Artist Interviews:
Annie Murphy Robinson was born in 1967. She has a BFA from the University of Southwestern Louisiana (94) and an MA from Sacramento State University (2002)
She works figuratively and mainly with her two daughters. Her work is about that space of youth where "magic" unfolds. Defining identity through experimentation, ie) the clothing, the gaze and the pose among other things. Also prevalent is the relationship with animals and the magic that happens in that connection.
At the emotional level of her work, her main focus is to convey truth and honesty, of herself and her children.
Her work allows the viewer to glimpse a private world of the female- hesitant, insecure and often unaware of the power that they hold. Her own experience as a young adult was both beautiful and traumatic. This dark period of her life is always prevalent in her work in one way or another. She does not run from her past – her art helps her to recognize the importance of it and makes it worthwhile. Through drawing she takes the power out of the trauma.
Her secondary concern is with beauty; aching, haunting and desirable. Everything matters, the wrinkles of the dress, the stains, the fur of the animals and the gaze. More often than not, her subjects meet the eyes of the viewer- inviting them to look and to connect with their own experience and vulnerability.
She works figuratively and mainly with her two daughters. Her work is about that space of youth where "magic" unfolds. Defining identity through experimentation, ie) the clothing, the gaze and the pose among other things. Also prevalent is the relationship with animals and the magic that happens in that connection.
At the emotional level of her work, her main focus is to convey truth and honesty, of herself and her children.
Her work allows the viewer to glimpse a private world of the female- hesitant, insecure and often unaware of the power that they hold. Her own experience as a young adult was both beautiful and traumatic. This dark period of her life is always prevalent in her work in one way or another. She does not run from her past – her art helps her to recognize the importance of it and makes it worthwhile. Through drawing she takes the power out of the trauma.
Her secondary concern is with beauty; aching, haunting and desirable. Everything matters, the wrinkles of the dress, the stains, the fur of the animals and the gaze. More often than not, her subjects meet the eyes of the viewer- inviting them to look and to connect with their own experience and vulnerability.
Gabriela Handal is a Panamanian artist that moved to New York City in late 2013 to study at the New York Academy of Art, and graduated in 2015 as a draughtsman with a concentration in anatomy.
During her two years at the Academy she was able to come to the conclusion that her work was about the human body and what it feels like to be an adult human female. It was a depressive maze of femme fatales, strong but not threateningly strong women, super hyper sexy, “feminine” and “girlish”, always feeding from the dynamic so common between men and women, where the man is always the protective authority figure and the woman is the spunky, perky, cute, adorable, clumsy and helpless little pet with a high pitched voice.
Cementing the love for the human figure through anatomical study has not stopped, and she continues to explore and come to terms with being an adult bipedal female. She produced the most recent body of work since graduating, a series of selfportraits as a victim of abuse, in which an external force in the form of a rope or a huge man hand enter the picture plane and harm her in some way. The work started as a way of dealing with unsavory experiences in previous relationships and has become a reminder of her submissive woman behavior throughout her life, in previous relationships and in society.
The body of work that has recently started, maybe in opposition to the victim, or in conjunction, because they are interchangeable a lot of times, is a series of selfportraits as a whore. And “whore” only because that is what she is perceived as. “Slut”, “asking for it”, “cunt”, “bitch” or any name applied to a woman that wants to own or explore her sexuality, be assertive or confident or even just like herself a little bit. This series of selfportraits explores this ground of the not submissive woman, not embarrassed to be naked, not hiding, not trying to be skinny or “tight”, but whatever feels good for herself.
Her medium of choice is graphite or charcoal over paper, because it is such versatile medium. She has the capability of being extremely precious with a drawing and develop it as much as she wants or make drawing over drawing, erase and draw, use sanding paper, brushes and charcoal powder. She has her choice in this very dense spectrum, where she can pick and choose with the precision of a pencil sharpened to a point like a scalpel.
During her two years at the Academy she was able to come to the conclusion that her work was about the human body and what it feels like to be an adult human female. It was a depressive maze of femme fatales, strong but not threateningly strong women, super hyper sexy, “feminine” and “girlish”, always feeding from the dynamic so common between men and women, where the man is always the protective authority figure and the woman is the spunky, perky, cute, adorable, clumsy and helpless little pet with a high pitched voice.
Cementing the love for the human figure through anatomical study has not stopped, and she continues to explore and come to terms with being an adult bipedal female. She produced the most recent body of work since graduating, a series of selfportraits as a victim of abuse, in which an external force in the form of a rope or a huge man hand enter the picture plane and harm her in some way. The work started as a way of dealing with unsavory experiences in previous relationships and has become a reminder of her submissive woman behavior throughout her life, in previous relationships and in society.
The body of work that has recently started, maybe in opposition to the victim, or in conjunction, because they are interchangeable a lot of times, is a series of selfportraits as a whore. And “whore” only because that is what she is perceived as. “Slut”, “asking for it”, “cunt”, “bitch” or any name applied to a woman that wants to own or explore her sexuality, be assertive or confident or even just like herself a little bit. This series of selfportraits explores this ground of the not submissive woman, not embarrassed to be naked, not hiding, not trying to be skinny or “tight”, but whatever feels good for herself.
Her medium of choice is graphite or charcoal over paper, because it is such versatile medium. She has the capability of being extremely precious with a drawing and develop it as much as she wants or make drawing over drawing, erase and draw, use sanding paper, brushes and charcoal powder. She has her choice in this very dense spectrum, where she can pick and choose with the precision of a pencil sharpened to a point like a scalpel.
Maria Belford aims her eye through the maze of the ordinary and the everyday not in order to speak for the subjects who inhabit these spaces, but in an attempt to listen through the lens to the stories singing out from the heart of their own precious lives. "I think so much art- even beyond photography, is too performative and too focused on the 'extraordinary' narrative of marginalized groups." While one's vision will always be subjectively one's own, Belford aims to lean in to the rough and tumble spaces, capturing as authentically as possible the living poetry of lives that are never without their own story. "Everyone, here, has the vision, what they lack is the method." Every person's life is singing some deep inner song and that cannot be written or sung for them. A voice comes through regardless the place one wants to put it. Perhaps some art wants to speak for others so as to protect themselves from what those voices really have to say. Belford believes the opposite is called for. Called for might be the wrong word, it is the thing that already inheres in every marginalized and non-marginalized life, a unique and utterly authentic story-song. Why music? Because every life is composed from a unique cadence and groove, everybody knows what they've seen and can speak what they've seen in the forest of signs. Documenting the multi-faceted stories of the misunderstood, not altering, not speaking for them, but leaning in, listening closely to what's already singing out. Can you hear it? Turn down the volume of your eyes and look closer.
Leannes journey is of a personal nature, her work explores themes of loneliness, nostalgia, anxiety & light.
Her main photographic focus is self-portraiture, starting out simply through curiosity. Capturing self-portraits has become a major part of her life & work, it has enabled her to overcome anxiety and fears over life & mortality. Using the photographic practice as a calming mechanism, and a form of escapism.
Surfleet insists that "art makes us think about things we wouldn't normally or naturally think about, it makes us wonder, imagine, create, be inspired, feel sad, feel happy, feel something at all, creates dialogue, creates communities, encourages well-being and recovery in creation." One couldn't imagine a world or life without it, she adds.
Full Interview Here
Her main photographic focus is self-portraiture, starting out simply through curiosity. Capturing self-portraits has become a major part of her life & work, it has enabled her to overcome anxiety and fears over life & mortality. Using the photographic practice as a calming mechanism, and a form of escapism.
Surfleet insists that "art makes us think about things we wouldn't normally or naturally think about, it makes us wonder, imagine, create, be inspired, feel sad, feel happy, feel something at all, creates dialogue, creates communities, encourages well-being and recovery in creation." One couldn't imagine a world or life without it, she adds.
Full Interview Here
How memory holds the present together, how then and now are both wove from similar but also shape shifting, gender/genre defying cloth, Joann Harrah works the poetic borderlands of historical narrative, bloodline filmstrips of familial filiation opened to their own internal possibilities, neural plasticity holding true both for our personal identity and the stories of our past, set loose from traditional traps and placed onto more creative, open terrain. As Harrah says, "the past is anything but a definite and stable history." Breath of life is the artists' real power, clay inert without the many voices that we bring into the world. We are the teller of stories, the book didn't precede us and is by no means finished, some chapters ought be filled in by possibility and the unknown. Fashioning herself sometimes as woman and sometimes as man, Joann opens up question marks that, while set in the period of the 30's, open up lines of flight/possibility in our own present moment as well. Creative disruptions in the visuals of tradition hint at the possibilities that inhere in every body and every life-telling. The roots of the family and universal tree are acknowledged and complicated, and the worlds dipped into, like pools of water, show many forms slightly altered just enough to let something else through.
