The Homiens Art Prize Winners Exhibition
SPRING 2024
The quality of submissions received this round has overwhelmingly served to reinforce our commitment at Homiens to delivering an extensive Longlist, along with our Shortlisted and Winning artists who we are delighted to exhibit below. We are so pleased to be able to work positively in the lives of artists through The Homiens Art Prize, and to provide the external recognition many artists need to invest confidently in themselves, and make or renew a firm commitment to their own artistic practice. You can read statements about the life changing impact of the Prize from the artists below on our Homiens Voices page.
If you missed out on entering our Spring round, we are now accepting entries to the current round of The Homiens Art Prize. Read more and enter below for the chance to become one of our Winning artists or Finalists, or to gain recognition as one of our Highly Commended artists.
Winners Exhibition
We’re overjoyed to present the Winning artworks and artists of The Homiens Art Prize for Spring, 2024. Our Jurors were particularly enthused on this occasion by the dynamism of each Winning artwork, and by each Winning artist’s successful preservation of an earnest and refreshing sense of vitality. This expressive quality, connected to brevity and so often readily apparent during the early stages of creation, can be difficult to sustain through the complicated evolution and refinement of an artwork. These artworks are each bold enough to apprehend and hold a moment with honesty. Our Jurors felt that these artworks evidenced an exciting visual and conceptual commitment to the development of a distinguishing, and thereby, instantly recognizable, artistic style. In these artworks our Jurors also detected a firm sense of a thriving and unafraid artistic practice. In the spirit of celebration, as always, we are delighted to bring together such stirring work.
Martín Prado
Wally with Flowers 2024
Oil on linen
11” x 14” (279mm x 355mm)
Artist’s Statement: In this painting, I obscure the face of my friend sitting for me in his room with flowers and magazines. Only the side of his face and hand are shown. This is almost a still life. I included the human form to let it breathe. There is a magazine open to a Joan Michell painting, and another magazine with a photo of musician Yves Tumor. These are interpretations of individual works of art within a single canvas. The sitter holds the elements together by balancing the props over himself. I imbue the canvas with color and forms that can be easily read and ask the viewer to wonder why all these things came together in one place.
Martín Prado is a poet, filmmaker, and painter. He was born and raised in Olympia, Washington, and received his BA in Cultural Anthropology from Western Washington University. During that time he finished his first film, Time, the Greatest Thief, Forever (2018), a documentary exploring themes of memory, nostalgia, and time travel. It was through the making of this film that he discovered his passion for painting. He has taught himself how to paint for seven years using art books, museum and gallery visits, and countless hours of educational video content. He states, “I am a painter first and foremost because in painting I can most clearly articulate the physical representation of the imagination, which is all-powerful and can do the impossible, such as grow wings or carry flowers only seen in dreams.” He works and resides in Brooklyn, New York.
Aiman
05:53 2024
Oil on linen
47.2″ x 47.2″ (1200mm x 1200mm) from 05:47-07:02
Artist’s Statement: The series 05:47-07:02 unveils fragments of amber, serving as crystalline gateways to tranquil, expansive vistas bathed in the fleeting luminescence of astronomical, nautical, and civil twilight—liminal periods delicately balanced between darkness and light. What may initially appear as landscape depictions gradually reveal themselves as metaphorical self-portraits. During Aiman’s formative years, the seaside was more than a backdrop; it was a place of guidance and reflective conversations with his father following youthful missteps. The sea, a recurring motif interwoven through his works and personal narrative, underscores the complex dialogues that unfolded, while its depiction during twilight—a quintessential liminal space—amplifies the tension in themes of acceptance versus rejection, and of possibility versus closure. Resembling ancient relics preserved through time, the fragments in his art—encapsulating poignant moments from his past—initially suggest an array of dissonance and turmoil. Yet, beneath this surface tumult, a subtle undercurrent of tranquility emerges, seamlessly transitioning into a harmonious equilibrium that forms the foundational composition of his artworks. The series reveals states of being that fluctuate between chaos, fragility, tranquility, and peace. Within this emotional spectrum, a formless, unifying presence binds everything together, shaping and underpinning the artwork’s composition. This interplay and the transitional spaces it creates underscore the concept of “liminality”—the tranquility found within turmoil and the stability amidst change.
