AMERET

AMERET is a Berlin based artist following different approaches. Having passed a classical formation in painting, drawing and stage design at the ‘Art Academy Düsseldorf’ under Joseph Beuys, she started to work on interactive installations and street performances like ‘Art in the Courtyard’ (1985) ‘Heaven and Hell’ in the 90th and the ‘shadow collections’ since 2003. These collected figures actually form the repertoire of her paintings and paperworks. As stencils and cut outs they appear as colored human chains and serial ‘icons of mankind’ and consolidate to networks exploring the complex variety and function of modern human society.

Personal website: www.ameret.eu

Jop Arsiano

Jop Arsianto was born in Surakarta, Central Java, Indonesia, where he also studied Fine Arts at the University of Surakarta. He works and lives now in Germany.

His paintings are visual stories about his subjective perspective of his daily life. Jop’s art is very colourful, bizarre and a bit naive. For his work he uses a variety of media, techniques and colours. Even though his latest paintings were on a smaller scale, he loves to go BIG!

Personal website: www.joparsianto.posterous.com

Eve Bailey

In our age of increasingly narrow technology, we still begin with the body. Eve Bailey, French‐born, New York based artist, uses her own body as a perceiving mechanical structure, to generate works that experiment with equilibrium. She creates drawings, sculptures, performances, and videos, exploring the concepts of balance and coordination. Eve graduated from the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris and received two scholarships to study abroad at the San Francisco Art Institute. She was awarded several funded
residencies at Triangle Arts, Sculpture Space, I‐Park and Bemis Center. Her work has been exhibited at numerous venues in France, Germany, The Netherlands, Cuba, and across the US. She is currently preparing for her first New York solo show at Cueto Project.

Personal website: www.evebailey.net

Cesar Conde

Cesar Conde was born in Manila, Philippines and has lived in Spain, Mexico, and grew up with in Seattle. he has studied "technique mixte" in France and 16th century drawing technique in Florence, Italy. Cesar is currently working on a series called " sustaining humanity", paintings of photographs of people he has taken in different parts of the world. "we talk of saving the planet, but we hardly have a dialogue about saving her people".

Personal website: www.cesarcondeart.com

Blake Daniels

Through the use of sculptural performance, video instillations, and painting, Blake Daniels seeks to establish his own proximity within the fluxes of our global community while implementing an often-masochistic need to usurp the seat of authorship and power from our governing and oft oppressive historical institutions. His work then becomes a residual source of evidence of his hand, body, and their synchronization with his thoughts, mind, and placement within this global populace. There is an unavoidable influence from his travels and extended stays in Mamelodi and Nellmapius, South Africa, both in his life and studio practice. Blake was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio and has since lived in Sarasota, Florida, and now resides in Chicago, Illinois. He is currently a full time student at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Personal website: www.blakealandaniels.com

Dana Day

Dana Day was raised in Virginia but discovered the artist within after moving to Chicago in 1993. Armed with a modified Hershey Cocoa box and sheets of photographic film, she explores the world through a pinhole lens. Every shell of a broken down building holds a story and she is determined to tell it in her own words, with her own ghosts.

Personal website: www.danadayphoto.com

Yvette Dunn

Yvette Dunn is born & lives in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. Studied at DUT (Durban University of Technology) & Higher diploma in Fine Art through the University of South Africa (UNISA). Dunn is an artist, artist activist, art teacher & in previous years curated/ managed artists.

Dunn has enjoyed numerous personal exhibitions of her work over the years locally & abroad. Most recently, KZNSA Gallery, South Africa, Cultuurcentrum in Brugge, Belgium & Chicago, USA.

Dunn is inspired by the psychology of super-heroism & racial labels imposed on us by society. She makes use of her alter ego when doing live performances. “Her personality gives me the confidence & freedom to be the person I am in my own right beyond the realities of this world we live in.

Personal website: www.yvettedunn.com

Pamela Enz

I create multi media work with my body, ink, oil, and photos, a lifetime torn and layered into text, my own, or the gift of random lines that continue to haunt and inspire. Two Japanese aesthetic principles guide me. Wabi Sabi come to intuitively as I have always found beauty in imperfection. And Clinamen realized in the doing over time as I discovered how to deliberately break a stylistic rule to enhance the beauty of an otherwise "perfect" whole .

Personal website: http://www.artslant.com/global/artists/show/91046-pamela-enz?tab=PROFILE

Prado de Fata

España
Artistic studies in painting and fine printing, but her encounters with the concepts of Zen philosophy and Japanese painting “sumi-e” has great influence in her work. Often incorporates the use of stones, slate, marble dust and gold leaf in her works.
“Art as the path in the quest for harmony. Art as an expression of our hidden nature”

Personal website: www.fatagallery.com

Sergio Gomez

Sergio Gomez was born and raised in Mexico. In 1988 he moved to Chicago where he has lived for over 20 years. Sergio Gomez is director of 33 Contemporary Gallery in Chicago. In January 2009, Sergio founded VisualArtToday.com; a curated online exhibition space for international contemporary art. In addition, Sergio is a designer, professor, and independent curator at the Zhou B. Art Center in Chicago. His work explores human awareness and spiritual consciousness throughout the cycles of life.