Everyday we throw out things capable of being re-purposed, it's like a second nature, to discard, shed skin, animal like, out of sight, out of mind. But trash is embedded in the earth, quite literally, and a part of our story, individual as much as universal. Through her art parctice Sina Basila tries to create a world "where wearing trash is normal and a part of high fashion." "I am interested in finding the beauty in our waste while putting a focus on our excessive material refuse," Sina says. "By looking at my own rubbish as potential material for my wearable designs, I have become much more aware of how much I throw out; before throwing things away I try to see if they can become something other than trash." And beyond mere materials Sina also has an eye out for who is discarded in our world as well, who enters our thoughts and considerations and who doesn't. "I am very much inspired by the common person," Basila notes, "I also think that it is important to note (and be aware of) the impact of people who clean up our streets. Collecting recycling materials and garbage is undervalued work, and I have great respect for workers who keep our streets clean. Although these workers don’t necessarily influence my art, they influence my surroundings, my inspirations, and my artistic philosophies." Adding that she could even see herself including some of these workers in a future project. "I would like to include more people into my refashioned garbage work," Basila remarks, "I think it is important in a series that is commenting on the fashion industry to include representations of beauty that are often ignored by the industry." The separations between art and everyday life at a certain point underwent a radical transformation, suddenly the people themselves and the everyday were the subject of art, not royalty or aristocracy, and what could be included in art's domain grew and grew. But for all of its growth a certain vigilance of attention is still required. Art needs both hands at the wheel, a presence of mind, a heaviness of heart, and attention not only to details, but to the periphery as well, to "an absence of voices." Perhaps what is most beautiful isn't what is most obvious. Art, as Sina says, "enriches by creating doors and windows in the imaginary walls that we use to separate ourselves from others. Without it, we are soulless computers—algorithmic animals. Art makes us more human and more alive."
Full interview here
Full interview here
"Coming from a region in conflict," says Keren, "I am interested in exploring how or if my works can attempt to walk the border between political art and escapism. I wish to suggest a gap between them. This is the gap in which the viewer can confront the actual political questions accompanied with aesthetic-art questions." Do we suffer from a lack of imagination or from a lack of options, of livable realms where the visual possibilities, once constructed and encountered could serve to expand what is with all that could be? Is the reduction in scale of what is seen and what can be imagined in our world connected to conflict? If we are confined to a kind of sleep with no dreams, what, if not art, might reveal roads less traveled, worlds less imagined? Anavy's site-specific environments cue us in on the realm that lies just beyond the traps we've set for ourselves. The images ask of us, what do we see, and from where we see, why are such worlds not possible? In bringing out "the longing for unknown or imagined territory" Anavy unveils not just losses in imagination, or the contrasts between real-time suffering and an escapist visual oasis, on a deeper register Keren is constructing Democracies of the sensible, the aesthetic being the realm of all speaking beings, and hence the possibilities for us to imagine more than what we now have before us. "I think art moves on the axis between two extremes of acceptance and non-acceptance of the world: There are artists that accept the world and respond to it and others who choose not to accept the world and to create a strange and imaginary one, a kind of alternative." Such alternatives may be our only hope. Ones worth exploring and adopting in life and in art. What could be is a powerful antidote to what is.
Full interview here
Full interview here
"Frequently I feel that I am a guest in my own world," Laura writes, "there is undoubtedly a distrust of what the artificial interface might mean for our environment, for humanity, for our relationships." Through explorations of her own virtual communication, Karetzky creates what she refers to as visual storytelling. Snapshots on our i-phones often lack the depth an image can usually convey, and yet when transposed onto these oil paintings a whole new life shows up in the image, altering the perception of that particular moment in time. The image itself is inherently a thing of time, it leaves place marks of where we were, the expressions that our faces wore, the ease or uncomfortability of our own bodies, but they don't always contain the whole truth, and if the focus of the image is us, it most certainly never does, although one should never say never so assuredly. In some ways art plays with truth to better understand it, questioning how the virtual houses us, how our form might be slightly different in that place, helps to add ground where it might at times feel more like air. "I do not think that Selfies as memory are accurate," Laura says. "In many ways they represent that cleavage in communication I am exploring. And as so, I am looking at all virtual communication as a kind of staged choreography. My work is venturing to acquiesce to the synthetic and affirm our idea of what is real."
Full interview here
Full interview here
"Art is another kind of door into peoples’ heads," says Izzy Nova, "and we best be learning what’s happening in there." Nova's paintings take on the dark and difficult tangle of subconscious impulses while making important visual statements about violence, loneliness, despair, the quirk in the false perfection of the everyday, all of those forms that take shape from some place else, as Izzy calls the almost unnameable place that first drew her into the power of art and its ability to unleash both the storm and the stillness, the explosion in the street and the quiet hour. "Making art for me is like meeting and bringing a complex stranger to life," Nova says. "Abandoning forethought and expectation recently both in art and in life has given me comfort in my inability to comprehend, control, or at worst, change what is larger than me." On the surface these paintings shore up a feeling of chaos, of things gone beyond one's control, but embedded deeper in, sometimes crawling out of the corners of the canvas, is a very real and solid sense of purpose, a tent pitched in the void mid-storm, lantern light to read the hieroglyphics of promise and possibility by, in a place where, what art can do, is only measured by what we are able to imagine, and if we've closed that door we best be prying it open again.
Full interview here
Full interview here
What if much of what we designed as humans borrowed its form from animals and the earth itself? What if over time and the separation of years from that spark of primary influence and invention we forgot about such similarities? What if we ceased to believe in responsibility, in debts owed to nature, in the shared shapes, weight and air of our world, the whole multi specie/landscape surroundings? What if our fate had always been linked to theirs and we had become experts in forgetting? Sarah Edwards picks up the traces of such similarity throughout her work, stemming from her study of design, Edwards writes: "I saw that the concepts used to create visually compelling content are in large part derived from nature, the golden ratio, weight/gravity, geometry. So why does so much of what we design look fundamentally different from anything found in nature? I concluded that it’s for the same reason we are destroying nature; humans, in large part, have culturally and ideologically separated themselves from the natural world" By creating representations of species as "distorted, glittery, oversimplifications of things that were beautiful to begin with, [they] become metaphors for the ways we distort and oversimplify the function of habitats, ecosystems, and populations the world over." Sarah's art operates on multiple fronts at once, it's not only the brush meeting the canvas, the message and learning moments encoded in the abstraction, the most beautiful part of it, as Edwards puts it, is that "art recounts more than just facts and chronologies; it serves as a record of where people’s hearts are as they get pulled through life." An account of where we stand and what matters most to us, including all that we've maybe forgotten, the shared responsibilities of a humanity tending toward amnesia but ultimately yearning for something more.
Full interview here
Full interview here
"I'm motivated more by feelings than I am by ideas," says Erdrich. "I ask myself, what does it feel like to inhabit this body in this climate."Here one finds art which starts from the heart before travelling to the head, rather than make feelings secondary, they are made primary. Loren's diverse work spans many techniques and mediums, the most recent of which are a series of paintings using raw organic pigments a friend brought back from Morocco. "The names of these colors intrigued me: lapis, turmeric, certain flowers, crushed snails, saffron, cobalt," says Erdrich. "They brought to mind a preciousness I, and perhaps my subjects too, felt lacking - both in substance and in material." The water destroying the rigidity of the paper, becomes a transcendent accident, a synchronous fate: "Here again is that push and pull between control and mayhem. I can only corral it and find peace in what ultimately occurs. It is impossible to be perfect. It is a blessing." Play becomes a central and sacred aspect of Loren's approach: "a sense of freedom, trial and error, enjoyment, flexibility. I love that the act of making can be momentarily separated from the multiple layers of history and meaning that embrace an artwork in it's analysis." From uncanny, sometimes gruesome ceramic, Bruegelesque dream-like figures, to the marriage of text and art on I Take Back the Sponge Cake, a choose-your-own-adventure book in collaboration with poet Sierra Nelson, we asked Loren about the motor at work beneath these wondrous, singular outpourings of artistic vision, between control and mayhem, that silent hour where anything at all is possible, and the work takes one completely by surprise.
Full interview here
Full interview here
Yūgen, a Japanese aesthetic of deep awareness; to pick at the edges of our seen and unseen world, pull back from the gloss and dig for the gleam, some authentically weird light within, a feat harder and harder to imagine possible in our fast rushing world. In the midst of all that makes this difficult for us, Zubko creates spaces that halt us in our tracks, tugging at strings of imagination left dormant in childhood winds, long ago, maybe a restless spark of curiosity emerges, grows into the place where we are now, we lean in, we want to know more. "I remember the first time I observed someone enter one of my environments (Winter's Core)," Natalia says, "and the person exhaled slowly, their shoulders relaxed, and they just eased into the space." We all have the power to be embodied even if it most often seems the opposite. "I often think about how we have a choice in how we want to be in the world." Zubko says. "The fast-paced and speeding up doesn’t make it always feel we have a choice... we just need to be reminded that the awareness, quiet, sense of wonder, calmness is something we “know” and is a possibility, a choice we can make and cultivate." Zubko's site responsive environments immerse people in a living-breathing art-light come alive, inside and out, leaving traces of possibility in their wake, of inner navigation and soul travel, collective and individual dreaming, a quiet pause in a day that doesn't seem to want to end. Art isn't just something we observe, it's also something we take home with us, something that helps transform the way we see space or color or the world itself. Natalia Zubko creates stepping ladders into these spaces where dreaming ourselves isn't so odd or unlike us after all, it might just be the most natural thing about us.
Full interview here
Full interview here
Is there beauty in the bite, something to learn inside each of the things we fear? What more than appearance might the spider contain? What color, what mysterious geometry, what inspiration? PD Packard's artwork explores the complex interweaving of entomology and the parallels with our more human selves, attempting to express the principles of unconditional love, as opposed to conditional romance. "One may find something quite hideous about bugs," PD says, "but I discovered through observation and the causal study of entomology that though there is horror, there is also beauty, even love in a world that parallels our own." Shed skin, shark teeth, sun-bleached fish bones, the pattern of a beetle's shell, ours is not the only world to think about here. What surrounds us, what do we see, what don't we see? What are the almost invisible relationships at work in the air or just beneath our feet, how different are they, how similar? "I am attracted to things that are very different from me and make me feel uncomfortable." PD says of primary influence, "Feeling uncomfortable is a significant part of creativity, causing a curiosity within me to look closer at the subject matter." Packard talks us through her life's work, and the multifaceted experiences she strives to create, reminding us that "the most sacred aspect of art is the artist’s hand upon their work" and the many worlds we stumble into, and out of, along the way.