A visual artist and fine arts alumnus of Lasalle College of The Arts, Aiman’s practice has journeyed exhibitions and art fairs from the local stages of Singapore to international platforms in Malaysia, Indonesia, China and the US. Other than a recent showing at S.E.A. Focus 2024, he has held three solo exhibitions, and was also profiled alongside ten artists from South East Asia in 2020—a collaboration with ArtSEA on establishing arts-based initiatives for social impact. His current practice—deeply informed by his ongoing studies in Theology at the University of Divinity (AU)—seeks to engage with and dissect philosophical questions within the context of contemporary discourse. This intellectual and creative pursuit has been recognised with accolades such as the Stanton Archer Prize from the University of Divinity in 2022 and 2023, while his passion for art has also been acknowledged by various awards such as the Georgette Chen Scholarship, and the Winston Oh Travel Award.
Santiago Llanos Gutierrez
Sin título (Whitechapel) 2023
Oil on aluminum
41.3” x 29.5” (1050 x 750 mm)
Artist’s Statement: By a principle of adventure-painting, I wake up and fall asleep wondering what “the real world” could be. What is “wilderness”, what is “countryside”, what is “city”…Exploring outside the studio to paint “from life” in the era of digital media and artificial intelligence, as once painters did according to history books, is the core game I’m playing. Why? Because we should be shocked by existence. In the endless possibilities and the physical limitations that this operation brings—“plein air” painting—I’ve found an uncomfortable peace that shakes me awake. This performance opens an unreal path in the metropolis, a way for me to ask questions to the city while connecting randomly with its inhabitants and its secret forces. Abstraction and figuration dance in and out of my cooking pot, brought to life by tools and materials found in the everyday. Towards documentary, animation, installation, gaming, and participatory creation, I walk carrying a bag with paint and brushes through this floating sphere of water and stone we call Earth.
Santiago Llanos Gutierrez (b.1993) is an artist born and raised in Santiago, Chile. He graduated in 2018 with a Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Arts from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He has exhibited his work in self-managed solo shows in Chile, highlighting ‘Perplejismos’ (2022, Santiago) and ‘Paisajes de Autoayuda’ (2021, Santiago), and in collective exhibitions internationally, highlighting “EUROSTARZ” (2024, Tick Tack Gallery, Belgium), “Nausea” (2024, Shoreditch High Street, London), “FAST” (2023, OMA Gallery, Chile), and “Mera Coincidencia” (2022, Santiago, Chile). He has worked in residencies and collaborative art projects among which “Usted está Aquí” (2018, Santiago, Chile) and “Llegó de Melinka” (2020, Guaitecas, Chile) stand out. In 2022, he was awarded with a grant by The Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation and he moved to the United Kingdom to complete a master’s degree in painting at the Royal College of Art.
Kateryna Reznichenko
Water 2022
Oil and acrylic on canvas board
16″ x 23″ (406mm x 584mm) from TOTEM
Artist’s Statement: The artwork evokes the fluidity of identity, the malleability of the self, and the concealed truths that lie beneath the facade we present to the world.
Kateryna Reznichenko is a Ukrainian artist from Lviv, based in Seattle, USA. Born in 1997 and educated at the Ivan Trush Lviv College, she completed her master’s degree in the Monumental Arts Department at the Lviv National Academy of Arts. Her works are kept in private collections in Ukraine, Slovenia, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Monaco, Cyprus, and the USA.
