Artist Spotlights
Grace Nkem
“I think of my collage-like, painted images as browser pop-ups and I draw upon compositional clichés and visual conventions we encounter when interacting with screens: icons, endless interfaces, a compacted depth of field, cut-paste image-overlay, and so on. It seems impossible to produce a twenty-first century painting that is not informed by digital images, given that our contemporary understanding thereof is inexorably shaped by and tied to their existence in cyberspace, though we only spend fractions of a second with some of the images we see on screens.”
Farah Mohammad
“In Time Won’t Tell I wanted to show work that engaged with an urge to know ourselves separate from the histories that we have inherited.”
Tiantian Lou
“Physically, my processes are fast segments of different mediums and actions, involving elements of surprises. Conceptually, my works are evolving testing grounds for me to investigate the relationship between the human body and the built space.”
Saloni Shah
“My projects typically commence with extensive research into the history of the patterns that I am dealing with and compiling multiple sources to piece together the timeline of the story I am narrating through the work. “
Erika Shiba
“Through my practice of printmaking and drawing I create a psychological universe which I like to call a “mentalscape”; the work I make exist as documents of discovery in this space.”
Nola Parker
“What drives and inspires me is my experience of the world. I spent a lot of time outdoors growing up in Vermont and I still feel that same sense of wonder and mystery I felt as a little kid standing in the big woods and just feeling like, “I don’t know the half of what is really going on out there” and finding some calm in that.”
Alina Birkner
“I am working freely on more complex paintings. I try not to judge them as much as I used to, embracing the process and their strangeness.”
Elizabeth Shull
“I am enthralled with the natural world and being outdoors. Of course my environment provides my inspirational backbone so the ocean, night sky, and birds regularly prompt many ideas. I am fascinated by history and science, the passage of time, connections, cause and effect, and the endless trail of visual and literal information.”
Catalina Viejo Lopez de Roda
“My images re-invent themes that have interested me all of my life: reality and illusion, voyeuristic impulses, our relationship with our environment, and existential dichotomies. I often use the rainbow in my work as a symbol of inner light and connection. Visual art, poetry, literature, mythology, psychology, philosophy, nature, and daily interactions with my environment and other beings influence my art-making.”
Amy Bravo
“It’s very rare that I make a work in only one medium. I was a sketchbook kid growing up, always cutting and collaging and combining highlighter, pen, glitter, pressed flowers, anything that glue or tape could hold down. I get really attached to found textures and objects, sometimes they’re quicker to communicate something deeper about what the work means than traditional drawing or painting is.”
Alina Vinogradova
“I am inspired by ancient religions and myths. And often the narratives in my works begin there. But usually I don't come up with a plot in advance or make sketches. I fantasize by painting directly on canvas. And only then, I come up with a story and a name. This is a powerful creative flow from my soul, which I myself sometimes wonder at. “
Alexey Yakovlev
“At some point, I wanted to make a series of adolescent people, to show the time when a person is full of hopes, dreams and fantasies. There is some uncertainty inherent in this age and it is a kind of freedom that many of us lose as we get older.”
Brittany Miller
“My paintings are very flat, and they have a rubbed-on texture that looks like woodblock prints. I cut all my brushes down and scrub on the paint, letting it dry in between layers. At the end of my time at Pratt, I was making large-scale Bible coloring book paintings--almost-black outlines filled in with saturated color--cropped pictures of angels, floods, and falling pillars. My work now has a lot to do with those paintings.“
Yuri Yuan
“Dreams are where our subconsciousness is free to wander, “the return of the repressed” as Freud would say. I am always looking for these moments of connection where the images or narratives break away from reality. I translate these moments onto paper in the form of sketches and piece them together onto canvas.”
Daria Denisova
“The work process begins either with a search: I do compositional searches in my sketchbook, or begin to directly work on canvas. I just sit down in front of a white primed canvas, and my hand is already gliding it over it.“
Alisa Gvozdeva
“The process of making my works is always different, often it is a spontaneous idea, which comes to my mind before or during work. I like to make something new, it's always a challenge for me to try some new techniques or compositions. In spite of the difference between every work I produce, I usually enjoy the process no matter what, I discover the unconscious with no struggle but calm and joy.“
Luis Gutierrez
“When painting my abstract studies, I am inspired by the signs of decay of exterior walls; there is something very interesting about the change of their color due to time and weather. I think that connects to my obsession with history; no matter how much we try to erase our past, somehow, it will always remain present.“
Sofia Yalalova
“The opaque colored background in my work symbolizes the process of growth and development, it helps me to focus all my attention on the portraits. It is also important for me to immerse the viewer in a timeless perception, to shift the viewer's focus to the portrait of a child as much as possible, his childhood dreams, experiences and feelings.“
Marsel Yalalov
“From a technical point of view, this is oil paint on canvas. However, it's far more complex than that. The difficulty of creating the work was in mimicry of a graphic computer file, achieving RGB color in the background. I like to combine classical painting techniques and digital art. I believe that this is a kind of symbiosis of the real and digital world.“