Personal website: www.sergiogomezonline.com

Barbara Hirschfeld

Barbara Hirschfeld has lived and worked in the Chicago area since 1991 with brief forays into Wisconsin.

She has worked in the arts for over 15 years as an executive director and as a curator for historic site museums in St. Louis, Chicago area and in Wisconsin.  In 2005 she made the decision that it was time to explore her own creative capacity.  She  applied for and was accepted into the photography program at Columbia College in 2005 and has since been creating her own art.

She focuses a lot of her effort on exploring and recording interesting abandoned spaces and the “street” art that flourishes in these places. 

Petronilla Hohenwarter

Petronilla Hohenwarter is an extraordinary soul-inspiring artist.

Her work is related to the "unknown, or so called greater mind or source of being"; she creates a visual dialogue with a current subject which exists in it. It is surrounded by courage and enthusiasm - which is freely expressed in the work and her life choices. The work in progress provides a clear, honest and harmonious integrity.

Personal website: www.petronillahohenwarter.com

Olivier Hoelzl

Olivier Hoelzl was born in Innsbruck and has lived in India, Poland, and grew up in Vienna/Austria. In 2003 he majored in economics and actually studies painting in Austria at "Die Angewandte".

His works explore systems that lay under the concepts of family, business, religion, war and sexuality. In his installation "transforming_data_into_information" he wants the observers to question themselves about their position in the world regarding their relation to the codes of behavior and to the expectations that such systems impose on society.

Personal website: www.flickr.com/holiwe

Suzlee Ibrahim

Suzlee Ibrahim began his painting career in 1987 while attending the Institut Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam. After graduation, Suzlee worked in advertising as a Graphic Designer at Laser Skill Sdn. Bhd and as a Visual & Art Director at Titian Publishing Sdn. Bhd. Suzlee has taught foundation art subjects and painting as a full time professor at the School of Art & Design, Institut Teknologi MARA (now UiTM), sculpture at Cultural Centre at the Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Bangi  and is now on the Faculty of Fine Art at Akademi Seni Budaya dan Warisan Kebangsaan (ASWARA) where he lectures. His passion in abstract painting has awarded him more than 500 solo and group exhibitions around the world.

Personal website: suzlee99.tripod.com

Manhal ISSA

Manhal ISSA was born on November 24th, 1969, in the Mediterranean city of Tartous, Syria. He began painting in childhood. At the age of 12 his vision began to decline and by the age of 15 he was nearly blind.  During the next four years he became discouraged by the quality of his paintings due to his failing sight. At the ages of 18 and 19 his eyes were operated on in Russia and thanks to a transplant in both eyes he regained his sight.

His experience in sculpture and video at times takes him further away from painting and at others, closer. His pictorial vision of the human being ibased on a body in rapid motion, which often appears as a savage human or a startled animal remains consistent. Manhal Issa lives in Paris, he continues creating in these three art forms.

Personal website: www.manhalissa.com

Diane Meyer

Diane Meyer is an artist and Assistant Professor of Photography at Loyola Marymount in Los Angeles. She grew up in New Jersey and received her BFA in Photography from New York University and her MFA from the University of California, San Diego. Working within various genres and mediums, her work has long been inspired by place, explorations of the physical and psychological qualities that define various locations, and reinterpretations of the histories surrounding place.

Personal website: www.dianemeyer.net

Connie Noyes

Connie Noyes is the founder of A.R.G- Artists Respond Globally and the instigator of the project In My Own Backyard I Can See the World. Her work is an exploration of systems of incomplete order which emerge from the moment of "chaos" in her creative process. The surfaces are layered in dense abstractions with debris and function as metaphors for the complex perceptual or psychological interconnections that often take time to digest in order to fully understand. Noyes is a full time artist and currently lives in Chicago.

Personal website: www.connienoyes.com

Gabriela Proksch

Gabriela Proksch was born and lives in Tirol/Austria. Her numerous study travels lead her to South and North America and Europe, where she worked in artist in residency programs. She studied philosophy in Salzburg and Innsbruck, where she graduated as phd of arts.

One of the most important topics in her work is transformation and process. She shows that in paintings, material assemblages and videos. "The philosophical base of her work is obvious and makes them intellectual and profound.Her paintings act as a window to a different world, one that mirrors ours, but is more intense with distortions, understatement and whispers." (Susan Isaacs)

Personal website: www.gabrielaproksch.com

Kiran Rajagopalan

Kiran Rajagopalan is one of the leading young exponents of Bharatanatyam (South Indian classical dance), and he is an aspiring choreographer. Originally from the United States but now based in India, Kiran graduated magna cum laude from Boston University with a B.A. in Behavioral Neuroscience and Spanish in 2008. However, he has chosen to follow his passion for dance and has since graduated from the University of Madras with an M.A. in Bharatanatyam in 2010. He is also the recipient of a fiscal sponsorship from the prestigious New York Foundation for the Arts to choreograph and present a solo performance art production.

