Homiens Winter 2025
Owen Gildersleeve, Intersections: Study I (detail), 2024, Paper, cut and mounted on board, 5.5″ x 6.7″ x 1.2″ (140 mm x 170 mm x 30 mm).
Our Winter 2025 artists are luminaries who stand out for their masterful technical skill, innovative use of materials, and ability to provoke deep emotional and intellectual resonance. Their artworks captivate with striking visual narratives, and invite viewers to engage with universal themes through unique, personal lenses.
These vibrant pieces are united by their bold, and at times, humorous exploration of human experience, identity, and transformation. From introspective reflections on technology and nature to poignant meditations on memory and loss, these works weave together diverse mediums—ceramics, oil, paper, and fiber—with a shared commitment to pushing artistic boundaries.
The Summer 2025 Round of the Homiens Art Prize is Closing Soon
Cardoz (João Cardoso)
Hold My Vanity 2024
Acrylic and oil on canvas
94.5″ x 47.2″ (2400 mm x 1200 mm)
Artist’s Statement: My work explores the impact of technology on humanity, reflecting on how it both challenges and amplifies our values. I view technology as a tool that can either deepen our understanding of human limitations or contribute to the extinction of core human traits. We are increasingly becoming mechanical figures, with only a few of us valued for our humanity. Through satirical predictions and scenarios, I examine how the fusion of humans and robots might shape our future. My subjects—humans as creators and robots—highlight the tension between the two, exploring themes such as love, affection, and moral values in a digital age. A recurring figure, “Creature,” embodies these ideas, questioning whether technology will evolve alongside us or lead to our downfall. Ultimately, my work aims to raise awareness about our fragile human condition, urging viewers to reflect on how technology might both advance and threaten our evolution.
Cardoz (João Cardoso) is a Portuguese artist born in 1995. After earning a bachelor’s degree in Illustration from The Cass, London Metropolitan University, João was awarded the Sir John Cass School of Art Design Award in 2017 for best course portfolio.
Since 2019, João has been represented by Carrasco Art Gallery, presenting significant works such as Criaturas and Why Standing Still in Lisbon, Strictly Loose and Cinco in Madrid, and Homodeus: A Non-Plausible Interpretation at Fundación Pons. His art has appeared at art fairs, including VOLTA Art Fair in New York (2024) and Basel (2021, upcoming 2025), Feria ESTAMPA in Madrid (2021-2024), and ARTESANTANDER in 2024. Beyond gallery exhibitions, João has independently curated projects such as Unlove and Playing w/ Stupidity in Lisbon and Porto, and Paper Toss at MU .SA (Sintra Museum of Modern Art). A residency at ARTUR, LAC Lagos, resulted in a collaborative show in an old prison facility.
In 2023, João built a series of wooden sculptures with Geppetto’s New Generations at Coup Gallery in Lisbon and Encounters of the Future at Tagus Park, highlighting his versatility across media.
Elisha Enfield
Gleaning 2024
Oil on aluminum composite
13.8″ x 23.6″ (350 mm x 600 mm)
Elisha Enfield’s work delves into the layered history of human rituals, and unstable boundaries between absence and presence. Drawing from stories of fire and funerary rites, her paintings explore the macabre beauty of practices that traverse joy, reverence, and loss. These moments, tethered to history, resonate with contemporary questions about how we remember, mourn, and celebrate.
Enfield studied painting at the University of Brighton, graduating in 2011. Recent achievements include selection for the BEEP Painting Biennial and John Ruskin Prize shortlists, and ING Discerning Eye, where she has received both the Landscape and Midlands Prizes. Winner of Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year 2022, her work is held in public and private collections worldwide.
Eona Jiawei Gao
Pinky Chili 2024
Glazed porcelain and ceramic
6″ x 6″ x 2″ (152 mm x 152 mm x 51 mm)
Artist’s Statement: Pinky Chili is a playful yet thought-provoking piece that transforms pinky fingers into red chilies, blurring the line between the familiar and the uncanny. At first glance, these porcelain creations appear as vibrant hot peppers, complete with green glazed stems. Upon closer inspection, their pinky finger forms reveal a deeper layer of intrigue. This juxtaposition of the eerie and the innocent encapsulates my fascination with combining unsettling elements with symbols of vitality and hope. The work celebrates the beauty of nature’s fruits while challenging viewers to reconsider the boundaries between the organic and the surreal.
Eona Jiawei Gao is a multidisciplinary artist based in New York, whose work bridges nature, self-reflection, and the delicate balance of strength and fragility. Drawing inspiration from organic forms and textures, her creations celebrate the resilience of the natural world while inviting introspection into the human experience.