Yongqi Tang
Strange Tales: The Painted Wall 2023
Oil on canvas
Triptych, 216” x 72” (5486mm x 1828mm) from Strange Tales
Artist’s Statement: Strange Tales is a body of works that delves into the portrayal of supernatural entities as representatives of marginalized individuals within patriarchal societies. By dissecting Chinese classic literature, my aim is to transcend Western and Eastern dichotomies, intertwining allegories, myths, and symbols from both traditions to foster a nuanced, hybrid perspective. Through this approach, I seek to infuse a sense of playful ambiguity, exploring the liminal space between cultures. My focus lies in rearticulating the discourse around female ghosts through a contemporary lens, viewing them as reflections of societal shifts and human conditions.
Photographer: Mario Galluci
Born in China (1997), Yongqi Tang lives and works in Seattle, WA. She received her MFA in Painting and Drawing (2022), her BA in Painting and Drawing (2019) from the University of Washington in Seattle, WA. Recent solo exhibitions have been mounted at Le Scalze, Naples; Jupiter Contemporary in Miami, FL; T293 Gallery in Rome, Italy; and Specialist Gallery in Seattle, WA. She has also been exhibited in numerous group shows such as I Go To Seek A Great Perhaps at Make Room LA; A Happy Beginning and Cruel Spring at Latitude Gallery in NY; David Zwirner’s Platform Online Viewing Room. She is the recipient of the Artist Trust GAP Award (2023), Bernie Funk Artist Scholarship (2022), the Puget Sound Group of Northwest Artists Scholarship Award (2022). Her art has been covered in numerous outlets, including New American Paintings, Whitehot Magazine, Booooooom, Art Maze Mag, and elsewhere.
Sam Lindenfeld
Eliminated! 2023
Acrylic and spray paint on canvas
60” x 72″ (1650mm x 1470mm)
Sam Lindenfeld (b. 1996, Washington DC) obtained a BA in Communications Design from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY in 2019. Most recently, he has attended the Macedonia Institute residency in Chatham, NY (2023). Sam has had his work exhibited in The Dots Beauty Parlor show at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington DC (2019). His work has been also been shown in other group exhibitions which include Maverick Magician Muse at Deli Gallery, New York City (2022), Hause Parté II at Carlye Packer Gallery, Los Angeles (2022), Thriller curated by Frenel Morris, Brooklyn, NY (2022), and Death of Beauty at Sargent’s Daughters, Los Angeles (2023). In addition to being exhibited in said spaces, Sam has shown work at the Spring Break Art Show fair in New York City (2022), and was the recipient for the A.I. – A.P. American Illustrators Award #38 (2019). His artworks are held in collections including those of curator Danny Baez and Ruth Rudin DeWoody. Sam’s work has also been featured in an array of different published spaces, some of which he has had the privilege to help produce. He has had his work featured and reviewed by Atlantic Records Art Director, Nicky Chulo in Print Magazine (2022), featured in a Book Review for “Action and Reaction: Anatomy of the Carceral State” in Juxtapoz Magazine (2021), and was interviewed for All Items Considered magazine (2021). On top of said spotlight in these publications, Sam has illustrated, designed, and published a collaborative book project titled “Nothing Changes If Nothing Changes” (2020) with longtime collaborator and NY-native musician, Radamiz. This was a project that was also done in partnership with Paradigm Publishing and OuterSpace Press and was distributed through Dover Street Market New York. Sam has helped produce and was a contributing artist for “Action and Reaction: Anatomy of the Carceral State” (2020) and was also a contributing artist to “Life After” (2021), another book published by Paradigm Publishing in partnership with Adidas Skateboarding.
Shortlist Exhibition
We’re elated to present the work of the following Shortlisted artists who, we feel, are each directing their talent with a magnificent sense of command, sensitivity, and nuance. It’s rare to locate art as defiantly original, searching, and technically accomplished as we believe these pieces are, and our Jurors would like to congratulate, and commend our Shortlisted artists on the development of such powerful and richly idiosyncratic work.
Larissa Laban
Hora de Atender 2023
Oil on canvas
35.4″ x 39.4″ (900mm x 1000mm)
Artist’s Statement: Each animal is born with all the things necessary to live well in its own environment. The creature in art creates its own room to live in. The living room is an environment of anguish, anxiety, happiness and life.
