Unconnected Yet

Un connected Yet

January 16 – 22, 2023

Unconnected Yet is an exhibition about the junction between things—creativity that explores any combination of art and science or cross-curricular inquiry. Unconnected Yet assembles the work of 64 collage-based artists from 10 countries and bridges the art and science communities of Boston and Kolkata, bringing art from near and far to five galleries at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata, India.

Unconnected Yet, curated by Todd Bartel

Daniela Esponda, Teri Henderson, and Talin Megherian

Edited by Todd Bartel All work represented in this catalog © Photography of artwork courtesy of the artist Design © 2022 Todd Bartel

Printed by Lulu.com

unconnectedyet.com — online exhibition hosted by Twin Cities Collage Collective All rights reserved

Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata

2, Cathedral Road Maidan, Kolkata West Bengal, India 700020

U C O C N N E T E D E Y T N

We individuals approach truth through our own mistakes and blunders, through our accumulated experience, through our illumined consciousness.

Rabindranath Tagore In conversation with Albert Einstein, 1930

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.

Albert Einstein What I Believe, 1930

BBB VISION

Bengal Boston Bridge (BBB) exists to push the boundaries of human knowledge by integrating artistic, scientific, and cross-curricular innovation.1

About his vision, BBB Founder Dr. Ujjal Sarkar explains, "The human mind is astounding in its beauty, complexity, and ability to 'connect the dots' between seemingly unrelated ideas and, in doing so, advance human knowledge and understanding." In his view, the Arts and Sciences should no longer be viewed as distinct and disparate disciplines but as complementary conduits of imagination and innovation. Through BBB, Dr. Sarkar hopes to create a crucible of creativity, bringing together individuals from around the globe to exchange ideas and manifest new ways of thinking. "Our goal is to propel innovation and awareness," Dr. Sarkar says. "By bridging cultures and continents, we hope to further 'connect the dots' and bring greater prosperity and productivity to our communities and our world."2

Ujjal Sarkar is a scientist and a passionate human being who loves art. Between 2015 and 2020, Ujjal enrolled his daughter, Uma, and his son, Aum, in art enrichment classes taught by artist and educator Talin Megherian. Uma's positive experience in the art class sparked something in Ujjal, and he later enrolled in a one-day adult workshop with Talin in 2017. Ujjal enjoyed taking the workshop, creating artwork, and as he pointed out to Talin, "Artmaking is such a mind-bending experience!" In March 2022, Ujall saw Van Gogh Boston Exhibit: The Immersive Experience, which affected him deeply. "Creativity," he realized, "has tremendous connective power." His combined experiences with art were so positive that he began imagining an art show but did not know why or for what purpose. In late March or early April of 2022, Ujjal committed to creating an opportunity for an art show and booked exhibition spaces at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata, India, for January 2023. Let me stress this point; Ujjal booked exhibition space before having any concrete plans. Everything was unconnected, yet he took a leap of faith and moved forward on his gut feeling.

In April 2022, Ujjal asked Talin if she could curate the show. Talin initially declined, pointing out that while she "could certainly select artwork for a show if works were laid out" for her to choose between, she pointed out, however, "I don't have any logistical experience to

assemble a show." Ujjal was persistent and enquired again a couple of weeks later, saying, "I really need help!"

In late April 2022, my life partner, Talin Megherian, asked me if I would be willing to consult with Ujjal Sarkar about a curatorial project; "Ujjal wants to have an exhibition in Kolkata, India, about art and science, and he needs curatorial advice." Ujjal sought professional guidance because he did not know how to create an art exhibition; as a scientist, he "had no idea where to begin." Talin suggested me because I founded the Thompson Gallery at The Cambridge School of Weston (Weston, MA) in 2006 and have lots of experience putting shows together.

