art at Sligo Institute of Technology. In 2014 Mathew moved to New York City to study an MFA at Hunter College as a painter, graduating in May 2016. He now lives and works in New York, and his studio is located on the waterfront in RedHook, Brooklyn.

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148 149 Create! Magazine As a painter, I am interested in the built environment and the forms, shapes and perimeters of the spaces, places and non-places we define. There are numerous formal, material and compositional elements that inform my work but mostly it is an attempt to unearth some kind of understanding of myself and my sense of place. As someone who travelled extensively as a child my sense of home has always been very fixed to an internal sense of familiarity and never to a physical location as defined on a map. As such, my paintings are a way for me to question my surroundings and the definition of space that we collectively impose on ourselves. I am most interested in spaces that might be considered non-places or that are fairly utilitarian like subway stations or gateways and barriers that divide space and either refuse or control access. These spaces are often transient in nature and may serve either as connecting blocks or conversely as barriers to other places. My work is deeply rooted in the conversation between photography and painting and I use my own photographic images as a framework from which to build each painting. The resulting paintings are a departure from the source image that dismisses the illusion of the photograph and highlights the structure, materiality and building process of the painting itself.

150 151 Create! Magazine MICHAEL DRUMOND

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Michael Drumond (b.1993) is a Brazilian-born artist currently living in New York City. He is set to finish his Fine Arts education at the School of Visual Arts this Fall.

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152 153 Create! Magazine I work with the idea of undeniable beauty. I believe that there are various things in the world we, as humans, can all agree are beautiful. Beginning from this idea I then explore aesthetics though juxtapositions such as past/ present, dark/light, sad/happy and so on. Anything considered ugly can be transformed into beauty.

154 155 Create! Magazine MOLLY CATHERINE SCANNELL

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I love making art in every capacity - whatever time allows. I love people, so much. In fact, that might be a secret of mine, don’t tell anyone. ;) It’s the uniqueness and individualism we all poses as humans, and we are so fragile and so intellectually beautiful all at the same time.

I’ll take an excerpt from a previous article because I feel so strongly about it:

“I am reminded of the moment that I decided I truly liked what I was making/creating/doing. It felt natural and like ‘home.’ It’s important in life to embrace the moments that you have; they are all unique and will never present themselves in the same light again. Pause, take note, be inspired and apply yourself.”

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156 157 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine “The reality of my work is that I ‘make’ for myself.”

158 159 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine The reality of my work is that I ‘make’ for myself. I think most artists do, whats the real point then? Perhaps that is selfish, perhaps its self- preservation - I’m not sure how to comment other than its incredibly satisfying and activates endorphins in my brain like running 5 miles or rowing 10 miles. It’s working my emotional/creative being hard. I do enjoy the benefits of other people enjoying my art and finding the use for it. That is a huge bonus!

Marshall Arisman, whom I met my freshman year in collage as an illustration major, said it best: “You either lead the work you do, or you follow it. And if you follow it, it will take you somewhere.” It’s not about what that somewhere is but the road you take to that somewhere.

I’m on a journey and so excited to see where I am headed each day, week, month, year!

160 161 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine NERS NEONLUMBERJACK

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NERS Neonlumberjack bikes suburban neighborhoods and city streets collecting detritus, visits museums, and galleries, enjoys landscaping and art making, yet...

NERS Neonlumberjack would enjoy nothing more than to hike or canoe deep into the wilderness to camp for months at a time; learning, exploring, and admiring the natural world ecstatic at the glimpse of a majestic deer, bear, magnificent tree, crystal encrusted geode or fluorescent dinosaur while living off of chocolate and roasted marshmallows.

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162 163 Create! Magazine Ners is an impulsive, embodied practice. Ners aims for small pleasures; does not strive for great substantiality; values expendable details; prizes invention and imagination, delights in risk- taking for its own sake; values personal vision and peculiarity; is unselfconscious; shows the signs of eager, industrious activity; and often results in becoming precious. Ners has caste-off beauty; encourages innovation; and repurposes associations. Ners likes to start an argument by being focused or maybe even one-sided; is low-tech, modest in scale without being modest in thought, made with found objects and materials. Ners maintains involvement in a small area without point or aim; concentrates on pinning down one moment without glamorizing it, but using a whisper; forgets accomplishments and moves on as soon as it has passed; feeling that most is superfluous. 164 165 Create! Magazine RACHEL STRUM

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Rachel Strum is a contemporary artist based in Taos, New Mexico. While her earlier works were heavily grounded through the mediums of installation and sculpture, Rachel is currently revisiting painting as her medium of choice. Through the manipulation of space and color as her visual language, she investigates the relations of abstract and representational, elusive vs. tangible, and the realms that exist in between. On the cusp of vivid landscapes, Rachel’s Colorscapes series is inspired by the universal constants; transition, growth, and adaptation.