Eona’s artistic journey has been one of exploration and transformation. Initially working as a multimedia artist creating animations, videos, and installations, she later experimented with various media, including wood, to explore themes of identity and materiality. Following the pandemic and a personal hiatus, she rediscovered her practice through clay, embracing ceramics for its meditative and transformative nature.
Ceramics now play a central role in her work, embodying the duality of strength and fragility. Through symbolic motifs like ears and blossoms, Eona reflects on themes of transformation, interconnectedness, and the quiet power of vulnerability.
Eona holds an MFA in Digital Arts from Pratt Institute and a BA in Animation from the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology. With over eight years of professional experience in design and multimedia, her art continues to resonate through its emotional depth and universal themes, connecting people to nature, to each other, and to the shared human journey.
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Owen Gildersleeve
Intersections: Study I 2024
Paper, cut and mounted on board
5.5″ x 6.7″ x 1.2″ (140 mm x 170 mm x 30 mm)
Artist’s Statement: The first study for a new series of artworks, capturing life in its simplest of forms through intersecting graphical shapes, using a limited selection of hand-cut paper sheets.
Owen Gildersleeve is a multi-award winning artist based in Brighton, UK, known for his expertise in handcrafted paper art. With a distinctive style refined over 15 years, Owen brings his graphical drawings and ideas to life through meticulous hand-cut layers of paper and a dynamic play of light and shadow. His practice spans from intricate paper creations to expansive installations and throughout his career he has been part of numerous international exhibitions, including solo and group shows in San Francisco, Tokyo, New York, Bangkok, Berlin, and London.
“Paper is my preferred medium for its flexibility, malleability and versatility. It’s a material I’ve been increasingly drawn to over the years, allowing me to easily transfer my graphic designs and ideas and then bring them to life, through multiple layers and often sweeping gradients of colour. My works straddle the line of the digital and handmade, the vibrant and the subtle, perfection and imperfection, exploring space, form, time and trying to capture life in its simplest of forms.”
Raoul Orzabal
The Estate 2024
Oil on canvas
59″ x 47.6″ (1500 mm x 1210 mm)
Artist’s Statement: The latest phase of my work began last year where I dedicated myself to working on single paintings, which would take months to complete. Using my latest techniques I have attempted to create my own form of landscape paintings influenced by early modernist movements such as expressionism, cubism, futurism, and suprematism. However, I wanted to move away from the short broken brushwork nature of these movements and instead focus on more patient layer building processes more similar Classical styles and featuring painterly detail on a similar scale. My landscape designs present a large-scale multi viewpoint perspective with even hints of objects seen floating in the sky. My work usually ranges from minimal to highly decorative in appearance with strong contrasts and movement. The concept’s response to Classical painting is that viewpoints are invented and resemble stealth Cubism. My series shows more of a truth with the fragmented landscape as they are easily recognized with their different perspectives.
I am a painter based in London who originally grew up outside of Bristol. My work explores geometry, mixed viewpoint perspective and the interpretation of digital effects within oil painting. I studied Fine Art at the University of Westminster from 2013 to 2016 and have since continued to create further works and take part in group and solo exhibitions.
Halley Zien
Morning Mourn 2024
Oil collage and fabric on panel
48″ x 60″ (1219 mm x 1524 mm)
Halley Zien is a New York City born Brooklyn based artist whose work explores the dissonant clash between idealized exterior appearances and lived, psychologically charged, internal experience. Contemplating a culture of frenetic consumerism, she incorporates images from interior design magazines, and cast off clothing, to unearth viscerally vibrant figures, whose bodies, built from these material residues, convey a new pulsating humanity.
She’s been featured in solo and group exhibitions at venues including The Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn NY; Bravin Lee Programs, NY; Trestle Gallery, Brooklyn NY; Lehman College, NY; and Chashama, NY. She’s been reviewed by The New York Times, New American Paintings, Hyperallergic, Hi-Fructose, and Two Coats of Paint. A selection of work is published in New American Paintings Northeast edition 170, with selections by Amy Sherald. She received her BA from Vassar College, Poughkeepsie NY.
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Erica Dincalci
Hooked 2025
Handwoven computer assisted TC2 weaving, acrylic yarn, cotton yarn, aluminium frame, grommets, quick links
25” x 23” (635 mm x 584 mm)
Artist’s Statement: This piece takes sentimental patterns of experience woven into colorful abstract shapes and stripes and explores the possibilities of recontextualization inherent through its patchwork reconstruction. This work goes through many processes of making and unmaking that mimic my own personal growth and progress, finally settling inside the decorative and utilitarian frame of a metal drawing.
