Homiens Summer 2025
Yixue Yang, Porous Presences (detail), 2025, Glass and ceramics, Various and 39.4”x 5.9” x 11″ (1000 mm x 150 mm x 280 mm).
It’s our great privilege to bring together the following artists, who exhibit both technical brilliance and a deep emotional intelligence. While distinguished by an exacting command of craft, our Summer 2025 artists demonstrate that mastery is not merely about technique, but about the relentless power of observation.
Many of these artworks reveal a fascinating tension between the organic and the artificial, with soft forms often encased, gridded, suspended, or examined through a critically sharp lens. From hyper-realistic renderings of the terrestrial world and bodies in motion, to the fragile precision of symbols and glass, these extraordinary pieces are united in their humane interrogation of the physical and psychological structures that shape our reality.
The Homiens Art Prize is Now Open
Kyler Hildenbrand
The Leap 2024
Chalk pastel pencils and PanPastel on Pastelmat paper
28″ x 19″ (711 mm x 483 mm)
My name is Kyler Hildenbrand, I am 17 years old and I specialize in realistic animal drawing using mostly chalk pastels on Pastelmat paper. I live in Portland, Oregon and have always been amazed of the beauty of animals. I go to school at Westside Christian High School and I will just be starting my senior year in September. I started drawing animals because they inspire me and I want to spread awareness of endangered species by drawing them. The time it takes me to complete a piece depends on the size and the details of the drawing, my largest piece took me around 50+ hours of work. I won the Beaverton City Library Art Competition this last year out of more than 100+ high school contestants in the Oregon area. I have a small freelance art business and would like to grow it and receive more recognition so I can do commissions for people and be able to sell originals and not just to family friends. I started my art account on Instagram when I was 12 and from that I have grown to almost 1000 followers but still haven’t quite reached that yet. You can find me @art.by.kyler to explore my portfolio.
Adam Niklewicz
RIGOROUS 2016
Boxing gloves and jars
12″ x 9″ x 6″ (305 mm x 229 mm x 152mm)
Artist’s Statement: I trust in secret powers dwelling in all things. A right arrangement of items, symbols and words (of the title) can bring the secret powers to life and give a vivid, meaningful union.
Born in Poland; lives and works in North Haven, CT, USA and Guadalajara, MX. I earned my MFA in sculpture from State University of New York at Purchase (2006). I showed my work at Real Art Ways, The New Britain Museum of American Art, The Stamford Museum, Grounds for Sculpture, Black & White Gallery, FiveMyles, Hudson Valley MOCA, Galerie fur Landschaftskunst (Hamburg, Germany), Gallery of Contemporary Art (Opole, Poland), Zachęta (Warsaw, Poland), Arte Laguna Prize 2014 / the Arsenale (Venice, Italy), Art-Zavod Platforma / Gogolfest (Kiev, Ukraine), JUMP Gallery (Poltava, Ukraine), and York Art Gallery (York, UK).
I have mounted 16 solo shows in both the USA and Europe and have had my work reviewed in ARTnews, Art New England, Aesthetica, The New York Times, Sculpture Magazine, Modern Painters Magazine, The Huffington Post and the Nation, among others. I have received grants from Connecticut Commission on Culture (Artist Fellowship Grant, 2008 and 2023), Berkshire Taconic Foundation (A.R.T. Fund Grant, 2010), and Central Connecticut State University (AAUP Faculty Development Grant, 2021). In 2017, CNN Style presented 4 of my works in a feature story titled “Extraordinary in the Ordinary: These Warped Works Will Melt Your Mind.”
Nicolette Spear
Dopamine, First Impressions 2024
Oil on canvas
60″ x 48″ (1524 mm x 1219 mm)
Nicolette Spear is a Los Angeles-based painter whose work explores the paradoxical relationship between technology and the human experience. Her paintings confront the dual nature of the digital age, its capacity to simultaneously connect and isolate, while inviting viewers to examine their own entanglement with the virtual world.
In her ongoing Dopamine series, Spear overlays meticulously rendered oil portraits with grids of app icons and corporate tech logos, echoing the familiar structure of a smartphone’s home screen. This visual language speaks to the ubiquity of digital culture and the subtle ways it has become embedded in our physical and emotional lives.