Full interview here
Full interview here
The art of Kiley Ames works against the grain, with burlap as her surface, she has chosen a medium that works against her because, as she puts it, "even though it is really rough and unforgiving you can still use it to create a variety of really unique and beautiful things. That's how I see people and that's how I see society." A unique and soulfully poetic psychology infuses Kiley's work, the difficulty of the medium stands as metaphor for the challenging surfaces and all too often interiors of people and of our world. The world beyond the familiar is also one that Kiley is deeply fascinated by, with every trip abroad, she says, "I start a different form of art, it just contributes to how I think about art, how I think about people and the relationship that we have with different cultures. Sometimes I find more commonality with different cultures than I do in this country." In China, Ames picked up her appreciation for negative space, which shows up in much of her work, and could also be seen as an offering to the viewer's own potential for dreaming up possibilities, both in what they see and what they don't, perhaps layering in their own miniature visions like an unspoken collaboration. Kiley's work is by no means an art of isolation, but rather one of connection and world responsiveness. What is the fabric that holds us together, do the ties that bind also sometimes discomfort us, how do we work against ourselves, each other, the world, otherness, what we see, what we don't? I spoke with Kiley recently about her work, her medium, the ways in which technology has transformed and compromised our ability to remember deeply our histories, the loss of art programs in public schools, what artists can do to remedy it, and ultimately the world at large, because more than anything, the art of Kiley Ames stands as testament to the fact that there is always much more than meets the eye, that what we know, can at any moment, be totally transformed by what we don't.
Full interview here
Full interview here
From Cat Del Buono's intimate video installation Voices, one hears 20 monitors playing at once the individual stories of domestic abuse survivors, a cacophony of unrecognizable words meant to act as metaphor for the abstract nature of statistics, only when one approaches an individual monitor can one hear the singular, unique story of what one woman went through and how she got out of her situation. As a society we must fight against allowing this to become a blur of background noise, of mere statistics, something happening to someone else, not your Mother, Sister, Aunt, Cousin, but it could be, and even if it isn't, as a society we must take note and begin to listen to these individual stories, to bring this violence out of the shadows. Cat has recently curated a permanent exhibit for Art Connects of artworks and murals in a domestic violence shelter in the Bronx. Del Buono's work also heavily engages with humor "which allows people to be more receptive," Cat says, "since the message is hidden behind the humor. The laughing keeps them from shutting out the harsh criticism or message." Films such as How Not To Get Raped and Now I'm Beautiful! serve satirical purpose around the absurdities of bodily enhancement, plastic surgery and the obsession with artificial standards and notions of beauty and appearance, as in the latter, while also dealing satirically with harsh and dire experiences, in the former, tackling the absurd blame the victim mantras our society recklessly trots out, and producing, by way of humor, a profound disturbance in the undertone of our unconscious attitudes, and hopefully resulting in a realization of such backwards thinking over rape and crimes against women. AHC talked with Cat about her art and films and about the driving forces behind her creative body of work: "I wish I had stopped fighting myself sooner," Del Buono says, "and just embraced who I was - an artist."
Full interview here
Full interview here
It's often said that creating has the capacity to heal one, but in the case of New York based artist Trina Hall this statement holds literally true. After a series of tiny strokes left her debilitated, Trina found that "No medicines were able to touch the pain but after I started painting for the first time, I noticed I wasn't thinking about the pain. I lost myself in the beauty of color and over time, I was healed." Painting cleared out a space where physical agony could not follow. Such is the kind of art for which traditional commentary must be found lacking. Beyond the veil of truisms and comparisons all one can really say is that the encounter with such an art leaves one humbled and shook, inspired from a place deeper North than the intellect, a felt and unspoken observation deck. Hall's canvas's hold a series of objects on its surface, string, dried flowers, computer wires, hand prints, photographs, buttons, needles, an inventory of daily and uncanny juxtaposition, the paint sometimes oozing and alive, seemingly edible, flaking, stained. It contains all of the experiences of beauty and the sublime and inevitably of pain and confusion. A kaleidoscopic sensorium of the human experience. Messy, transcendent, life saving, for the artist and, one must hope, for the viewer as well.
Full interview here
Full interview here
Photographer Laura Konttinen works along the liminal spaces of memory, where images fold into one another and diverging meanings open new roads in the heart of the unconscious. "I believe that memories are fluid," Laura says, "prone to mutations and holes that might fill out with fiction, someone else’s stories or anything that might have crossed one’s mind in any point in time." Senses become unmoored from their anchors and set to drift on unexplored, alternative waters. Konttinen works the images over like poems, opening their interpretational pores, allowing the unexpected to emerge. "I have worked through memories and the imaginary aspects of nostalgia and now I’m working on pictures about forgetting," Laura says. "I am not yet sure what the result will look like."
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/the-mutations-of-memory-a-conversation-with-laura-konttinen
Check out the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/the-mutations-of-memory-a-conversation-with-laura-konttinen
Michal Zahornacký's photographs straddle the line between dreams and waking life, pulling one into the other, until there is almost no separation. "It's as in a dream," says Michal, "we don't set down borders for our imagination, we take our experience from the real world and let our imagination fly." The images are stunning examples of a mind taken to flight, but with feet firmly planted on the ground. The earth, herself, is also a subject of Zahornacký's photographs, reminding one that every dreaming body is housed by gravity.
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-michal-zahornacky
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-michal-zahornacky
Suzanne Révy documents the preciously fleeting moments of familial life, quiet observation filters through secrets held, hours of play, imaginary creatures, shadows on the wall, favorite toys, separate domains; the world of children and the world of parents, the passing of time in the photographer's household and the resonance with her own youthful memory. "What I found particularly intriguing when watching my children" says Suzanne, "was how they could so fully immerse themselves in whatever they were doing. I remembered the ability to be so thoroughly entranced as a child myself. I wanted to find that ability again, and indeed, there were moments when I felt like a child as I photographed my two boys." Thinking about light and how it moves through the house, Révy found that color did more justice to the environment of her children as they grow older then black and white. Camera's have changed to lighter equipment as a sudden, tragic loss entered Révy's life, "I had lost a nephew, and was feeling that the heavy medium gear I was using was becoming something of a barrier to feeling present as a parent." How light holds together in a room, how color changes as a world changes, moments in time become but memories and as they unfold we know how precious they truly are. Looking back; nostalgia is packed with tender emotion. Often we are reminded of our younger, more secret selves, Révy has found a way to paint those moments in, and while they don't last long, perhaps it's the sensation of memory itself that works wonders. "That moment was fleeting," says Suzanne, "and my boys are teenagers now. They seem to have gone into their rooms, and I’m not sure when they will be coming back out."
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-suzanne-revy
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-suzanne-revy
Tytia Habing's photographs document the everyday, both ordinary and extraordinary, the images come across like poems, explorations of life unfolding, Raymond Carver like, in those small but significant moments that make up the tapestry and landscape of our hours. In Injured, Habing explores both the human body and nature's ability to self-repair/heal, "The human body’s capacity for healing is phenomenal," says Tytia, "each cell in our body is its own living unit, and cells are ceaselessly busying themselves healing and repairing. We don’t even need to think about it. It just happens." Habing's main subjects are the members of her own family, portraits in which nuance hold sway over glossy, happy, far too simplified versions of growing up. Through Tytia's lens, the complicated yet beautiful dimensions of environment, familial bonds, and time itself unfolds like a universal family album.
Read our exclusive interview with Tytia Habing : heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-tytia-habing
Read our exclusive interview with Tytia Habing : heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-tytia-habing
The photography of Maren Klemp is a glimpse into the dark, a place where sight has not totally failed us, working along the borderlands of what Klemp calls the invisible disease, these unforgettable images are not just about novel aesthetics, although that is the import of any artistic undertaking, they are also, admirably, an attempt to erase the stigma attached to mental illness, to document what the inside of one's mind feels like, gripped and paralyzed in the dark throes of depression and cognitive collapse. These are stories of life split from within, occupying two worlds, the surface and the inner depth of mind and body. Klemp works with the unseen as a way of making it seen, heard, tasted, felt, alive, real, and unforgettable.
Read our exclusive interview with Maren Klemp here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-maren-klemp
Read our exclusive interview with Maren Klemp here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-maren-klemp
Sarah Ann Loreth is a self taught fine art and travel photographer from New England, who specializes in conceptual portraiture. In her work she tries to convey a quiet stillness of emotion with a connection to her natural surroundings. She stumbled upon photography while working in the medical field and threw all her energy into teaching herself the craft. Soon, she was quitting her job, selling all her possessions, and setting off to live a life of adventure on the road teaching workshops all over North America. We caught up with Sarah to talk about how and when she first found her muse through a camera's lens, the import of emotions, travel, landscapes, and how "we are all shaped by and connected to our surroundings."