I agreed to meet with Ujjal over a Zoom call, and we first discussed the possibilities on May 14. What became apparent early in that first meeting was that we shared a great many connections, passions, and aspirations. During that conversation, I recalled Harold Taylor's Art and the Intellect, which I read in 1985, and which seemed to echo our discussion in many ways. We discussed how "scientists and artists must be passionate, driven, and steadfast; nothing is ever bridged without these human powers." I proposed a show that could be "titled after a synapse—a shared human form of connection that is not governed by any curricular discipline." We were giddy with laughter and excitement even in the first few minutes of talking. It seemed we had already been lifelong friends and not total strangers. By the end of our first conversation, I found myself taking on the challenge of running an international call for art.

As 2022 comes to a close, I reflect on how it was possible to bring a show like this together in just over six months. I am grateful to Kolaj Magazine for promoting the call and inviting me to present the call at Kolaj Fest (New Orleans, LO) in late June 2022. The call went live in early July. We received 107 applicants and 277 individual submissions of art. Ultimately, we selected 61 artists' works to showcase the call. The BBB invited the curators to exhibit their work bringing the total to 64, about which we are thankful and feel honored to participate.

I want to acknowledge several people for their contributions, without which our project would not exist. Above all, none of what transpired from May to December could have been possible without the vision,

gifts, and dedication of Ujjal Sarkar and the group he founded, Bengal Boston Bridge (BBB). I am deeply thankful to the BBB for tending to myriad logistical problems compounded by the remote locations of principal members to bring this exhibition into being.

Moreover, I am deeply moved by the generosity of the BBB to bring Talin Megherian and me to Kolkata to see Unconnected Yet firsthand and to experience the beauty and splendor of India directly. We thank our hosts, Somenath Maity (Kolkata) and Subrata Boral (Bankura), for their warm and open welcome, generosity, and the beautiful human spirit they embody. We are sure the experience of traveling to India will inspire many things not yet imagined.

Two artists in the exhibition offered to help me of their own accord, for which I am most appreciative. I am grateful to Scott Groeniger, Associate Professor of Digital Imaging at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa, and Rosemary Connelly, MFA candidate, for their contributions in setting up all the digital files for printing. (We printed all the work in Unconnected Yet to alleviate shipping costs worldwide to India.) Scott's professional expertise proved invaluable for me as the overseer of the printing process for the exhibition. The BBB, the artists, and the curators involved with this exhibition are indebted to allison anne, who generously provided us with Webhosting for the virtual counterpart of Unconnected Yet. allison anne, one of the founders of Twin Cities Collage Collective (TCCC), offered to host Unconnected Yet, the virtual exhibition on the TCCC website. allison loaded the entire show, which, I will point out, is no small feat! The show is available on the Web because of allison's tireless dedication.

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The collective generosity of everyone's participation and expertise helped to transform Ujjal's vision into a tangible reality. I hope our visitors and readers will carry forward this inspiring, hopeful, and connective spirit to other unconnected possibilities.

Todd Bartel

Watertown, MA

December 31, 2022

1. Unconnected Yet Prospectus, 2022

2. Unconnected Yet Prospectus, 2022

Unconnected Yet Curators

Todd Bartel Daniela Esponda Teri Henderson Talin Megherian

Unconnected Yet

Both science and art, are spiritual activities, not practical, whatever practical applications may be derived from their results. Disorder, lack of meaning, are spiritual, not physical, discomforts; order and sense are spiritual and not physical satisfactions.1

Wystan Hugh Auden, 1955

The scientific spirit is not opposed to the aesthetic, the moral, or the social. It is a spirit of enlightenment, of social advance, of creative thought.2

Harold Taylor, 1960

I think that curiosity is probably the most important energy that any creative person can have.3

Robert Rauschenberg, 1997

Unconnected Yet is an exhibition born out of a desire to celebrate the inquisitive-creative similarities between two disciplines—art and science. Beyond bringing together a collection of art that explores science, it was also created to encourage and promote opportunities for artists and scientists to come together and, ultimately, "to push the boundaries of human knowledge by integrating artistic, scientific, and cross-curricular innovation."4 The idea to exhibit art about science and to corral practitioners from dual disciplines is the brainchild of scientist, and founder of the Bengal Boston Bridge (BBB), Dr. Ujjal Sarkar (Bengal/Boston). Dr. Sarkar invited artist, educator, and curator Todd Bartel (Boston) to bring the exhibition into being during their introductory meeting in May of 2022. That first conversation generated shared affinities and a sense of purpose to bring inkling to physical reality, resulting in a call for science-based art that explores the creative impulse.