Born in Honolulu, Hawai‘i and raised on a horse ranch in rural Maine, Spear brings a unique perspective to her exploration of the modern condition rooted in a deep connection with nature and the human body. She earned her BFA in Painting from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2009 and has exhibited her work publicly since 2010. Spear is currently represented by Von Lintel Gallery in Santa Monica, located at Bergamot Station Arts Center. Her most recent solo exhibition took place at the Von Lintel Gallery January to the end of February 2025.
Website
Instagram
Email
Darbylyn Dawid
Earthworm 2025
Oil on wood panel
16″ x 16″ (406 mm x 406 mm)
Artist’s Statement: In the deepest parts of the ocean, where sunlight can’t reach, life still thrives. Microbes feed on chemicals from hydrothermal vents, proving that life doesn’t need the sun to exist. This process, called chemosynthesis, has reshaped our understanding of where life can exist, both on Earth and beyond.
My paintings explore this shift in perception. While we often look to the stars to feel awe, I turn our gaze back to Earth. Through detailed, realistic depictions of natural organisms, I invite viewers to see the infinite complexity in the terrestrial. As Georgia O’Keeffe said, “When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment.”
I aim to evoke the same smallness and wonder we feel when looking at the cosmos, reminding us that the mysteries we seek in space may already be alive beneath our feet.
Hi, my name is Darbylyn! I’m a fine artist currently residing in Brooklyn. I graduated from the School of Visual Arts in 2019 with a BFA in Illustration. I began painting in 2019, and since then have not been able to stop. I’ve spent my entire life living on the coast, and have a fascination for marine art.
Raquel Da Silva
Doubt rears its head 2025
Conté, pigment and oil on canvas
40″ x 50″ (1016 mm x 1270 mm)
Artist’s Statement: Doubt rears its head explores the emotional residue left behind by past uncertainty, capturing how doubt embeds itself in the psyche and re-emerges as both obstacle and mirror.
Raquel Da Silva is a Toronto-based mixed-media artist whose work delves into the emotional architecture of memory. Her practice explores how personal history is not stored as a fixed narrative, but rather as fragments – distorted, reassembled, and reshaped over time. Through painting and sculpture, she constructs emotional landscapes where memory acts less as a factual record and more as a symbolic residue. Da Silva is particularly interested in the failures of memory and how these gaps or distortions become fertile ground for reimagining the past. Her work resists chronological clarity, instead leaning into emotional truth: How a single image, gesture, or figure can carry disproportionate emotional weight even when its original context is lost. By embracing the subjectivity of perception, Da Silva’s work investigates how memory is shaped by the present moment.
Zoë Dawes
Departure 2023
Oil on canvas
18″ x 24″ (450 mm x 610 mm)
Zoë Dawes is a self-taught British artist who invites the viewer to meditate on the extraordinary within the ordinary by creating intricate photorealistic oil paintings that pay close attention to the realistic qualities of surface and texture and the interplay between light and shadow. By choosing to depict transient moments of familiarity that might otherwise be overlooked, Dawes’ photorealistic style encourages the viewer to immerse themselves in contemplation of the everyday through its commitment to precision and a minute level of detail. By utilizing a traditional representative style of painting, her practice subverts the notion that only grand or seemingly impressive moments are worthy of artistic portrayal, thus transforming how we perceive the commonplace.
Website
Instagram
Email
Kenji Ichikawa
Zen Garden (Eikando, Zenrin-ji Temple Pond Garden) 2024
from Zen Garden series
Photo print, hand-cut collage on wooden panel
23.4” x 33.1” x 1″ (594 mm x 841 mm x 25 mm)
Artist’s Statement: Eikando’s pond garden transforms with the seasons, its waters reflecting shifting colors, light, and the graceful movement of Nishikigoi (ornamental carp). I photographed these layers of transient beauty and reassembled them into a mosaic-like composition.