Erica Dincalci is an interdisciplinary artist and educator from Northern California whose work focuses on weaving, fiber, abstraction, and color to investigate how these methods can express the lived experience. Through her fiber works she explores notions of grief, addiction, memory, and identity. Her work is a celebration of resilience. She holds an AA from New York University, a BFA from California College of the Arts, and recently and MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Her work has been featured in exhibitions nationally including at the de Young Museum, DiRosa Center for Contemporary Art, MarinMOCA, SebArts, and Co-Prosperity. Selected awards include educational scholarships, The Angeles Arrien Foundation Grant, Atlantic Center for the Arts Residency, Haystack Open Studio Residency, SebArts Incubator Emerging Artist, and Digital Weaving Residency at Praxis Fiber Workshop.
Maj Lisa Dörig
In the Quiet of the Water, I Find Myself 2024
Mixed media (oil, watercolor, colored pencil) on paper
30.7″ x 11.6″ (780 mm x 295 mm)
Artist’s Statement: This is a drawing in a very tall portrait format. It features two figures in the water. We can see the bottom of the pond, with algae, grasses, and possibly living creatures. The two figures are depicted: an adult woman and what appears to be a girl. The older woman is very clear, while the girl is only faintly visible. Above their heads is the water’s surface, where we see a ladder emerging from the water along with some trees. The water is a greenish-blue, while the figures are in shades of pink, orange, and yellow. It’s about meeting my childhood self and feeling safe in water — a space that is both weightless and deep, both grounding and freeing. The faint presence of the girl suggests memory, something slipping between past and present.
Maj Lisa Dörig (b. 1997, Switzerland) studied Illustration at the Lucerne University of Art and Kingston University. In 2024 she completed her postgraduate at the Royal Drawing School in London. Her work, influenced by the landscapes and cities around her and the stories she gathers, layers observation with memory, weaving reality with dream. In her densely textured images, the lines between folklore and the everyday blur. For Maj, drawing is a daily act — a dialogue between hand and thought, a method of deciphering the intricate tapestry of the world and the self.
Finley Doyle
First Thing 2024
Oil on canvas
10″ x 8″ (254 mm x 203 mm)
Artist’s Statement: With time, I have come to the conclusion that painting is a kind of devotion. Painting, poetry, prayer, however we pay our respects to the world, we all have devotions.
In this senese I am a process-oriented artist, because the essential work is the attention paid. Mary Oliver has a poem titled “Real Prayers Are Not the Words, But the Attention that Comes First”, and I see this as a metaphor for creation of any kind. The poem is not about a hawk, it is about the poet watching the hawk, raising her eyes to the sky: an ode to perception itself.
Attention comes first. Some say all painting is about painting. Some say all painting is self portraiture. Whatever it is, I think painting is essentially interested in the attention of the artist, where she looks, what she privileges, how she goes about seeing the world and what she does not see.
Try as we might to pause life, it does not stand still. So when the spark presents itself, I grab it. I see a discarded clementine skin and some vitality shows itself to me and I try to take hold. I believe we all do this, when we recount stories to our friends over dinner. We share the thing that grabbed our attention today, we offer it up and say look at this. How wonderful. How odd. How everyday.
When I read To the Lighthouse in high school, I wrote “life stand still here” on a sticky note and put it above my bed. I have a discomfort with passing time, make an effort to make time stand still, and like Mrs. Ramsay, strike chaos into stability. Work can be a proof of life, a mark on the world that is not a scar.
In this sense, I am not only a process-oriented artist, because I believe in a finished painting. The series of marks is not the whole work, the pleasure of the artist not the end goal. But the surface retains the temporal dimension of the process of painting, it says look at this: proof of time, effort, and thought spent trying to capture a moment of encounter.
I paint the things I pay attention to. That is my prayer. That is my devotion. That is how I make life stand still.
Finley Doyle is a New York-based painter. She captures moments of stillness and intimacy in the Harlem apartment she shares with her partner and their dog, and in her studio. Currently an MFA candidate and adjunct professor at NYU, she received a B.A. in comparative literature from Yale in 2021.