Larissa Laban is a Brazilian artist and designer, based in São Paulo. She works in different medias such as airbrush, oil painting and ceramics to create textured, energetic and bold figures in her works.
Mar Kristoff
Babcia and I 2024
Water based airbrush paint and gesso on cotton canvas
Artist’s Statement: Known for the indistinct monochromatic visuals of my airbrush paintings, my practice explores the complexities of the human condition and my cultural identity. These visuals originate from personal photographs, magazines, or books, which were then digitally manipulated by adding a Gaussian blur. My process involves various materials and tools: cotton canvas, gesso, a plasterboard scraper, photographs, water-based airbrush paint, an airbrush gun, an airbrush compressor, and a projector. Projecting images onto the canvas allows me to relearn memories and unfold new meanings to a time that has passed. The dispersion of the airbrush enhances the blurred effect, while textured gesso layers give the canvas an aged, weathered appearance, contrary to the materiality of the digital that is meant to last. This process merges my interests in photography and painting, altering the compositional moments of the image to evoke hazy, fragmented memories.
Babcia and I is based on a frame of a photograph of my father when he was young, having his portrait taken with his Babcia (grandmother in Polish). A majority of the photographs I use as source material for my work are ones that my late father took. With this work, I wanted to flip that narrative, portraying him as the main subject. I’ve always been allured by the idea of immortalizing someone substantial to you through an artwork.
My work conveys the importance of exploring and understanding the qualities that constitute one’s identity. Recurring themes in my work include the notion of cultural exchange, nostalgia, the uncanny, existentialism, memory, and the concept of time, with a focus on personal and mythological narratives. Furthermore, my art examines the possibilities and limitations of airbrushing and photography as a medium.
Mar Kristoff (b. 2001) is an Indonesian multidisciplinary artist currently based in Bali, Indonesia. Gathering inspiration and references from his personal archive and found imagery, Kristoff is known for his brushwork and airbrushed paintings that encompass evocative depictions of the visible world. Kristoff interrogates both the limitations and potential, and, the contrast and the likeness, of painting and photography as a medium while delving into the themes of identity, memory, nostalgia, the concept of time, and the eternal pursuit of belonging.
Jeremy Maline
A Pair of Feelings 2024
Archival pigment print
Artist’s Statement: We are created through the light of our sun, and we live through the light of others. A Pair of Feelings sees these twin sources: how they move, radiate and interact. What does it mean to feel? How does the physical interact with the emotional? The organic forms and patterns of the work seek to illuminate this experience.
Jeremy Maline is a visual artist who works in photography, photogrammetry and collage. His practice centers on a combination of analog and digital methods, with an interest in shape, color, and the interaction of light. Maline, who lives and works in Los Angeles, studied Film, Photography and Visual Arts at Ithaca College. Since relocating to the west coast, he has worked with celebrity photographer Matthew Rolston at his fine art studio, and assisted his teaching practice at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena.
Lara Nickel
12 Horses — Homage to Jannis Kounellis 2014-18
Oil on canvas
Installation of twelve life-size paintings, from 77” x 101” (1956mm x 2565mm) to 85” x 109.5” (2159mm x 2781mm)
Artist’s Statement: I am an installation-based painter using realism as a way to explore the sculptural qualities in painting. I am interested in the long tradition of illusionistic painting, not only in regards to subject matter, but in how an image itself exists in its own pictorial world while simultaneously taking up and relating to the viewer’s physical space. My subjects—which range from the banal to the culturally significant: still-life, place, symbol, myth—are always life-sized and representational with neutral white backgrounds. The paintings are unframed and displayed to spatially mimic the subject’s actual existence (up high, flat on the ground, partially or completely hidden, protruding out from a wall…) One piece is often comprised of multiple canvases interacting with one another to create an interactive environment. My work disrupts traditional ways of viewing and encourages people to look at painting not just with their eyes but with their whole body.