Just as electronic circuits pulse with changing currents, the pond garden’s rhythm evolves with the flow of nature and the swimming Nishikigoi. Through Pixel Montage, each fragment records a moment in time, collectively forming a landscape that feels both impermanent and eternal. This work expresses how technology and Zen gardens both embody transformation – not as loss, but as the continual renewal of harmony and connection.
Kenji Ichikawa is a contemporary Japanese artist based in Tokyo and Nagano, known for developing the unique technique “Pixel Montage” in 1988. This method involves cutting printed photographs into small squares and reconstructing them by hand to create entirely new images. His work explores the interplay between micro and macro perspectives, transforming fragments into visually compelling stories. Over the years, Ichikawa has exhibited internationally, including in Venice (Arte Laguna Prize) and Germany (NordArt), with upcoming shows in Shanghai and Osaka.
The Zen Garden series is a continuation of this artistic journey, inspired by the tranquil beauty of traditional Japanese temple gardens and their philosophical connection to harmony and nature. In this series, Ichikawa reimagines Zen gardens through his handcrafted Pixel Montage technique. Each piece is constructed from meticulously trimmed photographs, capturing both the serenity of Kyoto’s temple gardens and the intricate visual order reminiscent of electronic circuits. The works invite viewers to experience Zen gardens from dual perspectives – up close, revealing detailed fragments, and from afar, perceiving a harmonious landscape that bridges tradition and modernity.
Daniel Jenkins
Albert Ayler 2025
Sharpie on canvas
30″ x 40″ (762 mm x 1016 mm)
Artist’s Statement: My work is a bridge between portraiture and abstraction, I see my work as a way to reconcile the complexity of the subconscious. We all contain a vast array of influences and ideas and I believe the creative act, when done on instinct instead of a conscious decision, is a means for the mind to correctly convey what is hidden deep within its depths. A way for the human mind to look at itself and gain a better understanding of what it is.
Artist Daniel Jenkins creates pieces that combine figure work and abstraction. Purposely setting out to merge polar opposites together, Daniel has a unique and distinct style that he has consistently produced. Shortly after finishing art school Daniel began having vision problems, and after multiple tests and doctor visits he found out he had a brain tumor putting pressure on his optic nerves, causing him to slowly go blind. After a successful brain surgery, the tumor was removed and Daniel’s eyesight was fully restored. Taking this as a sign to not neglect his talents, Daniel set out on a task of doing one full piece of art every day for an entire year straight. This endeavor led him to eventually merge his classically trained figurative work with his love for abstraction and abstract expressionism – allowing him to combine his schooling with his life experience.
Jo Lane
tower for a tear 2025
Blown glass, slate pigment, and graphite powder in gypsum cement
15″ x 6.7″ x 3.9″ (380 mm x 170 mm x 100 mm)
Artist’s Statement:
The thing that sprouts from sorrow and pain
The liquid state of feeling
The visible drop of emotion
When these erupt, they overwhelm the body’s delicate drainage system, spilling out from the tiny ducts in our eyelids, making themselves visible to the world. In that moment, they are messages. They release stress and reveal a truth.
This work, while cold, hard and heavy is about something incredibly soft, fleeting and human, deeply human. Tears are not weakness; they are treasures of feeling. They speak of our capacity to feel, to hurt, to love, to lose, to connect.
Melbourne-based artist Jo Lane has a Masters of Fine Arts (Drawing) from the University of the Arts London, and has held solo exhibitions since 2014. She has been exhibited in group exhibitions since 2004 in Melbourne, Sydney, and London at art spaces including Lumen Studios, Crypt Gallery, HIX AWARD, Coutts Bank, Xhibit Art Bermondsey Project Space, WESTEND Art Space, Montsalvat, Oigall Gallery and Kellie Lundberg Art.
Jo has been a finalist in the 2025 Newstead Arts Hub, ‘Small World’ Small Sculpture Exhibition & Prize (2024, 23 & 21), Deakin University Contemporary Small Sculpture Award (2023), Yering Station Sculpture Awards (2022), Kedumba Drawing Award (finalist by invitation, 2021), Yarra Valley Arts / Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition & Awards (2021), Northern Beaches Environmental Art & Design Prize (finalist, open category, 2021), Wyndham Art Prize (2020/21), and Woollahra Small Sculpture Awards.
