22nd Annual Artlink Juried Exhibition

22nd ANNUAL JURIED EXHIBITION

A SHOWCASE OF EXCEPTIONAL WORK BY ARIZONA ARTISTS

Thank you to those with the imagination to shape the spaces where we live and work with design, art and creativity.

“Design is an expression of purpose. It may, if it is good enough, later be judged as art.” – Charles Eames

ARTLINK WELCOMES YOU

As an organization with a mission to connect artists, business and community we are pleased to present the 22nd Annual Artlink Juried Exhibition at FOUND:RE Phoenix Hotel. Our Annual Juried Exhibition has grown to become one of the largest showcases for emerging and established artists in Arizona. Once again we have an exciting selection of works from every corner of the state.

This year the jury reviewed over 350 inspired submissions to make their selections. Our thanks to the esteemed panel of jury volunteers for selecting 66 amazing artists and the three award winners. Artlink is honored to be able to provide this annual showcase and the first place $5,000, second place $1,500, third place $750 awards.

This multimedia extravaganza of painting, photography, sculpture, performance art and fashion design will be on view through February allowing our many Super Bowl visitors to enjoy the work. We are grateful to the FOUND:RE for hosting the exhibition open to the public 24 hours, 7 days a week.

As you experience the show we hope you will be inspired to start or add to your own collection, knowing your patronage is helping to support Arizona artists and our vibrant arts and culture community.

22nd ANNUAL JURIED EXHIBITION

THE JURY PANEL

THE JURORS

LIZ COHEN

Photographer and performance artist Liz Cohen (American, b. 1973) is best known for her project BODYWORK, in which she transformed an aging East German Trabant into an American El Camino lowrider, and herself into a car customizer and bikini model. Cohen’s earlier work CANAL, a series of black and white photographs and performances, documents sex workers on the fringe of the Panama Canal Zone. In her more recent work, HIM, she depicts an ostracized poet through black and white photographs, weavings, and collaged textiles.

Cohen has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, MacDowell Colony, Akademie Schloss Solitude, the Creative Capital Foundation, and the Kresge Foundation. She has exhibited work at Site Santa Fe, Ballroom Marfa, the Cranbrook Art Museum, Färgfabriken, and Museum Tinguely. Cohen received her MFA degree in Photography from the California College of the Arts. She holds a BFA in Studio Art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts and a BA in Philosophy from Tufts University.

NICOLE L OLSON

Olson has performed with the Phoenix Opera, Liliana Gomez, Diane Hunt, and Dulce Dance, and Center Dance Ensemble, and Scorpius Dance Theatre. Currently, she is the Artistic Director of NicoleOlson|MovementChaos.

Olson’s work has been seen nationally in such venues as the Kennedy Center (DC), Ruth Page Performing Arts (Chicago), and the TBA Festival (Portland). Her choreography has been witnessed in The Phoenix Theatre Company’s “Evita” and “Once”, and Stray Cat Theatre’s “Heathers” and “Silence! The Musical”.

Nicole has been presenting work in alternative performance spaces, such as Phoenix Art Museum, SMOCA, and for the award-winning Canal Convergence in 2018-’21, presented by Scottsdale Public Art.

Olson was awarded the Phoenix Mayor’s Arts Award and was selected as Phoenix New Times’ “Best Dancer” for their annual “Best Of Phoenix” in 2016. She was recognized by Phoenix New Times’ “Best Of 2018” for her work with Patricia Sannit (Best Collaboration).

HERMANN PLANK

Hermann Plank is the President of TecnoKal, an international marketing and technology company in Scottsdale, AZ focusing on innovation workshops, manufacturing assessments and digital twin implementation in the plastics industry. Hermann holds a Master’s degree in Polymer Science and Engineering from University Leoben, Austria, and is a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. Since 2007 he has been an advisory board member of Phoenix Fashion Week focusing on operational excellence, growth strategies and teaching emerging fashion designers Six Sigma philosophy. Hermann is also Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer of METAXFASHION Inc. creating the first ever NFT Eco System for Fashion brands on the Algorand Blockchain. Besides a passion for art and fashion, he enjoys the occasional cigar with a nice glass of red wine!

GILBERT VICARIO

Gilbert Vicario is Chief Curator at Perez Art Museum in Miami since October 2022. Prior to joining PAMM, Gilbert was at Phoenix Art Museum from 2015-2022. Recent exhibitions include, California Biennial 2022: Pacific Gold (October 8 – February 26, 2023) at Orange County Museum of Art. At Phoenix Art Museum, Sama Alshaibi: Generation after Generation, September 18 – May 2023; Desert Rider, an exhibition of Indigenous and Latinx artists from the southwest (traveling to Denver Art Museum), April 4 to September 18, 2022 ; Stories of Abstraction: Contemporary Latin American Art in the Global Context, which featured gifted works from the Nicolas Pardon collection in Irvine, CA; along with Agnes Pelton: Desert Transcendentalist (traveled from the Phoenix Art Museum to New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and Palm Springs Art Museum, California). Upcoming exhibitions include Xican-a.o.x.-Body co-curated with Cecilia Fajardo-Hill and Marissa Del Toro for American Federation for the Arts in New York.

EUNIQUE YAZZIE

Eunique is a Designer whose roots are from Canyon de Chelly in the Navajo Nation heartlands and emerges from Phoenix, Arizona. Her 21-year creative career has honed her technical skill, challenged perspectives, and established her artistic dimensions. If art imitates life, Eunique’s palette is one that breathes new life and purpose into the arts and culture community; she is a poet and storyteller with the Mujeres Del Sol collective; a board member of Roosevelt Row CDC; a working artist, muralist, and illustrator; co-founder of Cahokia Socialtech + Artspace; founder of Indige Design Collab; and owner of euniQue, LLC. Her creative work is centered around placemaking and placekeeping with an emphasis on social impact design. She is a dynamic organizer, workshop facilitator, speaker, and art curator who is now pivoting towards tech. She currently works as a Creative Consultant and Application Analyst focusing on design systems, collaboration, and Indigenizing space.