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-sarah-ann-loreth
Read the full interview here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-sarah-ann-loreth
Photographer Michelle Engberg says that "all art, in a way, no matter what it is, helps people unite and evokes emotion. It helps the artist and the viewer connect; even if you're not physically connecting with somebody you're connecting through your art." The images she creates exude an incredible warmth and sense of magic, as well as playfulness. There is mystery but there is also emotion, (isn't all emotion mysterious?) "I think memories, feelings, smells, places all bring you back to when you were a child and help you tell your story" Michelle says, of her younger days growing up in New York and being awed by the "cobble stone streets, victorian brownstones and vines." Like the poet Charles Simic, Michelle Engberg combines the surreal and the childlike, her sense of place and memory, in essence; magically deep and abiding story telling, who could ask for more?
Read our interview with Michelle here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-michelle-engberg
Read our interview with Michelle here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-michelle-engberg
Toronto based fine art photographer Vanessa Paxton describes her creative process as a type of puzzle, taken apart bit by bit and slowly put back together again, under the mysterious guiding eye of the lens, unique, fractal moments in time shutter forth. Grappling with a love/hate relationship creatively Vanessa remarks, "I’m only ever happy with an image if I’ve suffered in some way to create it." Yet the darkness of the images are equaled by their counterparts of light, a difficult balance somehow sustained and showing through the life cycle of these wonderful photographs.
Read our interview with Vanessa here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-vanessa-paxton
Read our interview with Vanessa here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-vanessa-paxton
Surreal, aquatic, enmeshed with their elements, these haunting images exude both sadness and surrender, to the light, to the water, to the snow, and to the lens. Morey Spellman talks to AHC about his process, his inspiration and what first led him to art and photography.
Read our interview with Morey here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-morey-spellman
Read our interview with Morey here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-morey-spellman
Could you recall every part of your childhood home? What if all you had to remember the place you came from by was your memory? Could you piece it all together, a space lost in flames? In 'The Living Room', a series shaped around the loss of her family abode as a teenager in a house fire, Brandi Twilley does the seemingly impossible work of recollecting from memory the details of that space. The way the television light spilled out onto the floor, drawers half shut, video cassettes under a Christmas tree and the flames that would take it all away. Almost. If we can still remember what is lost does it somehow survive? A mental photo album, perhaps the kind all of our minds keep in one way or another, but one we rarely need to use in this way. Creating out of necessity is a sacred and hard work, and these pieces are up to that task. Recollection, recreation, and living on, even if only in memory.
Read our interview with Brandi here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-brandi-twilley
Read our interview with Brandi here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-brandi-twilley
Sasu Riikonen is a Finnish based fine art photographer and film maker. His photographs could be described as cinematic and narrative. They are strongly atmospheric. The photographs themselves do not contain a storyline. Instead, they invite the viewer to interact with them, and to create a narrative between the subjects themselves.
Read our interview with Sasu here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-filmmaker-sasu-riikonen
Read our interview with Sasu here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-filmmaker-sasu-riikonen
Jovana Rikalo is a fine art and portrait photographer from Serbia. She aims to create unreal situations in the real world, images that may look unnatural but that nonetheless feel very real, surreal stories all told through the lens of a camera.
Read our interview with Jovana here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-jovana-rikalo
Read our interview with Jovana here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-jovana-rikalo
Sofia Minson is a contemporary New Zealand oil painter of Māori (Ngati Porou), descent. Her often large, finely detailed oil paintings depict the land, myths and people of Aotearoa (New Zealand), combining aspects of realism and surrealism. She also celebrates Asian, Pacific, Western and African cultural diversity through portraiture.
Read our interview with Sofia here heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-sofia-minson
Read our interview with Sofia here heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-sofia-minson
Brooke Shaden is an American fine art photographer.
At 24, she was the youngest artist in The Annenberg Space for Photography's "Digital Darkroom" exhibition of the work of 17 artists that explored the intersection of art and technology. She has been a guest instructor on the CreativeLIVE website. In January 2014 CreativeLIVE created "The Brooke Shaden Contest" where contestants enter their photo portfolios and answer an essay question to compete for a spot in her 'Master Your Craft' photography workshop in addition to a half day shooting on location with her. Shaden is the co-host of The Framed Network's series "The Concept" with fashion photographer Lindsay Adler and hosted her own feature episode "The Brooke Shaden Challenge". She is the author of Inspiration in Photography: Training your mind to make great art a habit published in 2013 by Focal Press.
In 2010 Shaden exhibited "The Re-Imaging of Ophelia" at the JoAnne Artman Gallery that commercially represents her, with Katie Johnson cast in the title role. The first image "Jumping In" was used as cover art for Dot Hutchison's young adult novel A Wounded Name.
In 2011 Shaden's semi-self portrait "Running from Wind" was one of eight photographs chosen by Ron Howard that would inspire his and Bryce Dallas Howard's short film Imagin8ion.
Read our interview with Brooke here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-brooke-shaden
At 24, she was the youngest artist in The Annenberg Space for Photography's "Digital Darkroom" exhibition of the work of 17 artists that explored the intersection of art and technology. She has been a guest instructor on the CreativeLIVE website. In January 2014 CreativeLIVE created "The Brooke Shaden Contest" where contestants enter their photo portfolios and answer an essay question to compete for a spot in her 'Master Your Craft' photography workshop in addition to a half day shooting on location with her. Shaden is the co-host of The Framed Network's series "The Concept" with fashion photographer Lindsay Adler and hosted her own feature episode "The Brooke Shaden Challenge". She is the author of Inspiration in Photography: Training your mind to make great art a habit published in 2013 by Focal Press.
In 2010 Shaden exhibited "The Re-Imaging of Ophelia" at the JoAnne Artman Gallery that commercially represents her, with Katie Johnson cast in the title role. The first image "Jumping In" was used as cover art for Dot Hutchison's young adult novel A Wounded Name.
In 2011 Shaden's semi-self portrait "Running from Wind" was one of eight photographs chosen by Ron Howard that would inspire his and Bryce Dallas Howard's short film Imagin8ion.
Read our interview with Brooke here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-brooke-shaden
Erin M. Riley is a Brooklyn-based artist whose work focuses on women and women's issues primarily in hand-woven tapestries.
Read our interview with Erin here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-erin-m-riley
Read our interview with Erin here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-erin-m-riley
Hannah Altman is a fine arts photographer. Her series “And Everything Nice” is an unflinching analysis of the standard for female beauty. The series consists of women in states of affliction. The body fluid of the models (including blood, tears, and vomit) have been replaced with glitter in order to visualize the concept of girls invariably needing to seem attractive regardless of what is actually happening in the scenario.
The models do not seem to acknowledge the glitter as something any different than natural body fluid, which supplements the idea that women have been conditioned to go to any length in order keep up anattractive appearance.
The ceaseless shimmer of the subject matter is ironic because it is being projected onto the female body without their expressed knowledge. This represents society’s continual custom of censoring the natural occurrences of the female body and turns what may be considered unladylike into something with more sparkle. The newer, shinier version of the female anatomy is in turn much more attractive, and feeds into the idea of boundless beauty leaking from the female body.
Read our interview with Hannah here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-hannah-altman
The models do not seem to acknowledge the glitter as something any different than natural body fluid, which supplements the idea that women have been conditioned to go to any length in order keep up anattractive appearance.
The ceaseless shimmer of the subject matter is ironic because it is being projected onto the female body without their expressed knowledge. This represents society’s continual custom of censoring the natural occurrences of the female body and turns what may be considered unladylike into something with more sparkle. The newer, shinier version of the female anatomy is in turn much more attractive, and feeds into the idea of boundless beauty leaking from the female body.
Read our interview with Hannah here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-photographer-hannah-altman
Leila Ataya was born in Moscow, Russia in 1979
From a very young age Leila’s life was strongly influenced by art. She started her art education in Russia and in1996 immigrated with her family to New Zealand where she continued to study and practice art. Leila won a number of art awards and exhibited in a large number of personal and group shows in New Zealand, USA, Italy. Her works feature in many private collections in New Zealand, Australia, England, Italy, South Korea and Russia. She has established and run Art School since 2004 that provides art classes for Adults and Children.
Read our interview with Leila here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-leila-ataya
From a very young age Leila’s life was strongly influenced by art. She started her art education in Russia and in1996 immigrated with her family to New Zealand where she continued to study and practice art. Leila won a number of art awards and exhibited in a large number of personal and group shows in New Zealand, USA, Italy. Her works feature in many private collections in New Zealand, Australia, England, Italy, South Korea and Russia. She has established and run Art School since 2004 that provides art classes for Adults and Children.
Read our interview with Leila here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-leila-ataya
Lee Materazzi is a photographer and artist from California. Her photography is made without the use of photoshop, Lee painstakingly sets up the mind bending visuals of each of her photo's in real time.
Read our interview with Lee here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-photographer-lee-materazzi
Read our interview with Lee here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-photographer-lee-materazzi
Shantell Martin was born in East London. She has been drawing since she was a little girl growing up in the Thamesmead estate public housing complex in London. Since she wasn’t allowed to draw on the walls, she would take a pen and draw characters underneath her bed and inside the curtains in her bedroom. It was then that she first developed the stick figures that show up in her work today. “There are two types of stick men, those who push and pull and hold the work together,” says Martin. “And then there are the stick men who play around and are lazy. It’s a reminder that you have to work and you have to have fun.”