Lara Nickel is an installation-based painter and published author whose artwork and writings center on painting’s slow historical slide down the wall. She is most well known for her large-scale painting project “12 Horses — Homage to Jannis Kounellis” which was first exhibited at museum Fondazione 107 in Turin, Italy in 2019. A hardcover, trilingual book (featuring the late renowned art critic Germano Celant) was published on her work in 2022 by Skira editore, Milan. Her work is in the collections of the Getty Museum Library, the Metropolitan Museum Library, and the Museum/Library l’Inguimbertine in Carpentras, France, among others. Nickel is currently based in Santa Fe, NM and represented by Nedra Matteucci Galleries.
Antoine Plainfossé
Signes Urbains 2023
Video art (00:01:40)
Artist’s Statement: Signes Urbains explores the theme of language and movement with different mediums. The forms presented are inspired by my interest in skateboarding, mathematical curves and the architecture of the city. My interdisciplinary practice involves film, photography, painting and installation. I create artworks around the themes of identity, freedom, movement and skateboarding culture. My work on movement takes inspiration from skateboarding, geometry and other sports. In a second time, in my work on identity, I explore the concepts of duality and shadow self. This serves as an introspection. In the same way that artists like Louise Bourgeois have done before me, I want to talk to the viewer about these topics related to the unconscious. This is why some of my work looks abstract. To highlight this idea, my first solo show was named “Hidden Views”. Furthermore, I want to show the viewer that art can be a way to turn what you carry inside into something beautiful. This is the concept of sublimation, as Freud calls it. Finally, I explore the theme of the beyond, especially in my photography and films.
Antoine started street skating during his teens in south Paris: Palais de Tokyo, Montparnasse. A few years later, he published his first skate video, while pursuing his art studies. He studied at a public art school in Paris for one year and then in Berlin for a second year, at the workshop of an established artist. It was during that time that he developed his first paintings, installations, photographs and art videos, around the themes of identity, freedom, movement and skateboarding culture. Then, he wrote and co-directed the short film UNWORDABLE. This film was awarded at the 2019 SHOWStudio Film Awards by Nick Knight and was distinguished by local media and TV as an innovative way of shooting skateboarding in Paris. In recent years, he participated in a few group shows with his photography and paintings, and in September 2023, he presented his first solo exhibition in Paris. In April 2024, he was featured as Artist of the Month by the PAI_32 platform and he is now preparing for upcoming exhibitions.
Austin Honour
Parícutin 2024
Oil on canvas
55” x 70” (1400mm x 1800mm)
As a ‘viewer’, one is often found in a frantic search for meaning. The practice of Austin Honour presents an inexplicably cohesive body of work, depicting as it does a bewildering array of imagery; disparate subjects ostensibly united in form alone. From what appears to be found imagery, the deliberate omission of colour and detail affords a sense of continuity between subjects otherwise distinct; a ‘flattening’ of form, meaning and value – from the mundane to the momentous. Indeed, Honour suggests a rejection of hierarchies. Honour’s work also suggests dissonance. Save for moments of figurative familiarity, we are offered very little else with which to truly make sense of things. Subjects appear blurred, nebulous – perhaps imagined. We rely on form and aesthetics to derive meaning; understanding each work not individually, but rather through its context. One can’t help but feel Honour is toying with us; guiding the viewer to find meaning where there is none, or at least prompting a questioning of what meaning we arrive at – and why. At a time when the delineation between what is and isn’t ‘real’ feels increasingly, overwhelmingly blurred, such emphasis on critical observation and enquiry could scarcely be more relevant. To be presented with imagery so eclectic, yet with so little information is unnerving. Honour’s sophisticated command of paint affords these works an air of ethereality; a veneer of information that compels the assignment of personal meaning. Perhaps therein lies the beauty – and brilliance of these works; as with all things, we are – in every sense – implicated in our construction of consonance. Austin Honour (b. 1990) is a British/Australian multidisciplinary artist. Formerly located between London and Berlin, Honour now resides in Fremantle, Australia. In 2014, he earned a BA (Hons) in Fine Arts from Central St Martins in London. His most recent solo exhibition ATONAL was shown at KolbuszSpace in Perth this year.