22nd ANNUAL JURIED EXHIBITION THE ARTISTS

SAMANTHA LYN AASEN

Hair (2022) Inkjet Photograph 30”x 20” $450

Artist Statement

I am starting a new journey with myself, my womanhood, and my identity. Stepping away from the seductive rhinestones that filled my practice previously, I am looking for my own truth. Mom is an emerging series documenting my realities, my attempt to find myself in my new role as “mom.”

Website samanthalyn.com

Artist Statement

Angela, as most photographers do, pays close attention to light in her photographs. She takes advantage of the natural light in the surrounding and does not manipulate it in any way. From the natural light falling into an office window, to the light that is cast from an urban streetlight; she takes what is in the surrounding and creates a story from it.

Website zhibit.org/angelaadamsart

AHCHIPAPTUNHE

Artist Statement

An oral tradition is a powerful tool that I love to utilize in my paintings. As a member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, I have always been fascinated with how traditional stories are spoken. I believe their power lies in that one speaks of the past in a present voice allowing the audience to take part in another’s experience. I think of art as a commodity of exchange, one that I do not wish to tell you how to interpret the visual commentary instead, I prefer to walk in that ambiguity allowing for discussion and connections of thought.

Artist Statement

I capture this other dimension just outside of our own, a space where we can feel but can’t comprehend. My work is more interested in displaying emotions and having a conversation with the viewer rather than being a true depiction of a subject.

SAM ARROW

V (2021)

Dance Film and Live Performance 8’x 8’ performance space $200 for film

Artist Statement

I found my voice after years of “checking all the boxes.” I went to college, married, and birthed children. Then at once, everything I thought I wanted, I destroyed. I realized that path would result in my very slow death. When I emerged, I started to create work that meant something to me and those who viewed it. I realized my story is not unique and I can be other’s voice also.

My work is extremely personal but remains accessible. Everyone has the potential to experience hardship and find moments of joy despite it. I use my experience as a parent, divorcee, lover, pelvic floor therapist, and queer person; and moving my body is a way to process thoughts and feelings about those experiences and reflect on their significance. I hope that a person watching my work will gain awareness of another perspective or see themself in my work.

Website samanthawl.wixsite.com/website-1

Artist Statement

Disney’s Hercules was a gateway drug. The colorful depictions of glowing graceful deities with unique strengths and weaknesses fascinated me. I dove into their stories and realized they were meant to be more than entertainment, but a means for reflection. I was inspired to dive into the myths of other cultures. As I moved from the myths of Jamaica to West Africa to India and beyond, I found a feeling of representation and something more: common themes across the world’s myths. I could see myself and those around me represented in the themes valued in the myths of every culture. With this realization came a new question; Who are the modern pinnacles of those timeless trait’s humanity admires? This series is not just my answer, but an opportunity to focus on what we as humans have in common. Each portrait is a celebration of the qualities that make us great. Website alisonstillaround.com

Artist Statement

I see my work as tangible representations of thought, as influenced by the repeating patterns found in the natural world--like previous iterations of time, continuously evolving into the present moment. Our thoughts expand and change through time in the same manner. Complexity can be made more accessible and understandable by imposing order and organization. We subconsciously apply internal or external order to categorize, identify, and clarify our surroundings to understand the world. I strive to identify and break down aesthetic pleasure into individual components and build upon them. Observing repeated patterns help us grasp the concept that subtle changes over time become magnified and serve as an allegory to moving through life as we experience cause and effect. I embrace the struggle of physical and mental labor behind the repeated movements and asceticism required for this work.

Artist Statement

_IRL is a single channel video installation. This video contains clips from a month-long performance with new code that was written daily. SCATR is a live performance tool in which the cell phones of audience members become independent channels for live audio manipulation and spatialization.

_IRL is an experimental durational performance using an esoteric live-coding environment. The semi-generative soundscape is authored in real-time as an unfolding expression of conditions set by the artist. _IRL considers the affordances of contemporary live-streamed performance and reflects on such themes as “liveness,” immediacy, and access. Referring to the novel coding practice of Cellular Automata, the code behaves as a colony of living creatures that evolve and flourish sonorously despite arbitrary rules and remotely imposed aesthetics.

SCATR is a dynamic, improvisational coding context in which the processes of networks and surveillance are interrupted, and their technologies appropriated for sonic texturing and experimentation.

Website shomitbarua.com

LORI

BAUMAN

Asian Fall (2021) Mixed Media on Paper 20”x 36” $1,500

Artist Statement

My current work uses mixed media collage to explore my long-held, nonbinary systems of belief as they relate to gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and social class. Pieced and layered materials and stories serve to chronicle consistent aspects of my narratives which are influenced by the translation of ancient myths, rituals, ceremonies, cultural norms, traditions, folktales, fairy tales and religion. I am interested in how these constructs integrate in our contemporary daily lives and relationships. Most recently, I’ve printed my past collage artworks on fabrics via dye sublimation and then sewn into my own original designed Kaftans. This first collection of apparel allows me to collaborate with viewers. Viewers can now participate in the presentation of the artwork creating a more direct relationship with the work and its narrative. Website loribauman.com

Artist Statement

As a teacher, it was always my goal to produce critical and creative thinkers. For artists, both sets of skills are essential. As visual artists, we need to be able to see to embrace the dynamic relationships among thought and emotion, history and culture, morality, and art. For me, working to see these relationships has always been as a source of motivation and provided the essential themes of my work. This process has been more important than matters of color, volume, and line. As a result, the viewer will see paintings about racial history and social justice, poverty and human rights, gun violence and environmental neglect. First and foremost, my paintings are attempts to communicate the vision of one human being to another…an act of communication not that unlike the paintings the earliest humans made on the walls of their caves.