As the only mixed-race child in a family full of blonde, blue-eyed siblings, she always felt different. Perhaps that’s why, from an early age, Martin has been asking herself the same question: Who are you? The existential angst followed her to Central Saint Martins, where she studied graphic design. It was a time when she describes herself as an angry and confused college student. “Growing up in a white working-class environment and not feeling in control of your future or environment or potential can be frustrating,” she notes. To express herself, the artist developed a character named Hangman. “It is a kind of robot-shaped character and I would tag it all around London,” she explains. “Hangman was a businessman in his former life and he decided to cut the noose—home environment, the class system, the prejudice, and people’s low expectations.”
After her graduation, she lived in Japan where she first experimented with live performance art. From 2006 to 2009, Martin developed her drawing skills through “Liveography”—the process of projecting live drawings to sound, music or other experience. She performed at music concerts, design festivals and in public spaces internationally.
Read our interview with Shantell here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-shantell-martin
As the only mixed-race child in a family full of blonde, blue-eyed siblings, she always felt different. Perhaps that’s why, from an early age, Martin has been asking herself the same question: Who are you? The existential angst followed her to Central Saint Martins, where she studied graphic design. It was a time when she describes herself as an angry and confused college student. “Growing up in a white working-class environment and not feeling in control of your future or environment or potential can be frustrating,” she notes. To express herself, the artist developed a character named Hangman. “It is a kind of robot-shaped character and I would tag it all around London,” she explains. “Hangman was a businessman in his former life and he decided to cut the noose—home environment, the class system, the prejudice, and people’s low expectations.”
After her graduation, she lived in Japan where she first experimented with live performance art. From 2006 to 2009, Martin developed her drawing skills through “Liveography”—the process of projecting live drawings to sound, music or other experience. She performed at music concerts, design festivals and in public spaces internationally.
Read our interview with Shantell here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-shantell-martin
How does a woman develop her sense of subjectivity and identity? My work is a response to this question and investigates the incessant images of women that are disseminated through the mass media. The products women are expected to acquire and consume become an integral part of who they are. In my collages, concealer goblets and fabric replace my “creature’s” hands, inhibiting movement and fine motor skills. These products, and the expectations they communicate, negatively impact how women view and construct their own identities. My work directly engages the issues of beauty, sexuality, exploitation and complicity that are affecting young women and their social development more than ever before.
Through collage I seek to convey how women experience both physical scrutiny and the treatment of the female body as a series of fragmented forms. Towards this end, I appropriate an image from the realm of mass culture, and then dismantle and redefine it. I alter the messages conveyed through these images, thereby exposing the violent and aggressive messages conveyed through the mass media. In doing so, my work serves as a tool to explore recognition and resistance.
Read our interview with Noelle Fiori here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-noelle-fiori
Through collage I seek to convey how women experience both physical scrutiny and the treatment of the female body as a series of fragmented forms. Towards this end, I appropriate an image from the realm of mass culture, and then dismantle and redefine it. I alter the messages conveyed through these images, thereby exposing the violent and aggressive messages conveyed through the mass media. In doing so, my work serves as a tool to explore recognition and resistance.
Read our interview with Noelle Fiori here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-noelle-fiori
Stephanie Buer, now based in Portland, had spent over a decade observing the urban landscapes in Detroit, MI. She has an intimate appreciation of urban desolation and a love for the once prosperous buildings that have been abandoned to time and the elements. Her works in both oil and charcoal capture with photo-like detail the layers of gritty history that accumulate as these places succumb to the manipulation of vandals, artists, and the steady persistence of nature. In the juxtaposition between decay and growth, Stephanie finds a place that echoes the peace she finds in nature, with its endless cycles of change. Part of the power in Stephanie's work comes from the absence of human figures in a place clearly marked by them. Rather than allowing distant observation as narrative, she draws viewers in to witness the space that people have left behind, compelling them to personally experience these modern relics that have been condemned by society. The simultaneously idyllic, yet derelict scenes challenge viewers to question their notions of beauty, while the detailed texture and depth that is characteristic of her work invites them to explore these places personally, as she does while taking the photographs from which she works.
Read our interview with Stephanie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-stephanie-buer
Read our interview with Stephanie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-stephanie-buer
Adam Turl is an artist and writer currently living in St. Louis, Missouri. He is an editor at Red Wedge Magazine and is an MFA candidate at the Sam Fox School of Art and Design at Washington University in St. Louis. He writes the "Evicted Art Blog" at Red Wedge. He is also a member of the November Network of Anti-Capitalist Studio Artists.
Read our interview with Adam here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-adam-turl
Read our interview with Adam here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-adam-turl
Alexandra Levasseur lives and works in Montreal, Qc, Canada. Alexandra exlpores the passing of time, the memories, the mystery of life and death. She likes to exteriorize the anguish of the unknown via the fragility of the woman.
Read our interview with Alexandra here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-alexandra-levasseur
Read our interview with Alexandra here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-alexandra-levasseur
Eminently modern and free spirited Elizabeth's artwork focuses on the confusion of today's modern society. She challenges the viewer to confront the relationship between humanity’s preconceived notions of value and worth, in our consumable world. Using time honored skills in a contemporary way, Elizabeth brings a modern twist to traditional forms through her photorealistic works. Elizabeth’s social commentary seeks to illuminate the arbitrary value we place on useless and culturally devoid items, while simultaneously devaluing those things with innate value. She questions the relationships, behaviors and patterns of humanity.
Using the subject of animal, human skulls and personal artifacts, Elizabeth exposes the responsibility of the individual in owning the effects of their decisions. Adoring each piece with gold leaf and precious metal, the Gold Standard, which has been used for centuries, is a perfect representation of humanity’s obsession with vain and valueless beauty. The dichotomy of the monochromatic pallet against the gold is a visual representation of the struggle of the inner self to balance greed and purpose.
Read our interview with Elizabeth Waggett here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-elizabeth-waggett
Using the subject of animal, human skulls and personal artifacts, Elizabeth exposes the responsibility of the individual in owning the effects of their decisions. Adoring each piece with gold leaf and precious metal, the Gold Standard, which has been used for centuries, is a perfect representation of humanity’s obsession with vain and valueless beauty. The dichotomy of the monochromatic pallet against the gold is a visual representation of the struggle of the inner self to balance greed and purpose.
Read our interview with Elizabeth Waggett here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-elizabeth-waggett
Petrina Hicks utilises the seductive and glossy language of commercial photography to create artworks that probe at the false promise of perfection, exploring photography’s ability to both create and corrupt the process of seduction and consumption.
Her work often explores female identity making reference to mythology and art history and drawing associations between these elements and contemporary image culture.
Of further interest is the symbiotic relationship between animal and human reflected in her work.
Read our interview with Petrina here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-petrina-hicks
Her work often explores female identity making reference to mythology and art history and drawing associations between these elements and contemporary image culture.
Of further interest is the symbiotic relationship between animal and human reflected in her work.
Read our interview with Petrina here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-petrina-hicks
Ariana Page Russell is a visual artist and artist coach. She creates images that explore the skin as a document of human experience, using her own hypersensitive flesh to illustrate the ways we expose, express, adorn and articulate ourselves. In her coaching, Ariana helps artists take their artwork to the next level by getting comfortable in their own skin, making the most authentic and powerful art possible.
Russell has exhibited internationally and currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Recent exhibitions include the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin; Magnan Metz in New York City; Platform Gallery in Seattle; Town Hall Gallery in Australia; the Luminato Festival in Toronto, Canada; Adelphi University in New York; and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Bolivia. Her work has appeared in Art in America, the Huffington Post, Wired, The Atlantic, VISION Magazine: China, and the monograph ‘Dressing’ published by Decode Books. She was featured on ABC News 20/20 and was a recent participant in the Sexto Encuentro Mundial de Arte Corporal in Caracas, Venezuela.
Read our interview with Ariana here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-ariana-page-russell
Russell has exhibited internationally and currently resides in Los Angeles, California. Recent exhibitions include the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin; Magnan Metz in New York City; Platform Gallery in Seattle; Town Hall Gallery in Australia; the Luminato Festival in Toronto, Canada; Adelphi University in New York; and Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Bolivia. Her work has appeared in Art in America, the Huffington Post, Wired, The Atlantic, VISION Magazine: China, and the monograph ‘Dressing’ published by Decode Books. She was featured on ABC News 20/20 and was a recent participant in the Sexto Encuentro Mundial de Arte Corporal in Caracas, Venezuela.
Read our interview with Ariana here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-ariana-page-russell
My name is Lola, and I am a dreamer. My past has molded me into a genuine soul, I believe very strongly all things are for a reason. I like to invent, imagine, and execute a place full of space where the world can evolve into a magical copacetic machine.If not for the ability to paint, my voice might become just another static white noise. We need harmony, lyrics, and a visual escape from reality, because reality has become somewhat of a nightmare. I paint to start a positive dialog amongst strangers. And I paint because it is my most precious gift in life.
I sing through my brushes the way a song might touch your heart and knock you off your feet so that you might feel for one moment and forget the world around you. Of all my childhood memories, the ones which stick with me most are from pure imagination. If I can bring you back to your own early memories for even one minute as you gaze upon what has become my life's work, you just might recognize a not too distant feeling of pure emotion as you were once so innocent.
I wish upon a star that this feeling might have a domino effect, ease a day, and bring a smile. Because a smile is infectious and if our hearts are happy, nothing can stop us.
Read our interview with Lola Gil here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-lola-gil
I sing through my brushes the way a song might touch your heart and knock you off your feet so that you might feel for one moment and forget the world around you. Of all my childhood memories, the ones which stick with me most are from pure imagination. If I can bring you back to your own early memories for even one minute as you gaze upon what has become my life's work, you just might recognize a not too distant feeling of pure emotion as you were once so innocent.