Ben Hamburger
Glyph 2024
Oil and construction adhesive on found bricks and concrete
12″ x 9″ x 8″ (305 mm x 229 mm x 203 mm)
Artist’s Statement: Behind my studio there is an old brick yard where I began collecting from their pile of mismatched or broken bricks. Many of the bricks are over 100 years old, made from clay sourced along the banks of the Mississippi River. Each brick fragment is a time capsule containing earth from long ago that was eventually turned into walls, foundations, or roads. I consider these sculptural paintings a collaboration with fragments of the landscape. These pieces speak to our multifaceted relationship with the natural world, the tension between the natural and the human made, and the layers of sediment that solidify into history and what we understand to be the present.
Ben Hamburger is a painter and educator based in New Orleans, LA. Hamburger holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Arts from Eckerd College and a Master of Fine Arts Degree in Community Arts from Maryland Institute College of Art. His work has been exhibited in group and solo exhibitions around the country at locations including the Maryhill Museum of Art, The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, The San Bernardino County Museum, and the Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh. He has led workshops and taught courses in public schools, universities, art centers, museums, correctional facilities, and nonprofit organizations around the United States, as well as in Bolivia, Thailand, and India. Hamburger is currently an Adjunct Instructor in the School of Art and Design at Western Carolina University, teaches painting courses at New Orleans Academy of Fine Art, and leads sporadic workshops around the country.
Christopher L. Hanson
Koodoo 2022
from The Great Indoors
Oil on linen
48″ x 36″ (850 mm x 1360 mm)
Artist’s Statement: Koodoo is the second in a series of works inspired by time spent with my grandmother at the Natural History Museum in New York. The painting series is an homage to her and those memories.
“They say you can’t go home again…” This was the constant refrain playing in the back of my mind while planning out these works. The series as a whole acts as a bittersweet metaphor for growing up. As a young person, this place held such mystique and power over my imagination. Anything was possible in those walls. As an adult, I am constantly trying to see through such naive eyes again. To remember a time before our perception of the world expanded. Before it all got so… complicated.
My name is Christopher L. Hanson, I am a professional artist from Long Island, NY. I have pursued a career in the arts for my entire life. After graduating high school in 2002, I attended the University of Hartford’s School of Fine Art. There, I studied drawing and painting under the tutelage of my mentor Stephen Brown, eventually graduating with honors in the Spring of 2006.
From 2010 to 2018, I served as the art lead and creative director for the independent game company Nine Kingdoms Publications. There, I oversaw the development and release of multiple game titles and expansions.
Today I work as a freelance artist. I focus my time on figurative, narrative and portrait works and commissions.
Markus Neal Humby
Mornings Mirror 2025
Acrylic on canvas
36″ x 24″ (914 mm x 610 mm)
Artist’s Statement: The artwork captures a serene, rural scene featuring a cluster of houses surrounded by lush trees, all reflecting perfectly in a still body of water. The sky above is a vibrant blue, streaked with delicate, wispy clouds that impart a sense of tranquility and openness. The reflection in the water creates a near-symmetrical image, emphasizing the harmony and calmness of the setting. The use of light and shadow gives depth to the trees and buildings, enhancing the realism of the scene. The colors are vivid, yet balanced, creating an inviting and peaceful atmosphere.
This piece beautifully employs the technique of reflection, which not only adds a layer of interest but also invites viewers to consider themes of duality and balance. The precise representation of nature and the built environment speaks to a keen eye for detail and a mastery of landscape painting techniques. The harmonious color palette further enhances the calming effect and draws one’s eye across the canvas seamlessly.
After a career in commercial art and illustration I have been practicing fine art drawings. watercolor, and acrylic paintings full time since 2019. I am inspired by the natural beauty of Ontario’s greenbelt rural landscapes as well as the play of light upon landscapes, water, and people within natural environments. I also complete book illustrations and commissions. My paintings and drawings are held in various private collections in Canada, the United States of America, and England.
Nanxi Jin
Intertwine 2024
from Intertwine
Glazed ceramic
8”x 5.5” (203 mm x 140 mm)
Artist’s Statement: Intertwine is a series of works from my recent solo exhibition, created during my residency at the Longquan Research Institute. Longquan, my hometown, is renowned for its centuries-old tradition of celadon glazes. Inspired by my one-month immersion in a local celadon factory, the pieces reflect the entire production process—from slip casting and clay recycling to defect treatment. Through this series, I transform the intricacies of ceramic production into a visual language, capturing both the challenges and the unique beauty inherent in each step of the journey.