CHERIE BUCK-HUTCHISON

Artist Statement

Cherie Buck-Hutchison manipulates transparent layers of personal histories, behavior and public land to consider the metaphoric landscape. The unseen is materialized through the active process of overlaying. Her ethereal superimpositions embrace a range of realizations in diaphanous forms including photography, video, performance and objects. Her work explores the imagination surrounding authority and magical thinking. Quilting pins and silk organza (museum materials used to mend quilts) are employed to display photographs of a multiple view landscape. The work is pieced together with images of many things such as welcoming hands and carnivorous flowers amidst disaster, paradise and restricted clothing. Buck-Hutchison veils power structures with shrouded secondary vistas and tactical text to expand the conversation surround the cultural landscape. In Hinged Between Here and There the subject of leadership within organizational structures is visited by myths and beliefs. She swathes photographs printed on silk atop images located on public land while exploring perspectives and visibility. Her work is a disrupt of the traditional lens of monumental landscape.

Website cheriebuckhutchison.com

Hinged Between Here and There (2020) Pigment Ink Photographs on Silk Organza, Thread 14”x 90”x

Artist Statement

Art is truly my way of life and not just what i put down on paper or my iPad. I see the beauty in everything and i try to translate that to my work and have fun with it because that’s what life should be. Instagram @customfresh_dame

Artist Statement

Donna Ceraulo has a passion for female portraiture in a wide variety of semi-abstract styles. Donna’s usual mediums are acrylic paint, mixed media collage and digital art (created by overlaying images of her original paintings using PhotoShop). The work she creates can be emotional, dark, sad, fun, or whimsical. Her works often incorporate built up layers that make them interesting whether viewing from a distance or close-up. Website donnacerauloart.com

CRAIG CHEPLY

Artist Statement

As we go about our daily rituals, we obviously look at and see many things. Some events register in our memories while others do not. Of the “things” that register, have we done a close observational view, or do we just take the visual information for granted?

Ongoing since 2006, the “100% Natural” Series is contemporary visual statements of the social, political, environmental, financial, geographical, religious, and natural landscapes playing out on the domestic and world stage daily.

My artworks are rendered with Natural History as a triple entendre entity—the classification, subject matter, and medium. I use our historic past literally, allegorically, metaphorically, and representatively. It’s been recycled, repurposed, and reused, as the medium on divergent substrates to visually comment on man’s past, current history in this 21st century arena, and future state of affairs; the good, the bad, and the downright ugly. Website craigcheplyart.com

Artist Statement

Looking at and appreciating the artwork of others is one of my very favorite things. When I look at the artwork of others, I feel like I have been given the gift of looking at the world through their eyes. I myself love to photograph the deserts and towns of the US Southwest and I hope that when anyone looks at my photography, they are getting a glimpse of the world how I see it.

Website desertmedley.myportfolio.com

DAWN CONRY

Artist Statement

I transform images, messages, or ideas in print and imagine different stories. I combine my practice with Nursing, which illuminates a different pathway of creation. I look for connection in an unrelated image, color, shape, line, or pattern. To create within the boundaries of the material is a means of adventure. In healthcare collaboration is key, this is no different with my art practice. Collage allows for collaboration between print images, design, and art. Using scissors, scalpel, glue, ink, and acrylic to transform images, such collaborations happen by coincidence, accident, and deliberate effort. I am especially interested in using my own experiences in art and healthcare to inform a body of work that speaks to health, social, and political issues. The many years spent in these spaces can firmly bridge the gap between critical thinking and emotional safety. to create space for opposing forces to safely, yet with honesty exist.

Website linktr.ee/Dawnry

ESTEVAN CURIEL

After Hours (2022)

Watercolor, Marker, and Flake on Paper 40”x 26”

NFS

Artist Statement

My focus was to capture the pleasurable moments I had traveling the streets of Lower Manhattan, New York the Summer of 2022. I documented the city’s architectural landmarks, vivid community, luminous lighting, and transitional movements at night. I have become mesmerized by city life and its grand architectural space. To find something tasteful and timeless, I instinctively shoot my photograph while I’m walking on the street sidewalk. Most of my work references and partial imagination to create my new body of work reflect the perspective of work and travel. “After Hours” gives a sense of contrast, movement, rhythm, and color throughout the composition. I use multiple mediums and tools to generate my ideas. Instagram @mrmimek

ASHLEY

Artist Statement

I am interested in our refusal as a species to admit that we, too, are animals. Through an ecofeminist lens, my work explores human animality and the tension between domesticity and wildness- how these spaces coexist in tenuous relationship both in the environment but also within the inner landscape of the mind and body.

The word “domestic” or “domesticated” has dual and curiously entwined meanings, referencing both the ability to tame wild things while also referring to the space of the home and traditional “women’s work’. Many crafts traditionally relegated to the domestic sphere of women are highlighted in my work including embroidery, herbalism, caregiving, and midwifery. These intersections draw connections to broader themes of fertility, sensuality, mortality and the maternal. In all my endeavors, I am seeking the possibility of a reclamation of our place within nature, a re-wilding of the human, an attempt at un-becoming.

Website ashleyczajkowski.com

CINDY DACH

Artist Statement

Books and art open other worlds to me. Stories fuel my imagination and teach me the power of empathy. My art practice began with writing and photography and has evolved into embroidery. It is drawing and storytelling with thread. My embroidery works seek to evoke moments of nostalgia within the fluidity of nature and space.

Art has always been my counterbalance to daily work life. My art practice is a form of meditation. The discipline and patience required through stitching allows me space and time to enter the world intentionally. Hand-stitching and storytelling are some of my tools for processing and navigating the challenges of the world at large.