I wish upon a star that this feeling might have a domino effect, ease a day, and bring a smile. Because a smile is infectious and if our hearts are happy, nothing can stop us.
Read our interview with Lola Gil here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-lola-gil
Elizabeth Shupe is an artist who channels fairy tale imagery in an attempt to make sense of the harsh realities around her, she understands that truth is buried in even the most fantastical of visions. Her work references classic illustrations of Brother’s Grimm stories, Symbolist painting, the masterpiece “Ophelia” by John Everett Millais, Victorian kitsch, and feminist deconstructions of the above. She uses a dizzying array of media: painting, drawing, and collage sit comfortably side-by-side with 3d printing technologies and modern materials such as resin, plastic, and “low” media such as beads and fabric paint. She is a graduate of the New York Academy of Art. She has shown in New York, North Carolina, Florida, and Shanghai, China, and has work in personal colllections in New York, Florida, and North Carolina. . Her creative pursuits have led her to an exciting nomadic-by-choice lifestyle, and she invites you to follow her on her artistic journey.
Read our interview with Elizabeth here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-elizabeth-shupe
Read our interview with Elizabeth here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-elizabeth-shupe
Zoë Williams creates otherworldly creatures that serve as spirit guides. Her sculptures are inspired by dreams, visions, and the collective unconscious.
Born in 1983 in New Orleans, LA, Zoë Williams holds a BA in Fine Art from the University of New Orleans and a Certificate in Fiber Art from the University of Washington. Her work in needle felted wool has been exhibited in galleries around the world. She currently lives and works in New York City.
Read our interview with Zoë here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-zoe-williams
Born in 1983 in New Orleans, LA, Zoë Williams holds a BA in Fine Art from the University of New Orleans and a Certificate in Fiber Art from the University of Washington. Her work in needle felted wool has been exhibited in galleries around the world. She currently lives and works in New York City.
Read our interview with Zoë here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-zoe-williams
Lisa Golightly is an artist living in Portland, Oregon. With a BFA in art, her initial focus was photography, the influence of which can be seen in her paintings. Her work revolves around memory and how snapshots shape, influence, change and even create memory. She works with acrylic and house paint,using found photos to create work that is both anonymous in nature but also very personal.
Read our interview with Lisa here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-lisa-golightly
Read our interview with Lisa here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-lisa-golightly
Liz Caffin is an Australian printmaker whose work evokes scenes that are elusive and dreamlike, giving shape to fragmentary memories. Figures take flight and journey through landscape or architectural vistas. Dark shadows hide in doorways and destinations.
Occasionally the 'echidna person' appears as a reminder of the artist's home territory in the bushland of Central Victoria, Australia.
In a series of prints set in Venice the echidna person becomes ‘il foresto’ - the foreigner or visitor. Caffin’s Italian works are symbolic of the dilemma facing the Australian artist whose cultural heritage is European, but who lives a great distance from the rich repositories of art in Europe.
It is not that Caffin simply desires to be closer to our European heritage. Work such as the Tangling series immerses the viewer in an environment that is primeval and untamed. In these prints Caffin uses her understanding of natural forms found in the Australian landscape and melds this with the influences of the Renaissance painters, in particular the use of chiaroscuro (light and dark). Caffin’s work is both European as well as Australian – just as the artist is a product of both.
Read our interview with Liz here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-printmaker-liz-caffin
Occasionally the 'echidna person' appears as a reminder of the artist's home territory in the bushland of Central Victoria, Australia.
In a series of prints set in Venice the echidna person becomes ‘il foresto’ - the foreigner or visitor. Caffin’s Italian works are symbolic of the dilemma facing the Australian artist whose cultural heritage is European, but who lives a great distance from the rich repositories of art in Europe.
It is not that Caffin simply desires to be closer to our European heritage. Work such as the Tangling series immerses the viewer in an environment that is primeval and untamed. In these prints Caffin uses her understanding of natural forms found in the Australian landscape and melds this with the influences of the Renaissance painters, in particular the use of chiaroscuro (light and dark). Caffin’s work is both European as well as Australian – just as the artist is a product of both.
Read our interview with Liz here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-printmaker-liz-caffin
Jennifer King is a Los Angeles based figurative artist, working primarily in oil paint, and considering themes of female identity, sexuality, and femininity. Having graduated from California State University Fullerton with a BFA in Painting and Drawing, she is now attending Claremont Graduate University. Currently, she is a curator and founder of White Matter, a curitorial group, and has also shown work in Orange County, Seattle, and Los Angeles art galleries.
Read our interview with Jennifer here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-jennifer-king
Read our interview with Jennifer here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-jennifer-king
Christina Ridgeway (formally Christina Lank) was born in Maryland, USA just outside of Washington D.C. As a child she was constantly drawing, in particular making story books just pictures without words. Getting in trouble for drawing on desks instead of paying attention in class and covering her bedroom walls in doodles was common practice!
Despite being very active in art classes up until her senior year, she moved to Berlin, Germany at the age of 18 and spent the next few years traveling Europe.
By the end when she reached Sweden she decided it was time to begin painting again – as an artist never feels content or whole unless they are creating!
She still resides in southern Sweden with her family painting with acrylics and oils telling stories in solitary pictures with which she now shares with the world.
Read our interview with Christina here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-christina-ridgeway
Despite being very active in art classes up until her senior year, she moved to Berlin, Germany at the age of 18 and spent the next few years traveling Europe.
By the end when she reached Sweden she decided it was time to begin painting again – as an artist never feels content or whole unless they are creating!
She still resides in southern Sweden with her family painting with acrylics and oils telling stories in solitary pictures with which she now shares with the world.
Read our interview with Christina here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-christina-ridgeway
Jessalyn Aaland is an Oakland-based artist, writer, and educator. Her installations and works on paper explore utopian ideas of joy, humor, and possibility through color, shape, and texture. She has exhibited at Swarm Gallery (Oakland), Narwhal Projects (Toronto), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and was a 2013 artist-in-residence at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, CA.
Read our interview with Jessalyn here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-jessalyn-aaland
Read our interview with Jessalyn here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-jessalyn-aaland
Laura Parnes is an artist whose work engages strategies of narrative film and video art to blur the lines between storytelling conventions and experimentation. She has screened and exhibited her work widely in the US and internationally, including: The Institute of Contemporary Art University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA; The International Film Festival Rotterdam, Rotterdam, Netherlands; Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens, Greece; LOOP Festival, Barcelona, Spain; Light Industry, Brooklyn, NY; Kunsthalle Winterthur, Winterthur, Switzerland; Overgaden-Institute for Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark; iMOCA, Indianapolis, IN; Cinematexas, Austin, TX; Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius, Lithuania; Museo Nacional Centro De Arte Reina, Sofia, Madrid; Whitney Museum of American Art (1997 Whitney Biennial), New York, NY; Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand; The MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY; Miami Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; and Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY.
Parnes is a 2013 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow, a 2014 NYFA recipient and a 2016 Creative Capital Awardee and has lectured as a visiting artist at numerous institutions including Harvard University, Columbia University and University of California at Los Angeles. She has participated in panels at Yale University, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and MoMA PS1. Parnes has held teaching positions at New York University, The New School and Bennington College. In 2012 she was a visiting critic at Yale University. In 2009 Participant Press published a book of her scripts titled Blood and Guts in Hollywood: Two Screenplays by Laura Parnes. She was the co-founder of Momenta Art as it exists in Brooklyn. She received her BFA from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.
Read our interview with Laura here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-filmmaker-artist-laura-parnes
Parnes is a 2013 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellow, a 2014 NYFA recipient and a 2016 Creative Capital Awardee and has lectured as a visiting artist at numerous institutions including Harvard University, Columbia University and University of California at Los Angeles. She has participated in panels at Yale University, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and MoMA PS1. Parnes has held teaching positions at New York University, The New School and Bennington College. In 2012 she was a visiting critic at Yale University. In 2009 Participant Press published a book of her scripts titled Blood and Guts in Hollywood: Two Screenplays by Laura Parnes. She was the co-founder of Momenta Art as it exists in Brooklyn. She received her BFA from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA.
Read our interview with Laura here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-filmmaker-artist-laura-parnes
Leah Wolff (b. 1984) is a visual artist based in NYC. She received her MFA from Columbia University in 2011, and her BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 2006. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at Lu Magnus, Kunsthalle Galapagos, Fisher Landau Center for Art, NADA Art Fair and SculptureCenter in New York City, and at Mirus Gallery in San Francisco. Her most recent solo show was held at Scaramouche, New York. She is currently an artist in residence at the Museum of Art and Design in New York as part of the Artist Studios Program.
Read our interview with Leah here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-leah-wolff
Read our interview with Leah here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-leah-wolff
Danielle Adair lives in Los Angeles (USA). Her works have premiered in exhibition, screening, theater and concert venues internationally – Manila, Cologne, London, New York, Berlin, Stuttgart, Los Angeles, Paris. She is the author of From JBAD: Lessons Learned (Les Figues Press) based on her time as “embedded media” with US Forces in Afghanistan and for which she created the feature-length video-performance work FIRST ASSIGNMENT. Her work And I Think I Like It., a collection of 13 video-song-poems with associated artist book (Edition Solitude) examines an experience of “artist” within the US presidential election years of 2011-13.