Xiaoping Lin
Jungle Rule 2023
Digital photograph
15″ x 10″ (381 mm x 254 mm)
Artist’s Statement: Instant Eternity: Freezing the Lines of Nature in the Game of Survival – When the camera freezes into an eternal moment, the turbulent sea is surging with the fantasy of life. The ripples stirred by the seawater present a gradient of blue-green color, like the blending of oil paint by the hand of nature on the canvas. In the center of the screen, the slender neck of the egret is stretched into an elegant arc, and the iron beak firmly grips the weak body of the small fish. The big fish opens its huge mouth to grab the small fish. Under the law of the jungle, who will the small fish belong to? The small fish becomes a chess piece in the game of natural laws, reflecting the most authentic survival philosophy of the natural world at the critical point of life and death: There is no absolute strong, only in the face of the burst of vitality, all rules will temporarily become invalid. I paid tribute to nature through the lens: Here, every life is a line of poetry written by the Creator, and the cruelty and magnificence of survival competition together constitute the most passionate paragraph of this long poem.
When our gaze moved away from the screen, the splashing water had already calmed down, and the figures of big fish and egrets disappeared into the sparkling waves. But the charm of photography lies in this – it turns fleeting natural dramas into eternal spiritual fables. In this fast-paced era, this work is like a prism, allowing us to see the most authentic appearance of life: not the cold law of the law of the jungle, but the epic of survival that every living being is writing with all their might. Those shimmering in the waves are not only the cruel truth of nature, but also the brilliant light of life that never compromises.
Xiaoping Lin, a Chinese bird photographer, has been deeply involved in the field of photography since 1992. He has won multiple honors such as XPOSURE first place, BigPicture winner, HIPA Merit Medal, NBP winner, CEWE winner, etc. His photography works have been exhibited at photography exhibitions around the world. As a creator specializing in bird photography, his works use a unique perspective to interpret the rich connotations of biodiversity through the language of the lens, while accurately capturing vivid details of bird ecological behavior. These images not only inspire viewers to deeply contemplate the laws of nature, but also trigger the public to re-perceive the magnificent charm of nature, arousing people’s deep questioning of the essence of life and the mysteries of nature.
Bob Moskowitz
Rosie at Her Easel 2024
Oil on canvas
48″ x 36″ (1219mm x 914mm)
Born in Newark, New Jersey, Bob Moskowitz moved with his family to the Bronx where he lived through kindergarten until they moved to Philadelphia, where he lived for 22 years. He earned a B.A. in Liberal Arts from Westchester University and later a four year certificate from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. There he won a Franklin Watkins Grant and a Scheidt European Scholarship. In 1977 he moved to St. Louis, Missouri to attend graduate school at Washington University where he met his wife, artist Margie Moskowitz. He earned an M.F.A. in Painting in 1979 and taught in St. Louis and Illinois until moving to California to teach at Ventura College where he was the art department chair. He currently maintains his studio in Southern California.
Songer Yang
Good Kid 2025
Watercolor on paper
16″ x 8″ (406 mm x 203 mm)
Artist’s Statement: Inspired by childhood memories of earning star stickers in kindergarten – a quiet ritual of praise and attention. Growing up in the same school where my mother once taught, I felt special and watched. Each sticker, placed on my wall, became a symbol of trying to be good.
Songer Yang is a visual artist working across painting, graphic design, and narrative forms. Rooted in personal memory, her practice explores themes of family, femininity, and the emotional weight of domestic rituals. She often uses repetitive hand labor to reflect on healing, grief, and the quiet persistence of love. Born in Shaoxing, Zhejiang, China, she holds a BFA in Illustration from the School of Visual Arts and an MFA in 2D Design from Cranbrook Academy of Art.
Yixue Yang
Porous Presences 2025
Glass and ceramics
Various and 39.4”x 5.9” x 11″ (1000 mm x 150 mm x 280 mm)
Artist’s Statement: This work consists of a group of ceramic objects collected from second-hand shops across the UK. Originating from different countries and regions, these objects were once part of various domestic settings. Now, displaced and resold, they exist in unfamiliar surroundings, detached from their original cultural contexts and functional meanings. As a Chinese artist living and working in the UK, I project my own condition onto these objects: visible, yet always on the margin; present, yet never fully integrated.