Website cindydach.com

Place (2022) Linen and Thread 15”x 12.5” $440

SWAPNA DAS

Introspective (2022) Ceramics 11.5”x 11.5”x 14.5” $1,800

Artist Statement

My spiritual practice has continuously guided and fueled my desire to discover the true essence of art and its significance in my existence. Few years ago, I started working on a series of charcoal drawings based on a Buddhist concept called “Ten Worlds”- ten life states that a person experiences in his or her life. Looking for deeper meaning I started experimenting with ceramics. Creating sculptures has reaped me a different perspective of all the complex and abstract lines in my charcoal drawings and understanding of Ten Worlds. I am extremely thrilled to witness and share the evolution of my two-dimensional work into three dimensional structure where the abstraction of elements resemble like tubes, strings and cords entangling with each other are vibrant and alive. I feel the ceramics sculptures have a uniqueness in showing that the human life can be extremely delicate with full of intricacy and inconsistency.

Website swapnadas-art.com

HEIDI DAUPHIN

10 x 10 x 10 = 1000 (2019)

Mixed Media, Found Objects 40”x 40”x 3.5” $16,000

Artist Statement

I think of my creative process as a journey. This journey began long ago. I am a collector traveling through life picking up bits and pieces of memories, items, places, and people along the way: all affecting my work. I concentrate on the accumulation of these things and incorporate multiples and repetition in my work. I am drawn to patterns, grids, numbers, calendars, and math. I examine the ideas of micro and macro within the arrangements of my collections. I create strong overall designs to draw viewers in from a distance, but love to incorporate small details that are discovered upon closer inspection. I am not necessarily obedient to an object’s intended use, and often find that when the boundaries are pushed, the best creations occur. My curiosity leads me to look for connections and similarities in all that has been gathered along the journey. I integrate.

Website heididauphin.com

JIMMY DESCANT

Artist Statement

Being a completely self-taught ‘Severe ReConstructivist’, of a found object assemblage style I call ‘Western Futurism’, I am inspired in my transformative moves, creating my version of the West in environmental, socio-political current events, and First Peoples imagery. I am part Tunica Biloxi tribe from middle Louisiana and mix this with growing up inspired by New Orleans’ Mardi Gras Indians and western tribes in my travels and passions. I equate the parts I use with both American positive progress and negative destruction to tribes, landscape, and societies as statements on humanity, acknowledgement, and the future. “Chief 4’s Of 8’s” was the first piece I built in my larger studio when I moved to Tucson, and based on Cheyenne dog soldiers and the #12. Starting with an old motel door and found parts, it evolved into a multi-layered self-portrait, and about 250 lbs. Heavy in weight, strength, and metaphor.

Website

DeluxeWest.com

Glimpses (2022) Oil on Canvas 18”x 24” NFS

Artist Statement

How does one cope with the loss of self? For me the loss of independence and physical health led to creating art for selfish reasons-to give life purpose but became fuel for pushing my skill set and allowing my weaknesses to become assets. The portraits I create using charcoal and oil paint share a common theme exploring issues relating to physical and mental health using light and dark contrasts with heavy shadows, glitchy and jagged elements disrupting the refined and realistic forms to create a sense of tension, unease, and uncertainty. By showcasing the beauty and strength of my subjects as they are faded out, broken into fragments, or otherwise distorted I hope to exhibit the strength and courage we all possess. Website bronwyndierssen.com

TALIA J DUDLEY

Artist Statement

My work focuses on the architecture of the unconscious and subconscious mind. Exploring different techniques such as long gestural strokes juxtaposed with bold mark-making helps me to create a disoriented mindscape. I layer my materials light and heavy to block out whole areas that construct an unfocused state. The mind intrigues me because things are often hidden from us. How are we affected? How does the human brain process emotion and trauma? What is revealed when we evaluate the unseen aspect of our true selves? Sometimes the memories can be easily accessed, yet experience creates layers, scars create marks, and we are tangled in our emotion. What is hidden from the subconscious? I explore this process while pushing and pulling my way through the architecture of my mind.

Website taliajdudley.com

TAL DVIR

Antarabhava (2022)

Oil on Canvas 40”x 30” $1,800

Artist Statement

In my paintings, I’m striving to engage fresh thoughts and ideas. My subjects contain mainly figures but not limited to as I truly see myself as a renaissance painter who seeks for new forms of artistic language within the painting field. I see my work as a process of constant reinvention and although working with paints on canvas, at times my work could be described as sculpting and designing with paints. As my art grows mainly through realistic features in subjects, I keep searching for new forms and ideas. I can say my art lives in the fine line of expressing thoughts, emotions by creating realism to some extent combined with deep abstract approach as well, which are all truly the inspiring essentials for my creation, start to end.

Website taldvir.com

Artist Statement

Sasha Escareño-Rosic specializes in fashion and still life imagery, using creative technique and experimental process to bridge art, design, and history. Her work often draws references from the 1960-70s Italian art movement, Arte Povera, blended with contemporary elements to create dynamic yet simple pieces centered around preservation, permanency, and purity. She uses the influence of her cross-cultural upbringing (Serbian father, Mexican mother) to create a juxtaposition based in fluid composition and structural brutalism in her exploration of opacity. Her work investigates obstruction and anonymity through silhouettes, fabric manipulation, organic repetition, and movement as points of reference in visual storytelling. Bridging old and new. Momentary and forever. Her work explores two central topics: What’s worth protecting? And what’s worth corrupting? She is currently working between Arizona and Mexico City.

Website sashaescareno.myportfolio.com

JEROME FLEMING

Luxuria: lust (2020) Acrylic on Canvas 36”x 36” $2,500

Artist Statement

Heavily influenced by people, architecture, graffiti, music, and pop culture, my abstract and geometric portraiture finds the extraordinary in the ordinary. My love for the human face and attention to fine details, drives me to create with an out-of-the-box-perspective. I work in a number of mediums ranging from traditional to digital. I seek to reimagine the world around me one line, shape, paint stroke, or pixel at a time.