Her painting and video installation On the Rocks, In the Land (Pitzer College Art Galleries) and accompanying artist zine with curator Ciara Ennis, analyzes the role of “tourist” in known walled conflict zones. In 2014 Adair created and premiered the experimental opera Caution Baum with the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart as part of her ongoing project Caution bomb. Adair is a California Community Foundation Visual Arts Fellow, a Center for Cultural Innovation – ARC grantee, and a recipient of The Louis Sudler Prize in the Performing and Creative Arts, among other distinctions. She carries an MFA in Studio Arts and in Critical Studies from California Institute of the Arts (2007) and a BA with Honors from The University of Chicago (2003).
Read our interview with Danielle here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-danielle-adair
Her painting and video installation On the Rocks, In the Land (Pitzer College Art Galleries) and accompanying artist zine with curator Ciara Ennis, analyzes the role of “tourist” in known walled conflict zones. In 2014 Adair created and premiered the experimental opera Caution Baum with the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart as part of her ongoing project Caution bomb. Adair is a California Community Foundation Visual Arts Fellow, a Center for Cultural Innovation – ARC grantee, and a recipient of The Louis Sudler Prize in the Performing and Creative Arts, among other distinctions. She carries an MFA in Studio Arts and in Critical Studies from California Institute of the Arts (2007) and a BA with Honors from The University of Chicago (2003).
Read our interview with Danielle here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-danielle-adair
Julie Gratz is an animator and artist who combines her musicality and skill in fine art to create animations and visuals that perfectly compliment the music they accompany. She grew up painting, drawing, dancing, choreographing and performing on stage, so animation has become a beautiful culmination of all her training and experience.
Read our interview with Julie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-julie-gratz
Read our interview with Julie here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-julie-gratz
Kit King is a Bahamian-Canadian contemporary artist who's recent representationalism works are an examination of femininity, sexuality, and ego within the social and technological constructs. Often using herself to shift the paradigm from seeing women as humbly obedient muses, to commanding subjects, King deconstructs women's place within art and the social stratum.
With portraits sporting vapid expressions, and contorted forms that both mock and mimic the frame of the male gaze, King's use of intimacy as a tool results in emotional works that disarticulate preconceptions about gender roles within cultural the levels. Her hyperrealistic paintings examine how value is established when addressing male and female image in society, looking at the platforms that shape it, and how this becomes part of our fixed disposition.
Read our interview with Kit here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-kit-king
With portraits sporting vapid expressions, and contorted forms that both mock and mimic the frame of the male gaze, King's use of intimacy as a tool results in emotional works that disarticulate preconceptions about gender roles within cultural the levels. Her hyperrealistic paintings examine how value is established when addressing male and female image in society, looking at the platforms that shape it, and how this becomes part of our fixed disposition.
Read our interview with Kit here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-kit-king
Anne Faith Nicholls is a contemporary artist, illustrator and curator based in California and represented by Martin Lawrence Galleries.
With works published and exhibited around the world, Nicholls is most recognized for her original paintings, which have earned her acclaim with art critics and collectors alike. She has also contributed to a variety of high profile commercial projects with corporate partners such as VANS, The Post Carbon Institute, Wind Up Records, The SF Guardian, The San Francisco Fillmore, GenArt, Visa and Keds Shoes.
The Artist's' signature aesthetic, recurring themes, and narrative style have branded her a "Neo-Surrealist" with inspirations grounded in Surrealism, Folk, Circus, Fraternal and Conceptual art movements. Inspired by her obsessions with travel and the subconcious journey within, her works feature mysterious symbols of love, fear, doubt, growth and renewal, creating both perplexing and alluring narratives on the human condition.
Read our interview with Anne here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-anne-faith-nicholls
With works published and exhibited around the world, Nicholls is most recognized for her original paintings, which have earned her acclaim with art critics and collectors alike. She has also contributed to a variety of high profile commercial projects with corporate partners such as VANS, The Post Carbon Institute, Wind Up Records, The SF Guardian, The San Francisco Fillmore, GenArt, Visa and Keds Shoes.
The Artist's' signature aesthetic, recurring themes, and narrative style have branded her a "Neo-Surrealist" with inspirations grounded in Surrealism, Folk, Circus, Fraternal and Conceptual art movements. Inspired by her obsessions with travel and the subconcious journey within, her works feature mysterious symbols of love, fear, doubt, growth and renewal, creating both perplexing and alluring narratives on the human condition.
Read our interview with Anne here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-anne-faith-nicholls
Molly Dilworth: I am a Brooklyn based artist who views creative practice as a form of research. Using data from a specific site as a structure, I give form to things that invisibly motivate our actions. I have partnered with green building community organizations, climate change activists, arts organizations and government agencies to make public art pieces that address our relationship to labor, ethics, history, nature and technology.
From the rooftops of Brooklyn to the Pedestrian plazas of Times Square, I have created outdoor site-specific paintings in New York City and exhibited across the United States. I have been a resident artist at the Salina Art Center in Kansas and in the Art & Law Program with the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts in NYC. My work was part of Spontaneous Interventions: design actions for the common good in the U.S. Pavilion at the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale.
Read our interview with Molly here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-molly-dilworth
From the rooftops of Brooklyn to the Pedestrian plazas of Times Square, I have created outdoor site-specific paintings in New York City and exhibited across the United States. I have been a resident artist at the Salina Art Center in Kansas and in the Art & Law Program with the Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts in NYC. My work was part of Spontaneous Interventions: design actions for the common good in the U.S. Pavilion at the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale.
Read our interview with Molly here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-molly-dilworth
Bren Ahearn: I use textile crafts to explore masculinity’s conflicting messages, and I typically use the cross stitch ABC sampler form to document how I’ve been educated to be a man in US society. (Years ago embroidery was part of a girl’s educational process, and during times when girls were not afforded a formal education, girls actually learned the ABCs by stitching them onto cloth. These embroidery samplers demonstrated a girl’s skill and the fact that she was of the leisure class, among other things.)
In my latest series of cross stitch samplers, I recall actual experiences when I exhibited risky behavior, and I document a violent parallel history in which I was not so lucky. Additionally, I am exploring my work history.
Read our interview with Bren here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-bren-ahearn
In my latest series of cross stitch samplers, I recall actual experiences when I exhibited risky behavior, and I document a violent parallel history in which I was not so lucky. Additionally, I am exploring my work history.
Read our interview with Bren here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-bren-ahearn
Isabel Wyatt: My hair has grown whiter and whiter.
The paintings have become smaller and darker.
I am inexplicably drawn to the landscape after years of colorful abstraction.
Mysterious, foreboding - is the light fading or is it the dawn of a new day?
Read our interview with Isabel here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-isabel-wyatt
The paintings have become smaller and darker.
I am inexplicably drawn to the landscape after years of colorful abstraction.
Mysterious, foreboding - is the light fading or is it the dawn of a new day?
Read our interview with Isabel here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-isabel-wyatt
Laura Fritz is interested in the inside of your brain, the place where you process light, make memories and filter out stray things. In your account of what happened on any given day, you may not include the strand of hair that fell across your face, the inanimate objects that appeared to jump at the edge of your vision, the moth you saw trapped on a screen or the cat waiting behind a door. Those stray things appeal to Fritz. . . . Fritz's work seems personal, as if we, the audience, thought of it first, but it is remote, in that as art it doesn't care what we think. Without any warning, it pumps out moths. --Regina Hackett, Seattle Post Intelligencer, May 20th 2005
Read our interview with Laura here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-laura-fritz
Read our interview with Laura here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-laura-fritz
Lesley Dill is one of the most prominent American artists working at the intersection of language and fine art. Her elegant sculptures, art installations, mixed-media photographs, and evocative performances draw from both her travels abroad and profound interests in spirituality and the world’s faith traditions. Exploring the power of words to cloak and reveal the psyche, Dill invests new meaning in the human form. Intellectually and aesthetical engaging, the core of her work emerges from an essential, visionary awareness of the world.
Fluid metaphors, appropriated from the poetry and writings of Emily Dickinson, Salvador Espriu, Tom Sleigh, Franz Kafka, and Rainer Maria Rilke, connect the diverse media that Dill employs. Paper, wire, horsehair, photography, foil, bronze, and music comprise elements through which the artist conveys the complexities of communication. The often secret, indecipherable, and bold meanings of words emerge not only from hearing their sounds, but by feeling them—language is a visceral, bodily experience. Dill challenges the viewer to confront our linguistic relationships as well as perceptions of language itself.
From Shimmer, Allegorical Figures, and Sister Gertrude Morgan by Barbara Matilsky
Read our interview with Lesley here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-lesley-dill
Fluid metaphors, appropriated from the poetry and writings of Emily Dickinson, Salvador Espriu, Tom Sleigh, Franz Kafka, and Rainer Maria Rilke, connect the diverse media that Dill employs. Paper, wire, horsehair, photography, foil, bronze, and music comprise elements through which the artist conveys the complexities of communication. The often secret, indecipherable, and bold meanings of words emerge not only from hearing their sounds, but by feeling them—language is a visceral, bodily experience. Dill challenges the viewer to confront our linguistic relationships as well as perceptions of language itself.
From Shimmer, Allegorical Figures, and Sister Gertrude Morgan by Barbara Matilsky
Read our interview with Lesley here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-lesley-dill
With a B.A. in painting from Scripps College in Claremont, California and an M.F.A. from the Claremont Graduate University, Lisa Adams is the recipient of numerous awards including a Fulbright Professional Scholar Award, a Brody Arts Fund Fellowship and a Durfee ARC Grant.