Rachel is originally from New York and studied at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan where she received a BFA in Fine Arts in 2007.

a l l i m a g e s c o u r t e s y o f r a c h e l s t r u m 166 167 Create! Magazine 168 169 Create! Magazine REBECCA RUTSTEIN

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A Philadelphia-based artist whose work spans painting, installation, and sculpture, Rebecca Rutstein explores geometric abstraction with a vision inspired by science and scientific data. Rutstein has been an Artist-in-Residence in geologically dynamic locations including Iceland, Hawaii, the Canadian Rockies and Vermont. Most recently, she completed two “Artist at Sea” Residencies aboard science research ships where she collaborated with scientists mapping out never-before- seen seafloor topography from the Galápagos Islands to California and exploring uncharted territory from Vietnam to Guam.

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170 171 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine Rutstein has exhibited widely in galleries, museums, and institutions, and has received numerous awards including a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, Pew Professional Development Grant, Ocean Exploration Trust Fellowship, Independence Foundation Fellowship and Pennsylvania Council on the Arts grants. She has garnered recent attention through radio interviews on NPR and Hawaii Public Radio, and with features in Vice Magazine, Huffington Post, Philadelphia Magazine, Philadelphia Inquirer, Artblog, Fresh Paint Magazine and New American Paintings. Her work can be found in public collections including Johns Hopkins Hospital, Nordstrom, Fox Chase Cancer Center, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and Temple University where recently completed her first permanent, outdoor public art commission.

172 173 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine Rebecca Rutstein holds a BFA (Magna Cum Laude) from Cornell University (with abroad study in Rome, Italy) and an MFA from University of Pennsylvania. She has been a visiting artist at Universities across the country and conducted ship-to-shore outreach with museums world-wide. Rutstein is represented by Bridgette Mayer Gallery in Philadelphia and Zane Bennett Contemporary/Form & Concept in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

174 175 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine SHANNON FANNIN

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Shannon was born in Long Beach, California. She earned a college scholarship to pursue an art teaching degree for teaching special needs children. However, life had other plans. She put becoming an artist on hold for marriage, a career in marketing, and raising a family. Using her portfolio for a resume, she taught elementary school art for two years through a private academy.

After a 25 year hiatus from an art career, Shannon returned to school to refresh her abilities. She took a handful of courses to reacquaint herself with mediums and started to build on her expressionistic style. Being a great fan of color, Shannon prefers working largely in many media including pastel, charcoal, watercolor, gouache, ink, and acrylic and usually combines many of them in mixed media pieces. She enjoys bringing chrome and carbon fiber alive through her vehicle paintings, conveying the human form and imagined still lifes. Her eclectic nature allows her to create work that simply makes her happy. She lives in Austin with her husband of 26 years and their college student son.

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176 177 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine “Cars... they are mobile sculptures that reflect the journeys of their travelers in both reality and dream.”

Who are we when nobody is looking? Most of us go about our lives often concealing our inner selves from the world. One indication of our true personality is the car we drive or even dream of someday owning. Similar to the abstracted images visible in chrome or carbon fiber, outside influences manipulate and form our character.

My works reveal the distorted reflections within us all.

Cars are more than appliances to get us from Point A to B – they are mobile sculptures that reflect the journeys of their travelers in both reality and dream. Just as we focus on the curvaceous figure of a beautiful model, we admire cars for their initial appearance – drawn in by beauty but captivated by the depth of character. My art reveals the hidden stories and nuances of each automotive personality to the viewer, connecting them with the unknown world of the car and their memories.

178 179 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine To truly connect with the physical realm of each vehicle so that I may better understand their stories, I manipulate the canvas with brush, fingers, and hands. Every abstract line, smudge and dull shadow is a hint into the vastness of the story unfolding. From a distance, the viewer believes one perception, upon approach, more is revealed – the lie their eyes have told them becomes a reality. Incomplete visage is manipulated by the observer’s imagination – tree becomes smear, human becomes segmented shapes, the story something new with each step.

I live for the moment that the optical illusion is realized by the viewer, with a smile or a laugh – success!

My paintings marry nostalgia for cars with the love of art. My art is a collision of the human components of imagination and fantasy garnering a visual and emotional response from both car and art lovers alike.

180 181 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine STELLA DIMING ZHONG

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182 183 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine Stella Diming Zhong is a multimedia artist based in New York. Originally from Southern China, she has lived in Beijing, the UK and most recently the US. She received a BFA in Glass from Rhode Island School of Design in 2015. Having grown up internationally, distance and detachment lie at the core of her work. She discovers and constructs peculiar spaces in which the architecture and objects within induce remote and unfamiliar feelings. Zhong’s work has been exhibited and published internationally. Her first solo show night was held in Peninsula Art Space, NY in March 2016. She was included in the 10 Emerging Chinese Artists to Watch on Sina Contemporary.

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184 185 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine One night, I was taking a walk after dinner in a small town in Nepal. The sky was strikingly clear after a day of rain. I looked up, and I was amazed: the sky was covered with stars all the way down to the skyline, and they seemed extremely close. I stopped to enjoy it. But after a while I realized what I was looking at were not stars, but lights from the houses that spread over the mountains that were so high that blocked half of the sky.