Instagram @kulorbandit

FRANCISCO ENUF GARCIA

Artist Statement

Francisco’s artwork takes place from a critical view of social, political, and cultural issues. Often referencing Mexican and Chicano history, his artwork explores the varying relationships between urban culture and fine art. He’s engaged in subjects from Mexican icons, social justice leaders, graffiti, and indigenous influences. The Mexican muralist and Meso-American art have been a huge inspiration in the way Francisco expresses his messages through his artwork. He took what he learned from spray painting on walls and transferred it into the realm of fine arts studio practice and vice versa. He’s learned to cross-collaborate various elements and mediums such as designing in printmaking, graffiti art, conte, watercolor, and graphite. Francisco has experimented with painting murals on walls with acrylics and aerosol paint on canvas. Most importantly, he’s researched different topics such as identity, immigration policy, history, and social change topics to incorporate into the artwork. His goal has been to represent culture, inspiring social justice, place keeping through art, and civic engagement throughout cities across the world.

Instagram @3nuf86

GEMINI ADRIFT

Tether (2022) Marker and Watercolor

8.5”x 11” (diptych) $5,200

Artist Statement

MULTIFACETED MAGIC. Gemini Adrift is an artist of many mediums, such as the name might suggest. She practices bringing life to her numerous art forms by surrendering to the creative flow of life, finding inspiration in the world around her. She creates a multitude of works that evoke emotion, allow the viewer an opportunity to feel connected to a larger purpose & themselves, and even embody a connected experience by offering wearable forms of eclectic art through her handmade / upcycled & sustainable designs.

Website geminiofalltrades.com

MAGDA GLUSZEK

Prickly Pear Queen (2021) Stoneware, Underglazes, Wool, Paint 17”x 12”x 11”

$2,000

Artist Statement

As humans, we are constantly presenting ourselves to each other. We arrange our bodies in space, assume specific facial expressions, develop fashion identities, and construct elaborate virtual personalities. Our self-presentations are carefully cultivated, but they don’t always say what we intend them to. I’m interested in the gaps between what we think we project about ourselves and what others see when they look at us. What slips out when we’re not busily constructing our narratives? Those small moments unwittingly reveal aspects of our personalities that we are not always aware of or prepared to share. Sometimes these stories are very personal expressions, at other times they reflect the narrative of our collective culture. They alternate between performance and truth.

Website missmagdag.com

MATTHEW GOODALL

The

Artist Statement

Matthew Goodall is a figurative artist who is best known for his figurative watercolor paintings. Matthew’s work explores compositional relationships created through combination of the human figure with unique shapes, expressive forms, pop culture references and vibrant color. By combining these forms, he strives to create layers of interest and beauty that captures the attention of the viewer.

Instagram @Mattgoodallart

Artist Statement

Art is my little notepad; I capture all my small and large experiences. I express how much I would miss them, with my brushes or jeans or whatever medium is around me.

Jo is also passionate to create and explore with different media. She is recently focusing on the use of worn jeans as she adores both the texture of the fabric and stories of the owners. The jeans she uses are donations from friends and neighbors, who would drop them off and at the same time share their stories -- shorts when she carried her third baby; work pants when he renovated the home sweet home; a mini denim a little girl wore in kindergarten. Not like any new jeans, these used jeans all contain non- machine made patterns and fade out beautifully along with the marks of the owners’ life.

CHRIS JAGMIN

I’m Afraid of You (2020)

Micron Pen on Paper 44’x 34” $6,800

Artist Statement

My word-based practice documents and exposes the fragilities of the American psyche. Informed by the intersection of my immersive Catholic upbringing with the closeting of my sexuality, I navigate the beauty of ritual with the hopelessness of penance. Parochial and political, my work offers both a celebration of sadness and a hopeful triumph over it. The confessional work makes a direct verbal appeal for introspection, self-awareness and forgiveness. In an America consumed by texting and social media, we may have forgotten how to communicate with each other. I observe how we’ve both invigorated and sullied our use of language, and I have been a bystander for too long. Words matter, and I hope to make some changes.

Website christopherjagmin.com

FARNAZ MANSOURI

Artist Statement

My artworks come from the journey that I have had in my life as a woman inspired by society, architecture, and the mysterious eastern culture. Most recently, immigration has greatly influenced my art. The style in my paintings is heavily impacted by many elements of cubism. Such as synchronicity, simultaneity, a different perspective, and collage, and also as a miniature painting of Iran, the motif, and no perspective. I use such features to narrate a story. My paintings consist of different layers, They are transparent and solid. Each of them depicts a story that resembles different aspects of my life. One of my goals as a painter and an illustrator is to create a world in my paintings in which the audience could relate to their lives. I would love to be able to engage them with their deepest emotions and have them see the world through my sight.

farnazartgallery.com

DANIEL MARIOTTI

Artist Statement

In death we hold on tighter to the things we want to remember. Objects become sacred save points for stories. When we go through a lost loved one’s belongings, we can escape into the memories those objects hold, making them more valuable than before. We choose the value of objects, and they tether our memories to the physical realm when our bodies are long gone, acting as fragments of our identity. Like death a mask, Alocasia Leaf is a reminder that while our living existence is temporary, we are held in the memories of everything we touched. Website danielmariotti.com

Artist Statement

Beauty is found all around us. In seeing, I have wanted to share the wonders that are all around us, helping others the see and take notice. There is always a twist in what I create. Take the time and pay attention now before the moment is gone. We are powerful beings. We have strength and vulnerability. Putting up walls and crashing them down. We are a beautifully messy dichotomy.

Website stacymarko.com

Artist Statement

The work presented in my Luminance Series began in early 2021 after many months isolating due to the pandemic. During that time it caused me to slow down even further and become even more comfortable with the simple things. Each morning during the walk with our dog, I began to see a different light and an idea started to unfold as I began to shoot the first few images.

Utilizing multiple exposures became a path into ephemeral images of light and luminosity seemingly passing through time and space. The process was a meditation and represents and explores the spiritual journey of moving through darkness to light, with challenges, roadblocks and awakening moments along the way.

All final images in the Luminance Series are produced as Gesso Prints which create another layer of luminance, enhancing the visual experience.