Personal website: http://www.artspire.org/DirectoryDetail/tabid/95/id/1009/Default.aspx

Manju Shandler

Manju Shandler is a visual artist and theatre designer. Her work has taken many forms with the common thread being visual storytelling. Most recently, her large narrative paintings on translucent polyester film reflect on current events using myth, religion, and humor. Shandler has been working for 20 years in the theatre. Her costumes, puppets and masks transform the human body and the stage they inhabit.

Personal website: www.ManjuShandler.com

Dominic Sansone

Dominic Sansone is a native of Chicago and has recently received a Master of Fine Arts degree at the Herron School of Art and Design in Indianapolis. Currently he lives in St. Charles Illinois with his wife of eleven years and his two sons. His current body of artwork attempts to explore the violence of humankind and the role each of us play in this endless cycle. The work is influenced by the assembly line fabrication of industrial machinery, weaponry and munitions, and even our food. Repetition and casting combine to create an industrial mass-produced sensibility to his artwork.

Personal website: www.sans1studios.com

Ramnath Siva

Ramnath, born in Chennai, India, has spent the last ten years of his life living in four cities - Mumbai (India), Richmond (VA), Chicago (IL) and currently resides in Bangalore (India). While these travels have been as part of his day job - he works in banking - he feels that these nomadic forays have also contributed to his photography style, where he captures everyday street and city life.

He spent over a year doing part-time courses at the Chicago Photography Center and then continued with them as a volunteer digital photography instructor. After his move back to India in 2007, he continues to travel extensively around India and the world looking to capture 'uncliched' images of the places and people.

Personal website: www.ramnathsiva.com

Christine Simpson Forni

She began her career in Los Angeles as a graphic designer in 1988. She received awards from the American Center for Design and has pieces in the Strathmore permanent gallery collection. In 1998 she decided to pursue metalsmithing and began selling her pieces to museums and galleries such as the Smithsonian, deYoung Art Museum, and Wallace Collection in Glasgow. She exhibited her drawings and jewelry at the Center Catala d'Artesania in 2004 and taught metalsmithing at the Escuela Llotja in Barcelona. In 2011 her pieces will be on exhibit at the Ueno Royal Museum in Tokyo, Japan that examine the extinction of red coral in reefs due to overharvesting. Her current body of work is an exploration in creating awareness of the effects our interactions have with nature.

Personal website: www.christinesimpsonjewelry.com

Harry Sudman

Harry Sudman was born in Chicago. In the late 1970's he studied realistic painting technique under Patrick Betaudier at the Atelier Neo Medici located outside of Paris. "My vision is to use traditional painting technique and apply it towards artworks that reflect contemporary culture and society"

Personal website: www.harrysudman.com

Ginny Sykes

Ginny Sykes was born in Washington DC. She studied painting at Washington University in St. Louis and in Florence, Italy. She has taught at the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbia College and in numerous arts residency programs. Sykes has 40 permanent public art projects to her credit. She currently resides in Chicago.

Her art explores archetypal forms as they arise in dreams and waking states of consciousness, drawing on Jung's theories of creativity and the collective unconscious to bring her interests in alchemy and feminism together. Mixing abstraction with forms resonant of and about the body, her work is a subtle feminist critique of and nostalgic towards the modernist canon. Sykes works in a variety of visual media, installation and collaborative performance.

Personal website: www.ginnysykes.com

Simeon Todev

Simeon Todev was born in Haskovo, Bulgaria. He studied art at The School of Visual Arts, Smolian, Bulgaria, graduating in 1984. His first solo exhibition in 1987 was titled Sacred Worlds.

Todev emerged as one of the major Bulgarian artists during the 2000s, with a body of highly provocative work. Through his career, Todev has continued to appropriate eternal topics, works that question and give rise to discussions on the cultural and spiritual wealth of the humankind.

Simeon Todev is also known for his self-deride. In his solo exhibition Let's Spit at the Culture in 2004, he served sunflower seeds to visitors and asked them to spit the seeds in the direction of the most attractive works. Since 2005, he has been the chairman of Artists Association in Haskovo.

Personal website: www.littleart.biz

Maarten van der Heijden

Maarten van der Heijden was born and works as a visual artist in Amsterdam,  Netherlands. In 2010 he graduated at Gerrit Rietveld Art Academy Amsterdam. In his most recent artworks he uses the photographs the allied forces took at the liberation of the nazi concentrationcamps in 1945. These photo's are so extremely horrific that they virtually disappeared from the public domain . . .

In March 2011 Maarten started a Bilingual Digital Interactive Internet Artwork in Progress: 141 BOXES, about the unpacking, archiving, documenting, photographing and clearing away of the content of the 141 moving boxes that he is/was carrying with him his whole life. Comments of viewers will become part of the artwork. Twitter: @Maarten141BOXES

Personal website: www.maartenvanderheijden.nl

Sharon Xiaoyuan Zhu

I am currently a MFA student in Henry Radford Hope School of Fine Arts, major in Digital Art. For most of my works, I really enjoy to realize the beauty of the nature. From the living plants, ocean, to body movement. For me, all the beauty is already there, they make me addict into it just as the way they are and I wish I can bring the feeling up to screen and share it.

Personal website: www.zhuxiaoyuan.com