Nanxi Jin is a Chinese-American artist specializing in ceramics. She currently lives and works in Chicago. Jin earned her BFA in Art & Design from the New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2020 and completed her MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2022. Her work has been featured in numerous exhibitions, including the Ceramic Art Avenue Gallery (2019), NYCxDesign during New York Design Week (2021), Women Made Gallery (2024), and Paris Design Week (2025). Jin has received several prestigious awards, such as the First Prize in the 2022 “Shiwan Cup” Youth Ceramics Competition, the Silver Medal at the 12th Chinese Ceramic Art Exhibition, and the Silver Award in the National Cup China National Arts and Crafts Yearbook Competition. Her piece, Various Vases, is part of the permanent collection at the Guangdong Shiwan Ceramic Museum in China.
Justin Remo
The Last Times on Dogwater Beach 2024
from The Last Times on Dogwater Beach
Woodcut print on Okawara paper
Edition of 10
91″ x 50″ (2311 mm x 1270 mm)
Artist’s Statement: This work originates from my series titled The Last Times On Dogwater Beach, a chaotic visual odyssey that explores the interpersonal weight of solastalgia, existential distress caused by negative environmental change. This collection of handcrafted large-scale prints and monotypes aims to convey my own solastalgic experiences and the conflicting complicated emotions I feel towards my decomposing interpersonal friendships, the chaotic degradation of my home, and the frighteningly rapid obliteration of our planet and the animals we share it with.
Hand-carved into plywood, the matrices of these prints become memorial artifacts, satisfying the raw tangible craftsmanship of relief printmaking and physically preserving every doubt and regret engraved into their surface.his series stands as a bittersweet memorial to the global and interpersonal ecosystems I have inhabited during my adolescent years, and a farewell to the weight of my personal history as I witness the place from which my life began continue to sink from a distance.
Justin Remo is a printmaker and graphic novelist from Wyckoff, New Jersey. He graduated from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2024 with a BFA in Printmaking. Recent work includes a solo exhibition, The Last Times on Dogwater Beach (Baltimore, MD) and participation in the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers’ 2024 International Original Print Exhibition (London, UK). His printmaking and illustration work is heavily influenced by storytelling, using abnormal cartoon imagery to create fictional realities that discuss topics of global waste and the Anthropocene. Remo’s science-fiction graphic novel series, Dust, won in the Ratcliffe Center for Creative Entrepeneurship’s 2024 UP/START Competition. He is also a Public Affairs Specialist with the United States Coast Guard, where he continues to produce professional photographs, videos, and visual designs for the military.
Darcy Whent
I saved a place just for you 2025
Oil on canvas
59.4″ x 47.6″ (1510 mm x 1210 mm)
Darcy Whent (b. 2002, Wales) is a Fine Art graduate from Bath Spa University, currently based in Bristol, with a studio at Pennywell Studios. Her practice interrogates the emotional and psychological dimensions of motherhood, exploring the societal expectations, inherited behaviors, and personal memories that shape our understanding of the maternal figure. Using painting and drawing as her primary mediums, Darcy blends personal archives with found imagery to create layered narratives that blur the line between memory and imagination.
Her works often juxtapose intimate, diary-like reflections with expansive, scene-like compositions, evoking the dynamic interplay between the personal and the universal. Pattern plays a significant role in her work, symbolizing domesticity, comfort, and confinement, while addressing themes of identity, care, and control. Through her practice, Darcy reimagines childhood memories, reflecting on the fluidity of truth and the evolving perception of familial roles.
In 2023, Darcy was shortlisted for the Freelands Painting Prize and recently held her debut solo exhibition, On All Fours, in London.
Sofia Wicks
The Thinker 2024
Oil on canvas
36″ x 28″ (914 mm x 711 mm)
Sofia Wicks (b. 1998) is an emerging contemporary figurative oil painter from Dallas, Texas, currently based in Barcelona.
Sofia’s work explores how we navigate the harsh realities we encounter. To convey this, she uses light as a symbol of these realities. In each painting, the subject interacts with the light in a distinct way, allowing the viewer to observe how the subject relates to their own “reality.” This interaction also invites the viewer’s own self-reflection, encouraging them to consider their personal response to the subject’s emotions.
Initially, Sofia used light to convey the stark, unyielding nature of grief, symbolizing our inability to escape the pain it brings. Over time, however, the meaning of light has evolved. It now represents truth and reality—an illuminating force that exposes the complexities of the human experience. This light reflects a deeper understanding of how we confront, resist, or ultimately accept the difficult truths in our lives. It highlights moments of transformation and self-awareness, shedding light on the tension between the individual and their reality. Through this shift, Sofia invites viewers to engage with the light not as a force of suffering, but as a means of exploring the multifaceted nature of truth, reflection, and personal growth.