A junction between two nerve cells.

The Oxford English Dictionary tells us that a bridging

between two neurons or nerve cells is called a "synapse." The creative leap of mind and the idea of a synapse inspired the naming of this exhibition. But the namesake is also emblematic of a series of planned events and future projects not yet imagined. In this spirit, Unconnected Yet is a catalyst for things yet to be realized.

Unconnected Yet is two exhibitions in one, and the process of selecting the work on view was unusual. We established two teams of curators—one team to choose Indian artists and a second team to select art from an international pool of artists. The local exhibition of Indian art was curated by artist and educator Pradip Maitra and artist and educator Somenath Maity.

As the lead curator for the international exhibition, I invited an ensemble of professionals to co-curate the international show, including Biomimicry designer, and technology innovator Daniela Esponda (Mexico), writer, independent curator, and art director Teri Henderson (Maryland), and artist, educator Talin Megherian (Boston). With additional curators, Unconnected Yet expanded the reach of the call for art, which increased the variety of the voices of the artists ultimately selected.

The international call solicited collage-based art submissions. As a career-long collage-based artist, historian of collage, and curator known for my contributions to the understanding of glue taxonomy, I chose the medium of collage for its democratic, inclusive, ever-expansive, and transformative potential. Collage is the quintessential spark-maker because pairing any two things—related and unrelated—invariably ignites new connections and ideas.

The subjects explored by the collected works in Unconnected Yet include a wide range of topics, not always science-based, but always involve disparate connections. With great fervor, these artists collectively remind us of our current times. We all feel the immensity of the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. If that were not enough to bear, we witness or find, more or less no matter where you live in the world: sexism, racism, classism, supply chain disruption, gun violence—the

leading cause of death among children in the U.S.—and political divisiveness and disinformation. The collective weight of humanity's problems, now legible in the palm of our hands, along with the history of the world, are but a few electronic swipes away. The prospect of sustainability, regarding "modern" ways of living, is bleak and despairing. And yet humanity, on the whole, does not seem to motivate itself to make changes en masse. Gus Speth, former Dean of the School of Forestry & Environmental Studies at Yale, puts it this way:

I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address those problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy…and to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation—and we scientists don't know how to do that.5

The time for self-interest as a standalone value has come to a crisis in Western culture; our age is one in which we must all think about our environs and our neighbors, and we must do so with great urgency. Unconnected Yet artists use consciousness-raising as a strategy to galvanize their audience. The differing approaches and diverse aesthetics of the work in Unconnected Yet are data showing that humanity needs paradigm shifts—now.

Unconnected Yet is an exhibition about things not fully understood, things unrealized, questions raised, and musings about what-ifs. At its center, Unconnected Yet began by wondering how to connect art with science in a forward-looking way. As described in the international call for art:

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Imagine the gap: things to be connected, something to be spanned, a subject to better understand, an unexperienced phenomenon, an unnamed or unseen thing, something that has not yet occurred, or maybe even something unexplainable. Albert Einstein

once wrote, "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." Art and science often begin with accidents, mistakes, questions, and musings. What would you connect if you could? Imagine the world you want to live in as it yet could be. Unconnected Yet is an exhibition about the junction between things, a call for art that explores any combination of art and science or cross-curricular inquiry.6

Only a spark of possibility existed less than a year ago in Ujjal Sarkar's mind. Today, a loosely formed network of people connects myriad cultures across the globe, all interested in the next thing to imagine and bring into being. We wonder what yet is next—with our assembly of art, ideas, and people from far and wide under the roof of the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata, India. At the very least, everyone involved—including all visitors to this exhibition, both online and in person—has entered into a growing, 21st-century neural network. We are a decentralized community of concerned, creative people. We imagine future projects with humanity's betterment at the core of our group aspiration.

