Alexander Khah

I see my work as an intuitive expression that is transformed into a physical entity. I work with many different subjects, not fixed on any one idea. Many of my subjects incorporate self-identity with the human figure. .For me, art is a journey; a state of being, independent of outcome. It’s about spending time with myself, and through this process, I am awakened. Therefore, my art making process does not include much sketching and recording beforehand. Rather, I like to leave my options open as I work and allow the textures and materials to guide me. Through my artwork, I hope to pass on to the viewer my inspiration to see and recognize the subject, not only to look at the piece.

Brandon Pritzkat

I am a sculptor and social documentation photographer. I celebrate people and space. Where people live, how people make and use space, and the objects people need and consume are central themes and questions guiding my work.

I use portraiture to honor and tell stories of people who have been historically under or misrepresented; consent and trust-building are essential principles in my photograph making. Imaging the relationship between space, objects, and people help us to see differences in lived experience, which illuminates larger social issues or questions.

Caetano Gil Santos

My works are obsessively composed and compulsively graphic. Carefully drawn lines mingle to create a visual narrative that emerges and references contemporary underground culture. I am heavily influenced by the reckless and dangerous DIY aesthetic of skate, graffiti, and party culture, in which I draw upon to create antagonistically woeful imagery. Much of the iconography within my drawings and etchings allude to the vivacious lifestyles of youthful expression as I depict condoms, pills, alcohol, drugs, floating alongside graffiti caps and stylized fictional monsters. I create an atmosphere of static dissonance, which resonates, throughout my work, referencing the transition between a careless youth to a responsible adult. Precariously placed figures interlaced with sturdy cityscapes depict a superficial sense of security.

Hailing from Los Angeles, California, a city compacted with large amounts of traffic and advertising, I am constantly being stimulated with a dense amount of visual imagery. I evoke this barrage of stimuli in my work through the repetition of closely packed line work. I come from Mid-City Los Angeles, a community on the edge of two different realities. In a few blocks you go from a poor neighborhood of predominantly black and Latino communities with liquor stores on every corner to an affluent predominantly white neighborhood.

The contemporary art process of idea formation before conceiving the work, holds little relevance to my design based graphic style of making art. I feel restricted by the notion that concept should come before creation. I explore what image making is while producing it, leaving the concept behind in order to freely discover all possibilities of image making. Much like a producer edits a song on the whim of a feeling, I add and subtract forms continuously until there is a harmony within the work.

Heileng Chio

Heileng Chio specializes in designing and painting in oils and acrylics. She paints in surrealistic style and creates artworks influenced by rooster. The rooster has a familial meaning to Heileng because she, her parents, and her twin sister belong to this Chinese Zodiac. This animal portrays a unique bond shared between her family members; it reminds her of her personal connection to her family.

Darrel McKelvie Ruppel

Holding a forceful instrument of social construction while enthralled with overwhelming yet momentary emotions, I use sculpture and performance to engage observers in interactive art. By participating and contributing to experiences and conversations, help me build an environment that promotes intimate thought, encourages shared knowledge, and redefines our purpose as human beings.

Formerly a manufacturer of heavy artillery, my vessel of a body and penetrating voice now guide fellow humans to divert social activities through a shifted perspective: one that empathizes with all sentient beings, non-animal life included. By tantalizing viewers with irresistible temptations toward action, I focus on the reciprocal relationship between the audience and the performers, blurring lines of obligatory or secluded involvement and satisfactory completion of a work.

When constructing visual works that elude connected performance, a similarly charged energy of life must be present—that is, an interaction must occur between the viewer and the subject that transcends creation and observance and approaches collaboration. This form of sculpture has lead to my most current examination of human influence, spanning from sound-reactive light sculptures to reimagined domesticated animal habitats to two-day long interviews, as I begin to examine physical presence within a monitored space.

Emma Atterbury

I plan to create a series of dog portraits attempting to capture the personality of each dog through color, composition, and brushstroke. My intention is to create large scale portraits harnessing half-realistic and half-abstract in styles to present a new perspective on the dog that would not be seen in a normal portrait. Dogs have been a part of my life since the beginning, with this I believe they possess a love sometimes difficult for fellow human beings to present to one another; I aim to present this series as a representation of said love which allows us to see these animals in a new light.

Grace Hazel Simpson

I have chosen art the same way art has chosen me. My purpose as an artist is partly selfish but mostly altruistic; I need art in my life to express my creativity and because it feeds my soul; but I also feel a compulsion to share my perspective through my photography to the public eye.

As a visual and kinesthetic learner, I yearn to use my hands and create tangibly. In this way, my art becomes real to me and I am able to better communicate with my audience what I am expressing.

As an artist, I create images through photographic techniques, printmaking, and mixed media, incorporating painting and drawing into my art images. My themes show my connection to nature and my observations of light and space, often involving ideas of the feminine. Within these themes, moods alter to express human experience, incorporating the beauty, the ugly, and the nitty-gritty.

Jessica Levine

Creating art makes me feel like I am pushing back on all of the outside information constantly being consumed by my senses. It allows me to de-tangle my thoughts and turn them into something tangible within my physical reality. I am interested in how ideas come to be as well as what connects everything and everyone together. Metal is my favorite medium to work in because I feel like it is permanent and unwavering, countering the uncertainty and constant change of everything else in life.

Leonor A Pereda

Through my art, I create spaces for situations and introduce new ways of interaction.The meaning my work lies in the space between the  person and the interface I have created be it electronic or traditional. My electronic installations challenge the passive viewer to have a kinetic relationship with the piece and my traditional work examines life through a critical lens and creates the space for the viewer to consider subjects like homelessness and marginalized people in art.

Leah Stemmann

Torus: This flying disk is meant to remind viewers of the possibility of other intelligent beings and the mysteries beyond our reality. Mystery is important for imagining a reality infinitely different from the one we accept regularly. The piece invites participants to imagine unknown or alien ways of perceiving the universe and our place in it

Moon Clock: A short film about alternate realities and paranoia featuring footage from Godfrey Reggio’s Koyaanisqatsi, monologue from Richard Linklater’s Slacker, and music by the musician Christ. The two-part video shows distorted, layered, and masked moments of daily life, sped up and slowed down dramatically to represent unclear memory and an elusive present that is simultaneously always and never happening. Poorly keyed visual effects portray concepts of reality as kitsch and made-up, but artificial time and space morph into eerie uncertainty.

Michelle Bueno

The intentions behind my artwork are to honor my grandmother and my late grandfather who have sparked my interest in learning more about my ancestral and cultural origins. I utilized a puzzle style painting technique to portray them as pieces that form part of my family tree and depict them in muted and achromatic colors. Through the use of darker and lighter shades of color I am able to capture their emotions and convey their characteristics during a time when they were younger.