Each piece is gently encased in lampworked glass. Transparent and fragile, the glass does not seal the objects but instead reveals an intangible sense of boundary. In my practice, glass is not only a material language, but also a philosophical manifestation – it symbolizes Wu (non-being) in Daoist thought. Wu is not emptiness, but a space of undefined potential, an open and fluid mode of presence.
Even the British ceramics in this installation become “othered” within this context – forgotten, stripped of function, and culturally displaced. Like myself, these objects exist in a state of non-belonging. Surrounded by glass yet never fully possessed, they form a fragile structure of coexistence through rupture – not grounded in similarity, but in difference. This work seeks to reveal, through the “Wu” of glass, the complex relationships between cultural drift, blurred identity, and material fragility.
Yixue Yang (b. Wuhan, China), based in Sunderland, UK, is a contemporary artist working across ceramics and glass. She is pursuing a practice-led PhD in Glass and Ceramics at the University of Sunderland, where her research probes the Daoist concept of ‘Wu’ (non-being) and its contemporary expressions. Yang’s practice examines the shifting relation between non-being and being: clay and glass act as parallel languages to test absence/presence, solidity/fragility and edge/void. Porcelain and celadon articulate negative space and the co-construction of form; lamp- worked, flame-shaped glass traces ephemerality, transparency and boundary. Guided by ‘Wu Wei’ (effortless action), she balances precision with surrender, allowing fire, flux and gravity to shape outcomes. Glass often becomes a vessel of subtle containment or exposure, encasing fragments or revealing charged voids. Her work has been shown in the UK, Spain, Italy, and China, bridging Eastern philosophy and Western contemporary art. She reflects on cultural fluidity and shifting identity, inviting quiet attention to the rhythms and tensions where matter, thought and transformation meet.
Payal Walia Hattar
Playing by the Kerb 2024
Oil on linen
32″ x 24″ (813 mm x 610 mm)
Artist’s Statement: I was returning from my morning run, when I saw some young kids playing by the kerb. They had filled a piece of garden hose with some dirt and were slinging it around. What ensued was unrestrained mirth and a whole lot of fun. I was struck by the innocence and simplicity of these kids. The scene kindled many childhood memories and thus I decided to create this painting in oils. The work can be described as detailed with a focus on composition, feel, and color harmony. Elements such as the grey backdrop and a hint of sunlight on a cold winter day are balanced by warm countenances and vibrant colors in the foreground.
Art has the potential to elevate our human experience as we take inspiration from God’s august design. A tiny flower resting on the bough, an elusive smile, the rising wave, or a cloudburst can fill one’s heart with wonder and reverence. I believe dialing in to the awesome and minutiae of the natural world, enables and enriches the creative process.
Most of my work is representational with a focus on narrative, composition, color harmony, and detail. Through portrait paintings, I aim to tell honest stories that resonate with the viewer at a personal level. One of my favorite subjects is children. It’s a delight to just watch kids play with abandon and laugh without reason. Some elements in my landscape paintings include distant roads, open fields, expansive mountains, and meandering rivers. These emerge from my love for the great outdoors and childhood memories of four-wheeling on mountain roads every summer. The freedom and joy of standing amidst the blustery winds and witnessing the changing skyline cannot be described. Art for me is more than a hobby or profession. It’s a beautiful opportunity to pause, reflect, and wander in non-material things away from the city hustle.
Sitian Zeng
Blue in the Dream 2020
Watercolour on paper
39.4″ x 29.5″ (1001 mm x 750 mm)
Sitian Zeng is a Glasgow-based artist and practice-led researcher. Her work spans watercolour painting, mixed-media art, and moving images, exploring interdisciplinary concerns including painting in the expanded field, subjectivity, identity, mass media, and power structures in the post-digital age. Through figurative compositions, she constructs fantastical realms that invite reflection on the digital dimensions of contemporary life. Sitian’s work has been exhibited internationally.