Todd Bartel Lead Curator, Unconnected Yet Watertown, MA, December 2022

A Dialogue Between Trees

Technology is, in the broadest sense, mind or intelligence or purpose blending with nature.7 Paul Davies, English physicist 2010

In my career as a designer, inventor, and scientist, I have seen how society and culture can be gravitational forces that pull unexpected concepts together, increasingly allowing the creation of links between technology and art. In many beautiful cases, the element that allows them to unite is the appreciation for nature. This sentiment is echoed in the collection of artwork that makes up Unconnected Yet

Unexpectedly in this collection, the introduction of nature is presented as one more connector. Nature, as a bridge, is sometimes visualized as disjointed, quoted, and exposed. At other times it is seen in company with technology, represented as itself and even mimicked, as it reflects a wide range of topics.

What would you connect if you could? In my mind, I answer myself. I want to see human beings connected with life on earth and with themselves.

Seeing all the work in this show, I realize that we are just beginning the conversation. We have so much—intent—to connect. From my perspective, what unites all the pieces in this exhibition is diversity, the transition between shapes and colors, tones and strong expressions, ideas, and themes—as if they came straight from the soul to scream to be heard—but above all the high content of organic forms, glimpses of subtle and literal inspiration that come from nature.

It moves me that in the fragments that make up the works in this collection, their narratives, and their intention of forms, there is an act of self-healing, an impulse to reconcile the past and the present, to amend a society that wants to be repaired. I see a fine filament that gently creates a mesh in the social frame, the past, and the soul within a reality that begins to define itself.

In this collection of artwork, I perceive hope, and with joy, I recognize the criticism of technology. The representation of technology often shows a movement toward a more simple path and, in some cases, an expression of hope for the future to regenerate and prosper with nature.

Technology has undoubtedly been a co-creating element of many pieces presented in this selection. In the hands of the artist in the last thirty-seven years, technology has modified art in a contagious way. Technology has made it possible for those who have left the traditional brush and the old techniques to venture into endless possibilities, where technology, with accuracy, allows them to create multiple realities.

With grace, several artists have transitioned between atemporal photographs, electric colors, and even fictional realities created in artificial intelligence to connect with human empathy.

Technology is not only assisting art in its creation, but it can also further expand its intervention in art. I believe that in the very immediate future, art and technology will connect so that artistic appreciation and aesthetics in science will be fundamental in the expression of itself.

In this call to "imagine the gap"—things to be connected, something to be spanned, a subject to better understand, an unexperienced phenomenon, an unnamed or unseen thing, or maybe even something unexplainable—the Kolkata show is made up of a wide gradient of techniques and artistic maturity, new pieces, and old pieces, all describing a new connection or something not yet connected, but above all, there is humility in the dialogue.

I am excited about a multidisciplinary future where scientists, inventors, and artists share a workspace; more than that, like trees that are not just sharing space, they share roots, nutrients, and information.

Daniela Esponda Mexico City, Mexico, December

2022

Unconnected Yet — From Maryland to Kolkata and Beyond, Black and Brown Artists Use Collage as a Vehicle for SelfExpression and Connection

Unconnected Yet is "about the junction between things," as the lead curator Todd Bartel eloquently writes in the exhibition statement. As a Black female consulting curator, I was excited to explore this liminal space in my selections for the show. I wanted to select works that represented Black and Brown life in myriad ways, and I thought about the power and possibility of Black and Brown artists having their work on display in an exhibition in India. I also was thrilled about these artists

having their work available in print in this catalog you hold. Like the exhibition, this catalog explores "the junction between things" we, from different backgrounds, races, and locations, came together to present the exhibition you see today.

We individuals approach truth through our own mistakes and blunders, through our accumulated experience, through our illumined consciousness. Rabindranath Tagore, in conversation with Albert Einstein, 1930

In this quote above and which you saw at the beginning of this catalog, Rabindranath Tagore speaks poetically about how we, as humans, navigate our existences. We make mistakes, we triumph, we experience tragedy, we love, we learn, we grow, and we connect. I could not help being moved by the words "through our accumulated experience" to "approach truth." That is one of the fantastic benefits of collaging. Collaging is so parallel to life and uniquely parallel for life for Black creators. Who, throughout time, have used what others have discarded to make magic. Think of soul food, Louis Armstrong using tape and photographs to make collages on his instrument case, and the legacy of Black creative expression across mediums and time. Those who make something out of nothing.