She has successfully taught at many renowned art departments throughout the Los Angeles area and abroad, including the University of Southern California, the Claremont Graduate University and Otis College of Art & Design. In 1999 she authored “FM*,” a how-to book about painting based on her teachings at the Santa Monica College of Design, Art and Architecture between 1997-1999.
Read our interview with Lisa here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-lisa-adams
She has successfully taught at many renowned art departments throughout the Los Angeles area and abroad, including the University of Southern California, the Claremont Graduate University and Otis College of Art & Design. In 1999 she authored “FM*,” a how-to book about painting based on her teachings at the Santa Monica College of Design, Art and Architecture between 1997-1999.
Read our interview with Lisa here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-lisa-adams
Lyndi Sales is an artist based in Cape Town, South Africa. For the past couple of years, she has been working on a series of installations and artworks that seek to investigate the circumstances surrounding the controversial Helderberg plane crash. These constructions, made of intricately cut, pinned paper and rubber often shed light on the fragile nature of our existence, temporality and how chance plays a role in our lives.
She has held solo shows internationally at Galerie Maria Lund in Paris and Toomey Tourell in San Francisco. And locally in South Africa at the Goodman Gallery, Bell-Roberts Contemporary, Joao Ferreria and Gallery Momo galleries. She has participated in group shows in South Africa, USA, Austria, London, Holland and Denmark. Her works can be found in major collections in South Africa as well as collections in the USA and Europe.
She has taught as a visiting lecturer at Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town and University of Stellenbosch. Sales received both her BFA (1995) and MFA (2000) from University of Cape Town, both with distinction. Sales was a merit award winner in the ABSA Atelier. She was a recipient of the Vermont Studio Center grant and participated in residencies at the Vermont studio center as well as the Frans Masereel Center in Belgium.
Read our interview with Lyndi Here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-lyndi-sales
She has held solo shows internationally at Galerie Maria Lund in Paris and Toomey Tourell in San Francisco. And locally in South Africa at the Goodman Gallery, Bell-Roberts Contemporary, Joao Ferreria and Gallery Momo galleries. She has participated in group shows in South Africa, USA, Austria, London, Holland and Denmark. Her works can be found in major collections in South Africa as well as collections in the USA and Europe.
She has taught as a visiting lecturer at Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town and University of Stellenbosch. Sales received both her BFA (1995) and MFA (2000) from University of Cape Town, both with distinction. Sales was a merit award winner in the ABSA Atelier. She was a recipient of the Vermont Studio Center grant and participated in residencies at the Vermont studio center as well as the Frans Masereel Center in Belgium.
Read our interview with Lyndi Here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-lyndi-sales
Sarah Nicole Phillips is a Toronto-born, Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist. She received her B.A, in Visual Studies from the University of Toronto and her MFA from Brooklyn College with a concentration in printmaking. She participated in a year-long artist residency at the Lower East Side Printshop where she continues to teach. She’s been awarded residencies at The Blue Mountain Center in upstate New York and the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center in Nebraska. Sarah exhibits widely in Canada and the US and has been included in shows at the Queens Museum of Art in New York, the International Print Center New York, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). In early 2014 she had a solo exhibition at McKinley Arts and Culture Center in Reno, Nevada. She is a 2009 & 2014 recipient of Brooklyn Arts Council grants. Her work is in several permanent collections including The James Hotel and NYU Langone Hospital.
Read our interview with Sarah here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-sarah-nicole-phillips
Read our interview with Sarah here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-sarah-nicole-phillips
Since the eary nineties, Heather Accurso has used the baby symbol in her ongoing visual myth. stylistic elements change, the theme endures. the drawings depict pure states of being, achieved via strange animal / plant / human fusion.
Despite serious motives and artistic evolution, she strives to entertain, presenting harsh but open-ended juxtapositions, wherein humor, hope, the bizarre and current events co-mingle.
Read our interview with Heather here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-heather-accurso
Despite serious motives and artistic evolution, she strives to entertain, presenting harsh but open-ended juxtapositions, wherein humor, hope, the bizarre and current events co-mingle.
Read our interview with Heather here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-heather-accurso
New York painter Nina Talbot captures and elucidates personal histories as she integrates the depiction of individuals and their stories in her vibrant portraits. For decades, Talbot has been painting her subjects and their un-told narratives, turning the seemingly ordinary into the extraordinary with her focused attention.
Talbot’s work displays an appreciation of the people around us, illuminating how their stories reflect and represent the complex of history of the United States. Talbot has interpreted her environment through portraiture, using a range of subjects, from supermarket workers stocking cans of tomatoes and the photo developer from Kazakhstan, to the war-torn portrait of a Vietnam veteran. While the images reflect aspects of classical portraiture, they convey depth through imagery of the stories and histories of their subjects. Talbot’s work is a rigorous study of human life, imbued with elements of oral history, storytelling, and national and global histories including domestic and foreign war, and immigration and migration.
In 2008 Talbot’s images of her neighborhood “mom and pop shops” from the series “Vendors of Brooklyn” were published in the Brooklyn Historical Society Flatbush Neighborhood Guide. Her murals were included in the recent publication, On the Wall; New York City Murals. Talbot was one of the principle artists who worked on the Artmakers mural, “When Women Pursue Justice” with her portraits of Gloria Steinem, Betty Freidan and Nina Simone. She was awarded two artist grants from the Brooklyn Arts Council in 2001 for her “Shoprite” series.
Read our interview with Nina here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-nina-talbot
Talbot’s work displays an appreciation of the people around us, illuminating how their stories reflect and represent the complex of history of the United States. Talbot has interpreted her environment through portraiture, using a range of subjects, from supermarket workers stocking cans of tomatoes and the photo developer from Kazakhstan, to the war-torn portrait of a Vietnam veteran. While the images reflect aspects of classical portraiture, they convey depth through imagery of the stories and histories of their subjects. Talbot’s work is a rigorous study of human life, imbued with elements of oral history, storytelling, and national and global histories including domestic and foreign war, and immigration and migration.
In 2008 Talbot’s images of her neighborhood “mom and pop shops” from the series “Vendors of Brooklyn” were published in the Brooklyn Historical Society Flatbush Neighborhood Guide. Her murals were included in the recent publication, On the Wall; New York City Murals. Talbot was one of the principle artists who worked on the Artmakers mural, “When Women Pursue Justice” with her portraits of Gloria Steinem, Betty Freidan and Nina Simone. She was awarded two artist grants from the Brooklyn Arts Council in 2001 for her “Shoprite” series.
Read our interview with Nina here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-nina-talbot
Ezra Wube (b. 1980, Ethiopia) is a mixed media artist lives and work in Brooklyn, NY. Ezra received his BFA (2004) from Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, MA and an MFA (2009) from Hunter College, New York, NY. Through autobiography his work references the notion of past and present, the constant changing of place, and the dialogical tension between "here" and "there".
Read our interview with Ezra here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-ezra-wube
Read our interview with Ezra here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-ezra-wube
Al Diaz is best know for his collaboration with Jean Michel Basquiat on SAMO©, graffiti that appeared in lower Manhattan from 1977 to 1979. SAMO© initially became known because of its wit and sarcastic humor; but became a globally recognized graffito after Basquiat’s rise to fame.
A prolific and influential first-generation NYC subway graffiti artist, who later became a text-oriented street artist, Al Diaz’s career spans 5 decades. He currently works with WET PAINT signs used throughout the New York City subway system. After cutting out individual letters to create clever, surreal and sometimes poignant anagrams, he hangs the finished works in subways stations throughout New York City. His WET PAINT work was featured in the 21st Precinct Street Art Event ( July,2014) , a solo show at “Outlaw Arts” (March, 2015) and will appear in the upcoming book, “Street Messages” by Nicholas Ganz.
He has been a featured speaker on a variety of panel discussions, including at The New School, The Museum of the City of New York, and NOLA Arts Festival in New Orleans.
Read our interview with Al here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-al-diaz
A prolific and influential first-generation NYC subway graffiti artist, who later became a text-oriented street artist, Al Diaz’s career spans 5 decades. He currently works with WET PAINT signs used throughout the New York City subway system. After cutting out individual letters to create clever, surreal and sometimes poignant anagrams, he hangs the finished works in subways stations throughout New York City. His WET PAINT work was featured in the 21st Precinct Street Art Event ( July,2014) , a solo show at “Outlaw Arts” (March, 2015) and will appear in the upcoming book, “Street Messages” by Nicholas Ganz.
He has been a featured speaker on a variety of panel discussions, including at The New School, The Museum of the City of New York, and NOLA Arts Festival in New Orleans.
Read our interview with Al here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-al-diaz
Wendy Klemperer earned a bachelor’s in biochemistry at Harvard before moving to NYC to pursue art full time, earning a B.F.A. in sculpture at Pratt Institute in 1983.
She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Nelson, NH.
The imagery that pervades her work reflects a lifelong fascination with animals. Presence and absence reverberate in her sculptures: a network of steel lines builds the form, drawing and re-drawing the animal, creating a tension like the sudden sighting of a wild beast.
Read our interview with Wendy here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-wendy-klemperer
She lives and works in Brooklyn, NY and Nelson, NH.
The imagery that pervades her work reflects a lifelong fascination with animals. Presence and absence reverberate in her sculptures: a network of steel lines builds the form, drawing and re-drawing the animal, creating a tension like the sudden sighting of a wild beast.
Read our interview with Wendy here: heroinchic.weebly.com/blog/interview-with-artist-wendy-klemperer