A couple of days later, I was on the top of one of those mountains. Clouds hovered below the peaks, and as it got dark, I was astonished again: beneath the porch, there was nothing but endless stars…

I believe in my eyes. And they believe in wonders.

“I believe in my eyes. And they believe in wonders.” 186 187 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine SID DANIELS

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Sid Daniels was born in 1951, in Toronto, Canada. He drew stick figures of women in dresses from an early age.

He majored in Painting and Design and Fashion Illustration at The Ontario College of Art from 1970 to 1974, and also during this period he experimented with geometric architectural paintings, formatting his hard-edge technique style. His progression to larger works always glorified the female figure as his central character. The influence of nostalgia, fashion from the 1940s, Big Band Swing music, and MGM technicolor movie musicals was so important to Sid as influential catalysts that impacted his creative imagination. Shoes were always included in his paintings, hence his part time job working in his family’s shoe store and doodling shoes on sales receipts all of the time, so shoes became a trademark to his style.

Growing restless in Toronto, he made his way to New York City, and in 1979, at the hight and euphoria of the Disco Era, Sid immediately immersed himself into the community, joining forces with trendy Fiorucci, bringing his life-size women to life on wooden in-store display fixtures, that landed him a cover on Look Magazine. The Ann Taylor Department Store shopping bag and a greeting card line for Rockshots, also in 1979, led to his working for a series of hotel and restaurant mural assignments that included “Las Paras” in Yokohama, The Zanzibar Nightclub, The Holiday Inn, Marshall Fields’ Olympics-themed store window paintings and Bloomingdales.

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188 189 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine GUDRUN LATTEN

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Gudrun Latten is a docent at the Art Academy Esslingen and teaches art at a private secondary school in Germany. She has a University Degree in Art History and History. She is a member of several artist societies among them GEDOK and she promotes young (female) artists with a scholarship in one of this artist societies. Since 2014 Gudrun Latten has shown her photographs and videos in Venice (Italy), New York (USA), Los Angeles (USA), Buenos Aires (ARGENTINA), Paris (France), London (UK) and other countries. She has also won several awards for her photographs. She has been selected for various interviews, catalogues and magazines (international). She has already published various essays and texts in the scientific field of Art History and in the field of Art Criticism.

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190 191 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine In December 2013 I bought a camera and began taking photographs. I’m concentrating on architectural photography, abstract photography, landscapes and staged scenes. I discuss aesthetic problems and questions with my photographs and videos. Research topics are so far the (digital) image and all its qualities, (digital) color, reality and illusion, art historical genres, pluralism in style, the ambiguity of signs, logic, gender issues and cultural issues as well as issues of identity. My videos are about figurative art and abstraction, digital color and movement. I visualize abstract content with figures. I like the idea of sensing pleasure in seeing moving colors. My ideal for art is several Surrealists and Cindy Sherman.

“I like the idea of sensing pleasure in seeing moving colors.”

192 193 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine The series »Dépaysment – Dreamtravelling through my living room« treats a new way of seeing the living room in which I’ve been living for years. I see all my personal belongings through the eyes of a child, I don’t know how to handle them correctly, and I find new functions for them. Everything seems strange and foreign. I treat childish habits. They appear to be cruel and beautiful at the same time. The tradition of Baroque Still Life is also essential to my pictures. Architectural photographs are all about geometry and the plain surface of my pictures. »# 4676« also treats individuality and mass culture. The video »extreme desires – in the mirror, leathery surfaces and under the ground« has two levels: one is narrative and about contemporary human behavior the other level is about the video itself, its material and its speed. I treat the idea that one wants to be different than others and becomes monstrous. The named desires should be perceptible when watching the video. I wanted to address desires which one doesn’t encounter in everyday life. The pictures deceive, and there is always more to it than is clear on first sight.

194 195 * Editor’s Pick Create! Magazine HAYLEY QUENTIN

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Born in Los Angeles, Hayley studied at Otis College of Art and Design, where she received a BFA with Honors. She has since spent seven years living and working in Europe, mainly in the UK and France. She has recently returned to Los Angeles where she currently resides.

Hayley’s work has been featured in Fresh Paint Magazine (issue 11), and has exhibited both nationally and internationally, most recently as a part of California Open at TAG Gallery in the Bergamot Station Arts Center in Los Angeles.

a l l i m a g e s c o u r t e s y o f h ay l e y q u e n t i n

196 197 Create! Magazine Hayley Quentin’s paintings challenge the conventional representation of male beauty and eroticism in art. Her ethereal facture is characterized by the interplay of diffuse and saturated oil colors, working together to create a lens through which the viewer sees the painted body. From jewel-like watercolors to larger-than-life-size portraiture, Hayley repurposes traditional art-making processes to explore her vision of male representation in contemporary art.

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