In 2019 I started the Instagram platform Black Collagists. Collectors hired me from Washington State to help them diversify their art collection after the wave of white institutions and collectors shifting their focus to diversity, equity, and Black art. I never expected that Instagram page to grow into what it is today. A community. @blackcollagists has become a platform for Black artists worldwide to connect and feel seen.

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It is a space that exists solely for Black collage artists. Historically, Black artists' accomplishments have been diminished and ignored across the board, from drawing to oil painting to collage. My work as a curator has been and will continue to make space for marginalized artists. My work with @blackcollagists accomplishes this, and I am so grateful that this exhibition invited me to ensure diverse voices, including Black collage artists, are represented from Baltimore to Kolkata, India.

I am a curator who is motivated by intuition. When a piece speaks to me, I listen. Representation is critically essential for Black artists. To see themselves in their work, the work of others online, in print, and in galleries. Their art matters. I wanted audiences in India to walk into an exhibition that was extensive and representative of the hybridity of the United States. This exhibition is revolutionary in the caliber of the 64 artworks represented here, some of which have never been exhibited in a gallery outside of the United States. In this essay, I'm going to talk about three artists whose work spoke to me through my digital screen in the process of curating this exhibition. Two are people of color from the United States. I am writing this essay in the United States from my office in Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore is a predominantly Black city, and two artists I selected work from, Chukwudumebi Gabriel Amadi-Emina and Noreen Smith, live and work here. Noreen Smith (Maryland, USA), analog collage, Angry or Assertive? May the Bridges I Burn Light the Way, 2020, layers vibrantly hued comic book extracts. Her collage practice involves sourcing the materials for her artworks from old comic books. Her clever and inventive remixing of this material into representational artworks featuring Black subjects is abundant and beautiful. Hero imagery is abundant. I was immediately drawn to the atypical shape, and it reminded me of a brain, as well as the abundance of visual information and signals that Smith loads all of her pieces. At the bottom of the piece, a Black fist extends up powerfully. Smith's analog collages are rendered full of motion by the pace and skill of her application. The middle of Angry or Assertive? May the Bridges I Burn Light the Way features a white woman's face, partially obscured but still fully present. Her expression is powerful, angry, and mighty. After viewing the piece, I recognized the brilliance of the title. As a Black woman, I have often weighed the junction between being what is perceived as too angry and rightfully angry. This piece encapsulates the experience of many Black and Brown women, how we are called too much when we respond with righteous indignation, while white women are called assertive. Smith's piece illustrates the notion of art as a vehicle for self-expression. For Black artists, art is not a luxury.

It is a tool, and it is liberatory practice. It is a freedom song. For many, art is THE way that we can express ourselves.

Chukwudumebi Gabriel Amadi-Emina (Maryland, USA) multimedia artwork, She Stands Above the Lies They Made, 2021, speaks to the global nature of Unconnected Yet as Well. Amadi-Emina, who lives and works in Baltimore, has created this work with photography, digital collage, and metal. In it, the subject, a Black woman, looks at the viewer. She wears a headpiece wrapped in decorative fabric that shrouds her like a robe. The background of the piece is collaged into sections. The top two sections are strips of African fabrics. In contrast, the bottom of the piece features a background of American one hundred dollar bills, and there is a mouth with teeth outlined peering through the middle of the fabric. The subject is regal and beautiful. Standing guard, and standing triumphantly over what the artist says represents the spaces men occupy in the U.S. The subject of the painting, Dom, told AmadiEmina, "When I look at my reflection sometimes, I don't see myself but an illusion of the same likeness designed by someone else. All I know is this; it's not my truth." In the creation of this artwork, Amaidi-Emina has corrected the record and has allowed his friend to have space to embody her truth most fully. She is fully present and empowered in this artwork.