Ahlam Qaissi
A Stone As Life 2023
Leftover local stones, used nails, rubber band, silicon
Artist’s Statement:
Oh stone, harboring secrets, hidden worlds,
Arousing desires to grasp and explore your curves…
Mighty yet delicate,
Liberated yet bound,
You embody paradoxes profound,
Echoing the essence of time and ground.
You’ve witnessed past and future, a timeless grace,
A vessel of memory, my muse in this place…
Oh stone, my canvas, my guiding star,
Through you, I inscribe my tales, creating from afar…
Let me narrate, within your grasp, a home’s tale amid chaos’ swirl,
Grant me refuge in your tranquil domain unfurl…
Reveal your sacred essence,
Eternal, while I, mere mortal, in your presence…
Ahlam Qaissi, born in Jerusalem in 1984, is a contemporary jewelry designer. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Birzeit University (2007) and a Bachelor’s degree in Jewelry and Fashion Design from the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design (2023). She works part-time as a teaching assistant for several practical and theoretical courses at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. She has received numerous prestigious awards throughout her career, including the Michael and Pauline Lockman Prize for Applied Design in 2023, The Optical Center Prize for Special Eyeglasses Design in 2022, The Global Footwear Awards GFA in 2021, the Rashbel Prize for Outstanding Academic Excellence in 2021, and the Romie and Blanche Shapiro Prize for Judaica in 2019. Yet, what truly sets Ahlam apart is her profound artistic vision, which transcends the confines of conventional aesthetics to delve into the intricate tapestry of political and social discourse. Her creations serve as potent vessels for exploration, shedding light on themes of identity, social justice, and cultural diversity. Each piece is imbued with a narrative, inviting viewers into a world where every symbol carries its own story and significance. Ahlam seamlessly combines the precision and attention to detail of jewelry and accessories craftsmanship with the world of art, resulting in hybrid designs that transcend traditional boundaries in form, mechanism, and function, often serving protective and therapeutic purposes. Her design style is characterized by simplicity, emphasizing the use of natural or recycled materials and integrating craftsmanship with technology in a manner that respects both human values and the environment.
Yevheniia Miliukova
Last Night in Paris 2024
Oil, acrylic, and pastel on canvas
Artist’s Statement: “I came up with the concept of my last painting series being refugee in Portugal. The news of the dam collapse in the Kherson region caught me off guard when I was in Paris, evoking a deep sense of shock and devastation. It reminded me that amidst the chaos of war, the consequences of climate change can unleash further destruction on both human and non-human lives. It felt as if the air had been sucked out of the room, leaving me frozen and breathless. As I looked around, I saw people around me observing the unfolding events as if they were watching a series, scrolling through news feeds, seeking further details like the plot of a new episode. The line between the theatre and the theatre of military operations has become barely discernible. The news about war how it is really going and manipulations with the provided information in media reminds me inequality of the location of seats in the theatre, accessing cultural experiences serve as poignant reminders that our planet and its resources are under immense strain. The silent moments in the creepy theatre echo the urgent need for us to collectively acknowledge the reality of irreversible change system of inequality and thoughtless pumping of resources from our planet and the dire consequences it brings. I try to create a visual narrative that highlights the interconnectedness between environmental degradation, wars, social inequality and the delusion that we remain silent spectators in this theatre of horrors. Every action we take, whether it’s even a repost of some news on Twitter or inaction affects the physical environment around us, we are all under the same dome inside this system.”
My name is Yevheniia but most often they just call me Jenya. I am Ukrainian artist from Crimea. Through my work I have explored themes of memory distortion, identity, displacement and as a consequence appearance of fictional places, an indescribable state between something and something else, a moment of change. It is a state when your breath stops, you’re not where you were, but not yet where you’re going to be. My practice is based on research of ancient cultures. I’m trying to create the world which maybe has never existed before. And now you can see the artefacts of its myths and religions. I aim to capture these themes by using a multi-layered approach that incorporates both visual and written elements.