Artist Statement

I’m firm in my belief that less is more, in life and in painting. Simple subjects, compositions, color palettes and paintings techniques. This focus on simplicity, for engaging, bold and impactful artwork. No matter how simple though, art is personal for me in every aspect. The meanings behind my paintings are personal, they are expressions of my own feelings.

Instagram @artbyrosariomiranda

Artist Statement

My work explores the subjects of stardom, vanity, and excess within society with an emphasis on woman and the feminine. I am interested in western culture’s obsession with beauty in both film and classic painting that have created idealized versions of reality. The stylized and romanticized are indispensable elements in my work and correspond to the methodic use of color that expresses human emotions through their psychological representations. Much of my inspiration comes from navigating the world with the knowledge of my womanhood. The artistic translation then being a world in which the feminine and the womanly seem to be enveloping their masculine counterpart. Essentially, I am the women in my paintings, and I experience their emotions in a dreamlike environment where my feelings are acceptable.

JAMILLA NAJI

If only my breasts had propellers, who knows where I would be right now (2022) Oil on Wood Panel 25”x 36” $3,200

Artist Statement

Having the courage and determination to paint my most tragic experiences usually results in colorful, curious, and relatable images.

Website jamillanaji.net

Artist Statement

Like many artists, I always loved creating. Unlike many artists, I got undergraduate and graduate degrees in science. Although I could do the work, I realized that I could never be genuinely happy unless I was creating on paper or canvas. My realistic acrylic paintings start with reference photos. I draw the design directly onto the canvas before laying in any color. I work in layers of color, glazing some areas multiple times while leaving other areas with unmodified color. Each series of my work begins a moment of wonder. My water series started with a longing for water in the desert. I felt compelled to paint water with its calming and mesmerizing tranquilities. Unlike artists who paint water as part of the overall landscape, I paint water as the star of any landscape. Website

ANH-THUY NGUYEN

Untitled # 1 from Thuy & Sand Video (2017) Dye-sublimation Print on Canson Infinity Platine Fibre Rag, Edition 2/9 36”x 24” $2,800

Artist Statement

Thuy & Sand (2017) is part of a larger series, Thuy &, in which Nguyen employs a semi-autobiographical character named Thuy to process her experiences as an immigrant. The series began at a time when Nguyen was unable to return to Vietnam.

In Thuy & Sand, Thuy travels along the deserted western landscape carrying her straw bag filled with sand. As she walks, the landscape is altered and marked by her footprints. As she tries to level the landscape, she continues marking the land. A constant endless effort she pursues represents the inevitable cycle of life: creation and destruction.

Website anh-thuynguyen.com

NOELLE THE DREAMER

Head in the Clouds (2021) Acrylic on Canvas 20”x 24” $600

Artist Statement

Noelle is a Phoenix based artist and daydreamer. Playing in the dream world, Noelle creates unique pieces that show a glimpse of a moment of peace and balance, on canvas.

Website www.etsy.com/shop/AnActOfBalance

Artist Statement

My appreciation for the human spirit has become a focal point of my work for the last few years. Who we are, what we do, our beliefs, interests, and the diverse paths of life we take. I often write little stories for each piece I create with an underlying motto of walking in someone else’s shoes, wearing their hat and sitting in their chair–it’s about taking pause to find perspective of that defined or even subtle individualism. I have chosen the hat as my stylistic symbol and oftentimes metaphors for people’s sense of character. Plus, they are beautifully crafted pieces of art just like the people who wear them.

Website artbydino.com

JARED

PETERSON

Ceramics, Neon, Steel, Adhesives, Paint, Aluminum Leaf 72”x 42”x 18” NFS

Artist Statement

Sparked by the sudden inability to throw a baseball as an 11-year-old self-identified future Hall-of-Famer, much of my life has been consumed by two questions. How to I find value in living and how do I feel like I belong? My art explores ideas of belonging, love, and value by interrogating my personal experiences with religion, failure, masculinity, mental health, and the desire for human connection. Incorporating imagery from my life experiences as a Chicano Appalachian, migrant worker, and general wanderer, I think of my work like a poem or short story, highlighting uncommon similarities among unlikely subjects as a method of discovering truth. Using a wide scope of materials, the nuisance relating my imagery and methods reflects the common connections all things share. In this way, my work reminders viewers of all our uncanny similarities in the pursuit of finding meaning in life.

Website jaredpetersonstudio.com

Brick! (Dennis Rodman Cries in Public) (2022)

ELIZABETH Z. PINEDA

Sin Nombre (2022) Archival Pigment Print On Habotai Silk 30”x 20” $900

Artist Statement La Última Luz

The Arizona desert, in all its beauty, has become a place that holds unimaginable despair and sorrow. My work explores human tragedy in this terrain. The luminous landscape is one many migrants cross in search of the American Dream. Migrants will take this path when all others are exhausted. The journey, heartbreakingly, will often lead to death. In this work, I consider the lives lost that ultimately reside within the soil. I wonder if I were making this crossing, where would I hide if officials suddenly appeared? What would shelter me in the desert? What would be the last thing I saw as I took my last breath? I walk on this landscape, step-by-step, imagining la tierra sagrada, the sacred earth that migrants tread on this side of the border, on stolen land whose laws whisper that this is not home.

Instagram @_ez_pics

MINA PJETROV

Artist Statement

The concept that we can relate to others based on our personal encounters in life is what drives my artwork. My work is centered around the call to connect with others, personally and emotionally. In displaying myself as the emotional topic, I put my vulnerable mindset on display, which ultimately allows others to see and feel my mental world. Through this method, I share my told and untold battles in order to open the door for communication and human connection.