In 2019 it felt as though the world stopped turning on its axis. I felt for a while, that time had stopped. We now exist in a new world, another junction between things, the past, and our new "post-pandemic" reality. In my selections, I was particularly moved by Nina Fraser's (Alcochete, Portugal) artwork. In her Circle Series #1, 2020, the artist layers photographs and images of bodies of various races, pop culture, and natural references. Her artwork is in a circle, something that I found very refreshing. Like time, like our existence, we exist in circles, moving and reconfiguring, evolving and whole. Fraser completed the artwork when she was confined to her home on her kitchen table. That artwork made at her home in Portugal during the global pandemic will come full circle to be displayed in this exhibition and this catalog, illustrating the power of

creative expression and how art helps us to continue on.

During the forced isolation of the global COVID-19 pandemic, I spent much time looking at art online. The curation of this show was facilitated through the internet and phones. And now, it is a physical exhibition and catalog for people to see in India and worldwide. Artists are more similar than they are different. Though we may collage, write, and paint from different locations, or if we engage in other disciplines, like science or literature, we can make connections by tapping into art that speaks to the human experience.

Teri Henderson Baltimore, Maryland, December 2022

Unconnected Yet—Drawing the Lines

Our strategy should be not only to confront Empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness—and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we're being brainwashed to believe.8

Arundhati Roy, War Talk, 2003

Another world is not only possible, she's on her way. Maybe many of us won't be here to greet her, but on a quiet day, if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.9

Arundhati Roy, War Talk, 2003

In selecting art for this exhibition, I considered the connection between art and science. At the same time, I looked for the invisible lines that bridge us between trust and truth, wonder and the unknown, while also searching for women's points of view.

In recent years as we have collectively moved through the pandemic, facts have been ignored, and we have witnessed a distrust in science. Not only have science

and truth been overlooked, but women's voices continue to be undervalued.

When considered together, some of the chosen works that make up Unconnected Yet metaphorically connect to each other. Several lines of thought between these works explore women's collective struggles. Some points of view are confrontational and concrete, real and factual, while others are spiritual and embrace the unknown.

We are invited to view these disparate pieces of work by searching and uncovering what we see to unearth more. We must be steadfast when we face the unknown to find the truth. We must push through the discomfort to learn. Some truths are personal and require introspection. Some truths are intrapersonal and require seeing outside of oneself—to recognize the suppression of women and the realities of our daily contentions. In this exhibition, we are asked to slow down and, as Arundhati Roy writes, "listen" to "her breathing" to connect and work together.

Talin Megherian Watertown, Massachusetts, December 2022

1. Wystan Hugh Auden, The Listener, June 23, 1955, pp. 1109-10.

2. Harold Taylor, Art and the Intellect, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1960, p. 28.

3. Robert Rauschenberg in conversation with Charlie Rose, Guggenheim Museum, New York, 1997, quoted from https:// charlierose.com/videos/18836

4. Todd Bartel, founding member of Bengal Boston Bridge (BBB), excerpted from the BBB Mission Statement, 2022

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5. Gus Speth, Earth Charter Pod Cast, https://earthcharter.org/ podcasts/gus-speth/, retrieved December 8, 2022

6. Todd Bartel, call for art, Unconnected Yet Prospectus, 2022

7. Paul Davies, The Eerie Silence: Renewing Our Search for Alien Intelligence, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston, MA, p.145

8. Arundhati Roy, War Talk, South End Press, Cambridge, MA, 2003, p. 112

9. Arundhati, p. 75

U C O C N N E T E D E Y T N

Caroline Golden (New York, USA)

Intervention, 2018 collage, vintage greeting cards, museum board 24.5 x 32 x 1.5 inches

Following the arc of one family through a collection of greeting cards found in a thrift shop, I was struck by how little had been personally communicated from the senders to the recipients. Intervention was created using the characters cut from these cards. This is not a chance encounter. Despite the need to achieve a purposeful connection to arrive at a resolution, we feel palpable frustration as there seems to be no real interpersonal interaction. Intervention can be viewed as a metaphor for the world stage today – faced with the need to fix so much, how can we connect and intervene amid the chaos to save each other from ourselves?