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Charity Baker
Truth 2024
Oil on canvas
66” x 72” (1676mm x 1829mm)
Artist’s Statement: Within these paintings I explore the boundary between interior and exterior space. I seek to reveal the poetry that lies between the two using symbols of nature, emotion, identity and light, drawing palpable form from the unseen. Scale is crucial to my work in order to highlight the tension between object and desire. Using oil paint emits a warmth and highlights a new earthy realism. These paintings originate from life studies, art history, photography, and artificial design, and the experiences I had as an architect where I learned to engineer space, light and human emotion simultaneously.
Charity Baker is a painter based in Brooklyn, New York. Formally trained in architecture she received her BARH at Pratt Institute and her M.F.A. from the New York Studio School where she is currently an adjunct faculty member. Her work resides in collections world wide. Baker is the recipient of several awards including the Mercedes Matter/Ambassador Middendorf Prize, the Hohenberg Travel Grant, the Jance Chace Scholarship, Delphian Open Call (UK), and Wing Art Award (UK). She has been awarded residencies at ART CAKE in Sunset Park Brooklyn (currently); ILC Caernarfon Wales, UK (2023); New York Studio School (2021-2024); and Chautauqua Institute, NY (2019). Publications include Karen Wilkin, “For Your Collection”, Fosnot Gallery; The Wales Art Review; Art Maze Magazine; She Curates Gallery; Art in Res; NYC Photographers On Painters; Chautauqua Daily; Pittsburgh Tribune; The Caterpillar (UK). Baker’s work has been shown most notably at San Francisco Art Institute; Richard Gray Gallery; New York Academy of Art; Millersville University; Delphian Gallery; Sam and Adele Golden Foundation; Nancy Margolis Gallery, NY; Vardan Gallery, LA; Pratt Institute (Brooklyn); Hampden Gallery, UMASS; Fowler-Kellogg Art Center (Chautauqua Institute); Art at King’s Oak (PA).
Kevin Cobb
He Is! 2019
Oil on linen
Artist’s Statement: Making oil paintings, drawings, 3D models, animations, narrative text and lenticular holograms, Kevin shares how he sees the world from every angle. His art explores perspective, art-making, illusion and truth. His artworks represent a wide range of what is observable from his perspective. Historical paintings, like landscapes, often position themselves as objective documents of a scene, as if from Nobody’s perspective, by excluding the artist’s presence and subjectivity. In some instances his works reflect a sense of double-consciousness; a heightened awareness of one’s self as it is perceived and represented. His works also reflect a distinctly digital/virtual approach to identity and space, leavened by a sense of radical empathy and hyperreality, but haunted by a sense of surveillance and uncanniness. Spherical perspective and warping is a recurring motif in Kevin’s work. Other times his artworks are about exceeding what is observably possible through the use of abstraction, narrative speculation, and flights of mythic imagination, and/or by using the generative powers afforded by digital 3D modeling programs. Full of labor and care, Kevin strives to render new and perspective-shifting visions.
Kevin Cobb is a painter and digital artist, born in Baltimore, MD and based in Harlem, NYC, where he lives with his brilliant wife. He received his HSD from the Carver Center for Arts and Technology, his BFA from The Maryland Institute College of Art, and his MFA from Columbia University. His work has been exhibited internationally and he has won several awards for his paintings and digital artworks.
Jackson Wrede
Self-Portrait in a Cowboy Hat 2024
Oil on linen board
24” x 18” (610mm x 457mm)
Artist’s Statement: This series of portraits features friends I have met since I relocated my painting studio to Grand Rapids, Michigan in 2022. In a quest to become a skilled commissioned portrait artist, I have been developing my personal portfolio by using my friends as models to explore creative compositions that explicitly reference conventions of the past. I want this series to have lots of variety while staying united under the umbrella of realism with a special focus on technical excellence. Each portrait is of a unique human being I am proud to call my friend, and hopefully their personality is communicated through the painting while still retaining a sense of enigmatic mystery.