Website minapjetrov.art

Half-Mast (2022) Dye Sublimation Photo on Prepared Aluminum 30” x 12” $800

Artist Statement

My work addresses the relationship of humans to nature and matter to spirit. I investigate the intersection of sentience and the inanimate through observation of fleeting garden moments. Website danielprendergast.com

ANDREA PRO

Artist Statement

Life in the desert feels like a daydream; warm, inviting, and nostalgic. This same feeling is what Andrea aims to transmit through her art. She has forged a strong connection with her environment and cultural roots, as she grew up surrounded by the diverse and natural beauty of the Sonoran Desert in between two countries. She creates bold images of different moments and places in time. Often using herself as the subject matter helps her confront past traumas and begin a healing process. Andrea uses the ephemerality of nature as a metaphor for her own experiences. Through her work, she seeks to inspire imagination and bring color into people’s lives. This is how she defines her own reality within the context of surfaces such as canvas, paper, or digitally. She creates to capture the fleeting moments of everyday life. Website 4proart.com

Artist Statement

For me, artwork is a meditative and exploratory practice. What you may find in looking at most of my work is the process of discovery, an eccentric sense of stillness, and complicated emotion. I have always been fascinated by the interactions of light, color, and texture, and analyzing how they work together to create perspective. In studying those interactions, and realizing that perspective is malleable, I’ve aimed to make that a focal point in my work. Lately, I’ve been focused on creating works that don’t require context. Rather, works that can simply exist without any semblance of purpose or justification in hopes of giving the viewer complete freedom from influence and enabling them to craft a story of their own accord. The stories we tell ourselves are often the most powerful, and I’m eager to learn what narratives people create when they see my work.

Website adrami.com

Artist Statement

Grace Rhyne’s ultimate goal is to create work that is accessible to all. Everyone deserves art and creativity in their world. Moreover, the exploration of kitsch, tack, garish colors, and nostalgia should be welcomed. Why not weird? Why not extra? Art is for everyone. Within her work, all are welcome. It’s not all pristine white gallery exhibitions here, ya’ll. Rhyne has had a passion to make art, experience it, and promote access to art throughout her life. Rhyne acknowledges this very privileged perspective to feel safe and able to express creativity openly. By acknowledging the privilege of being able to consider this perspective as fundamental to well-being and living reality, Rhyne has dedicated 10+ years to the nonprofit arts community in Tucson, Arizona in efforts to expand accessibility to artwork and creative outlets for emerging artists and survivors of childhood sexual violence.

LINDSEY

Artist Statement

Through the use of projected images, I examine the ways that memory is physiologically carried in the body and the impacts these biological changes have on our identities and our relationships with and understandings of others. The untitled (sexual assault) series explores the indelible marks left by the aftermath of trauma and the damages passed down through genetically encoded memories. It is informed by recently released research on trauma and memory as explored in The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk.

Website lindseyrothrock.myportfolio.com

JAMES SANDERS

War (2022) Acrylic on Panel 80”x 49” $6,000

Artist Statement

The artwork titled “War” is in response to the recent war in Ukraine. War is a part of our human history. As a visual artist I needed to react to the floating chaos in my mind about this unfortunate aspect of humanity. Through my dreams and the subconscious, I am able to reconcile with harmony and chaos. “War” was achieved through this process. The abstraction, the line work, and the overall composition is what war looks like in my head as abstraction.

Website jamesexpressions.com

Artist Statement

Bradley Smith is an artist investigating where cinema’s potential to catalyze relationality, liberation, and conviviality might live today and where it may go in the future. Spanning moving-image works, installations, performances, workshops, teaching, and programming films of other artists, his practice focuses on how each of these forms might offer an encounter of reconnection: to self, to other participants, and to radical ideas of being-with.

Instagram

@bradleybradleysmithsmith

Artist Statement

In Lights Out, I utilize machine learning to render visible the intangible state of America’s labor force. The term lights out manufacturing refers to a fully automated factory that requires no human presence on site, operating without heating, air conditioning, lunch breaks or unions. Similarly, the portraits in Lights Out are not real people, rather, they are deep fakes created by artificial intelligence utilizing a neural network. This neural network was trained using a dataset of 50,000 pictures of factory workers that I sourced through facebook. I empower the machine to visualize those it has replaced by employing these found identities to teach the algorithm to see, interpret and render out its own assembly of laborers. As the neural network is fed more portraits to analyze, its deep fakes become more believable, resulting in a new labor force of 60,000 - one worker for each factory shuttered since 2000. The AI generated faces have been meticulously organized into columns that slowly shift up and down the gallery wall. The monotonous, machine-like rhythm created by this vertical assembly line mimics that of a conveyor belt, symbolically placing the portraits in dialog with capitalist commodities.

Website kaitlynjosmith.com

Lights Out (2020)

Video Variable NFS

KAITLYN JO SMITH

Artist Statement

Throughout my life, I was taught that freedom was the most important thing for a human being to possess. However, I learned that in order to feel free, I needed to confront my belief-based fears, and continuously fight back against the patriarchal customs that were introduced to me by my culture and by society. I find my freedom through art, most specifically in creating artwork that allows me to be irreverent. The religion I defied as my first act of personal freedom, serves as inspiration for my feminist work. I strive to combine both topics, not to intertwine them, but rather to point out hypocrisies of the prior and create an impactful view into issues of the latter. Mostly through colored pencils, and on occasion other media, I have allowed myself to create pieces that I hope to have a true impact on the spectator.

Website linktr.ee/gsolorioart

GRECIA

MARILYN SZABO

Long Shadow with Bushes (2020) Black and White

Photograph 31”x 25” $750

Artist Statement

Sun City, Arizona is the epitome of midcentury architecture and imagery. The juxtaposition of grids, lines, circles made by bushes, walls creates a rich pageantry of geometrics. I shoot these with black and white film, large format camera.

Instagram @Szabofoto

Archival

Artist Statement

Memories of my mother have turned from bold and painful to faded and longing. In her shadow is a series of polaroid emulsion transfers in which I explore the lost relationship, the likeness, the personality of my mother that I never knew. Growing up without her all anyone ever said to me is “you look just like your mother.” That feels overwhelmingly superficial. Who was this woman I look like? How am I like someone I barely knew? Of course, there is the science of my DNA and her DNA but what beyond science? There are some things I remember about her, yes. Her love for house plants which I can imagine extended into nature. The way she kept house when she was sober was immaculate, she never wore dresses or shoes for that matter, always dyed her hair black.