Allan

Bealy (New York, USA)

Flare, 2022 collage, color transfer, vintage paper, vintage magazine and book prints 14 x 11 inches

An exploration of the dichotomies of industry and nature. The work I have chosen to submit reflects my feelings of urgency concerning the state of the world — physically as well as morally — and attempts to suggest a path of recovery where the calamities facing us each day may be tempered by a closer examination of our relationship to the natural world and our willingness to slow down and allow that relationship to guide us in our daily choices.

Michael Oatman (New York, USA)

Untitled (Unless), 2005 collage, found poster 23 x 35 inches

Untitled (Unless) is directly related to Dr. Seuss’ 1971 children’s book, The Lorax. A kind of spokesman for the environment, the Lorax warns a family of industrialists (led by the faceless ‘Onceler’) that they are ruining the air, water, and land by their unchecked production. Interestingly, the timber industry responded with a book of its own called The Truax, in which a tree character speaks out against a kind of straw-man environmentalist.

Scott Groeniger (Hawaii, USA)

Hyades Candidate: (HD 283869 b), 2020 image composite, digital printing, Procreate 12 x 12 inches

Maintaining social distance over a long period of time brings about a heightened sense of awareness regarding the nature of space. Our understanding of space and our position within it is at the core of human consciousness. Several elements found in Hyades Candidate: (HD 283869 b) are derived from the imaginative theoretical realm where mathematics and visual art meet. The geometric forms are semi-sacred and practical, suggesting global distribution patterns, lines of communication, and interconnected social communities. These geometries also describe phenomena such as the orbital motion of bodies in outer space and gravitational effects while mapping the position of recently discovered Earth-like planets with the potential for sustaining organic life elsewhere in the universe. In our current predicament here on Earth, where we continue to confront climate change, overpopulation, finite natural resources, and a global pandemic, these geometric structures offer a

harmonic vision of a post-pandemic reformation in an enlightened and evolved [Off] World. The Hyades is the nearest open cluster and one of the best-studied star clusters in the universe. Located about 153 light-years (47 parsecs) away from the Sun, it consists of a roughly spherical group of hundreds of stars sharing the same age, place of origin, chemical characteristics, and motion through space. From the perspective of observers on Earth, the Hyades Cluster appears in the constellation Taurus, where its brightest stars form a "V" shape along with the still-brighter Aldebaran. Hyades Candidate (HD 283869 b) exhibits orbital parameters of a potential Super-Earth-like planet. It is estimated that HD 283869 has a 71% chance of falling within the circumstellar habitable zone. If confirmed, HD 283869 b would have the longest orbital period and brightest host star of any known transiting planet in an open cluster, making it uniquely important to future studies of how stellar irradiation affects planetary evolution.

Gregory Scheckler (Massachusetts, USA)

Bridges/Networks 1, 2021 inkjet pigments, carbon ink, acrylic, reflective pigments, graphite, paper 8 x 10 inches

Bridges/Networks 1 is a mixed media diptych on altered digital prints of flame fractal patterns that have been reinforced and revised with gestures inspired by natural movements such as waveforms, oscillations, and feedback loops. The form of the diptych develops a series of subtly changing thoughts as one views each side as a distinct grouping paired against the other side, although both sides together also act as a whole image. As we view each side in contrast to our ideas of the whole artwork, our conceptual activity of changing our minds bridges many patterns from math and nature through vivid layering, juxtaposition, and the viewer’s interactions, as if to suggest that a diversity of differences can coexist.

Natasha Narain (India and Australia)

Kantha Drawing for Ma, 2019 collage, ink, pastel, acrylic, unstretched canvas 35 x 70 inches

Medical imagery of the inside of bodies combines with botanical, symbolic, and free-form drawings to form patterns in my works. I believe anatomical imagery has the potency to create connections by forming identifiable and relatable imagery. However, while drawings of muscles, cells, bones, tissues, organs, and blood may suggest memories, traumas and emotions, are they simultaneously freed of the color of the skin that enfolds them and of racial and ethnic signifiers?