Jackson Wrede (b. 1996) is an American painter of portraits, still lifes, landscapes, and more. His vivacious, exacting style borrows conventions from the history of Painting and repackages them into fresh, original works that are decidedly from the 21st century. Wrede grew up in the Northwest Chicago suburbs and now works out of Grand Rapids, MI where he has lived since 2019. He attended the University of Notre Dame for his undergraduate studies followed by the Kendall College of Art & Design where he got his MFA in 2021. At 28 years old, Wrede’s reputation is growing throughout the Midwest as a promising emerging artist as his paintings increasingly find their way into homes, galleries, and institutions across the country. Wrede has won awards in regional, national, and international exhibits for his paintings including Grand Prizes in last year’s 42nd Annual Michigan Fine Arts Competition in Birmingham, MI and the 79th Annual Wabash Valley Exhibition at the Swope Art Museum in Terre Haute, IN.
Kurt Stimmeder
The Drawn Bow 2023
Oil on canvas
40” x 36.6” (1020mm x 930mm)
Artist’s Statement: Two people in front of a dark background are holding a painting. A man with shaved bald head and gray beard looks straight out of the picture at the viewer. The other person, a younger woman with a turban, has turned her look away to the right edge. In her left hand she is holding a felt-tip pen that she apparently used immediately before. The painting in the painting shows an homage to Francesco Mazzola’s “Arched Cupid” from 1539. Instead of using a bow, amor is handling a machine gun with a handwritten manually labeled “GOLD” inscription on the magazine. In the mythological understanding Cupid, son of the goddess of love, Aphrodite, had two arrows – one made of lead and one made of gold, which stood for bad luck or luck in love. Himeros (desire for love) and Pothos (longing), which in late antiquity formed an erotic triad with Cupid, can be seen without wings between Cupid’s legs. Symbolic, a bow spans from the painting of the old masters, over to two contemporary portraits and further to contemporary art of writing. A pathos of the legendary remain.
I have been involved with various forms of creative expression since my early years. From my youth until my thirties, music was an essential means of expression. My interest in visual and graphic design was already expressed in the 1990s in the form of designing websites or a music magazine. An experiment in 2008 finally led me to painting, in which I followed, out of sheer curiosity, the idea of a fortune teller who told me that I could paint. Thanks to this curious beginning, I developed a passion and fascination for the mysteries of the unknown as well as the invisible and abstract worlds of human existence and their visualization. Both my approaches and my technique are constantly changing. I started out with large-format, alla prima painting, straddling the colors. Gradually, the formats became somewhat smaller and I began to paint in layers and glazes. The colorfulness continues to play an important role, but now has a more accentuating effect and forms a contrast to the flat, often spaceless backgrounds. For me, the process of creating each painting is essential. Since my early years, I have always worked with models in system constellations, as they are also used in psychotherapy. I choose characters, e.g. from mythological stories, and try to find people who can take on this role. Then I give them a plot or sometimes just a key part of the story and bring them into a room together. In this way, scenarios develop in which the characters begin to interact with each other independently. In this fluid process exciting situations arise from time to time, which I often use as a starting point for my works. Since 2018, I have also increasingly devoted myself to studies in European and international museums. The influences of various subject areas and impressions also continue content wise. I am interested in all types of paintings, but especially those of the 14th to 17th century as well as historical paintings of the 19th and early 20th century. I have a particular love for Italian Renaissance and Baroque painting, which develops an immense attraction in any exhibition due to its atmosphere and effect. These impressions mingle with my interest in Greek mythology, psychology and philosophy to form the content of my paintings. The focus is on human existence in all its facets. Through my methods, I try to produce universally valid images in relation to recurring themes of humanity that have lost none of their topicality. With these approaches, I create timeless depictions that are anchored in classical painting in terms of technique and aesthetics, but always build a bridge to the 21st century through elements of content.