Website emeraldskyphoto.com

AARON TSOSIE

The Next World (2022) Graphite and 24ct Gold Leaf on 140lb Hot-Press Watercolor Paper 8”x 10” NFS

Artist Statement

The athanor: a mythical self-sustaining furnace used by alchemists to maintain uniform heat for long periods of time. Like the athanor, we all have an internal flame. My work focuses on expressing the dualism between the form of a subject and its soul. Graphite is the medium by which the subject is portrayed and expressed, a play of black and white and the foundation for each piece. Gold is the internal flame externalized, revealing the inner nature of the subject.

Instagram @athanorist

UNHEARD HARMONY

Artist Statement

My work mostly consists of life in Phoenix, Arizona, and the bit of traveling I’ve been able to do. The work I’m creating these days is 100 percent inspired by my friends and family and the cultures that occupy Arizona. I enjoy hearing stories from people and capturing a part of them through my photography. Being an Indigenous person, I enjoy sharing the stories and the culture of the Diné and other Indigenous tribes too. The stories I most love to tell are a direct reflection of myself. I love photos of Phoenix, my Navajo culture, my hobbies, and the activities I love to do: photography, art, skateboarding, and of course cycling. Many of my photos are based on finding new perspectives, and riding my bike allows me to see perspectives that would otherwise be overlooked.

Website unheardharmony.com

Artist Statement

This piece speaks of the power that comes with ownership and the ferocious need to protect what is inherently hers. There is an underlying feeling of threat that blankets the artwork. This piece is meant to evoke feelings of danger, self-protection, urgency, and vulnerability. The subject in this artwork dictates her own theme as she is changed and obscured through the action of being made. This allows for both the artistic process as well as observation to influence the themes in the work. I take time to enhance those themes by using exaggerated shapes, intense colors, and disproportionate forms. The work is meant to expose what is rare, fragile, or endangered from within the subject.

Website mvanbuskirk.com

MEGAN VANBUSKIRK

Artist Statement

These paintings are portraits of powerful women. They share a kinship with the allegorical paintings from western history of female models depicted as gods, muses, or concepts. The primary difference is that these women have agency. I continue to think of the images as allegories, but for what I am not yet sure. They are ideals not yet realized from religions and philosophies of the future.

Website chrisvena.com

HALLEY WILLCOX

Heaven,

Artist Statement

My creative work explores experimental contemporary movement forms with a sense of adventure to placemaking rooted in community building through movement. I focus on movement-based practice, creating dances that are conceptually driven and thoughtfully staged. The movement is physically virtuosic, dynamic, geometric and plays between spectacle and subtle movement qualities. I use text, storytelling, shadow, projection, props, and audience engagement to enhance the performance experience. I am inspired by curiosity, legacy, preservation, memory, nature, boundaries, taboo, and binoculars. I am motivated by the question: How do we communicate our imagination? My independent creative projects articulate this question, make the world a better place and have a little fun. I create dance for film and have been experimenting with projection mapping and wearable sensor technology. I am learning about ways to incorporate these skills into my choreographic work and look forward to investigating the way these forms amalgamate within my dances.

Website halleywillcox.net

an excerpt of “falling towards the sky” (2019) Dance 5-8 min NFS

Artist Statement

To begin a painting, I find 3 keywords that resonate with my current state of being and/or have been recurring thoughts. I use circles to represent intersecting emotions and patterns. Within those circles I find natural collisions of thought. A key part of my process is committing to painting through all phases of a piece. Each layer on the canvas has value and makes for an exhilarating challenge to limit the sometimes-overwhelming urge to erase or start over. This regular practice has been instrumental in creating pieces that consider an origin story, a middle, and the idea that some stories never end.

Website raeewilson.com

DAWN

ASHLEY

CINDY

SWAPNA

HEIDI

JIMMY

BRONWYN

TALIA

TAL

SASHA

JEROME

FRANCISCO

GEMINI

MAGDA

MATTHEW GOODALL

@Mattgoodallart

JO HO @jokwho

CHRIS JAGMIN @jagggyman

FARNAZ MANSOURI @farnaazmansouri

DANIEL MARIOTTI @dvmariot

STACY MARKO @stacymarko

NANCY MIILLER @nanmiiller

ROSARIO MIRANDA @artbyrosariomiranda

ALLISON MOYERS @thepoetthatpaints

JAMILLA NAJI @jamilla_naji

ELLEN NEMETZ @ellen_nemetz_artist

ANH-THUY NGUYEN @anh_thuynguyen

NOELLE THE DREAMER @noelle.thedreamer

DINO PAUL @artbydino

JARED PETERSON @jaredpetersonstudio ELIZABETH Z. PINEDA @_ez_pics

MINA PJETROV @Mina_Pjetrov

DANIEL PRENDERGAST

@daniel_prendergast_artist

ANDREA PRO @4.pro.art

ADRIAN RAMIREZ @ad.rami

GRACE RHYNE @paintmoves

LINDSEY ROTHROCK @li.rothrock

JAMES SANDERS @jamessandersart

BRADLEY SMITH @bradleybradleysmithsmith

KAITLYN JO SMITH @kaitlynjosmith

GRECIA SOLORIO @gsolorioart

MARILYN SZABO @Szabofoto

SUNSHINE TOUTILLOTT @emeraldskyphotography

AARON TSOSIE @athanorist

UNCONTAINED HARMONY @unheard.harmony

MEGAN VANBUSKIRK @strangely_human_art

CHRIS VENA @venachris

HALLEY WILLCOX @haywillupassthesalt

RAE WILSON

Find these and other Arizona artists on ArtistsAZ.com