William Close (Massachusetts, USA)

Amazonia, 2022 graphite, color pencil, watercolor pencil, pen on paper, compiled into digital collage 18 x 24 inches

Amazonia is a compilation of original graphite, color pencil, and watercolor color pencil sketches. The drawings were done while in the field and research station on the Tiputini River in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The final work is a digital collage of all drawings. Amazonia marks the culmination of 14 days spent in the Ecuadorian Amazon, exploring both human and nonhuman communication, colors, forms, light, shadow, and the relationships weaving them together. Art is a universal language, and so, too, is the natural world. Amazonia reflects a journey of connecting to the Amazon rainforest. While not being a local, through art, empathy, and sensitivity, I was able to read and listen to the forest, the culture, the animals, the birds, and the sky.

Ben DiNino (Minnesota, USA)

The Sky Is Filled With Precipitation Yet The Glass Is Not Half Anything, 2022 collage, cardstock 8 x 11 inches

At first consideration, The Sky Is Filled With Precipitation Yet The Glass Is Not Half Anything might lean toward the negative side of connections. Nonsensical machines or spaces, things misfitting or out of sync. I see these confusing amalgams as positive catalysts. When things aren’t laid out logically and clear-cut, it can cause disorder, but it might as easily produce an unexpected outcome that could bridge gaps. The greatest leaps I’ve made creatively have come from things going wrong. Let us find beauty in the askew and inspiration from our mistakes. This collage was constructed out of the sky from vintage magazines and a recent ad featuring drinking glasses. I wanted to create a composition that worked together but had two distinct parts. That had a similarity in line and design, yet never had a distinct

focal point. The title implies that everything is accessible, and it's up to us to figure out if we are able or ready to receive it.

Kim Triedman (Massachusetts, USA)

Look At Me Now, 2021 collage, paper, glue, wood panel 20 x 16 inches

The ability to see women as whole beings is a continuing challenge in American society. Historically women have been viewed as sexual objects, fetishized and objectified for our body parts and how they play into male sexual fantasies. Despite incremental gains, we as a country are perched on the cusp of a backward slide. The events of this past year have robbed us of power over our bodies and our own personal decisionmaking. A woman’s very life and free will are considered separate — and secondary — to her ability to bear children. The gap between where women are and where we need to be is only widening.

Cynthia DiDonato (Rhode Island, USA)

Persistence, 2019 digital collage 24 x 18.75 inches

This work demonstrates the disconnection that individuals face when others do not see their humanity. We are all part of one web.

Tammie Dupuis (Washington, USA)

This Is How I Got Here, 2022 assemblage, resin, hair, thread, wood 62 x 28 inches

This work speaks specifically to my place within my Native American family and community. Seven generations are represented using eight different cast faces, which are based on my family members. Each ring, as it gets closer to the center face, becomes less red, indicating how my Native American family has been slowly assimilated into American society. The use of hair in this piece acts as a bridge between myself and my relatives; Native Americans believe that hair anchors us to our ancestors.

Nancy Goodman Lawrence (California, USA)

How's Your Summer Going So Far? 2022 acrylic, collage, canvas 20 x 20 inches

My work features a series of shapes that float on the surface. Some of the shapes are invented; others are creatures or plants that become fantastical or abstract images. I am interested in the formalities of picture-making as well as the narrative that can lie beneath the surface. The title of this exhibition interested me because my work doesn’t specifically ‘connect the dots’ but is open to interpretation.

Claudine Metrick (New York, USA)

The First Spring, 2021 silkscreen, Kitakata paper, colored pencil, Dura-Lar, monofilament, split shot 75 x 70 x 24 inches

The First Spring consists of a silkscreen field of beech and maple leaves over which is suspended brightly colored Mourning Cloak butterflies drawn on Dura-Lar. The butterflies in the installation are harbingers of spring — some of the earliest signs of life after the winter thaw. The Mourning Cloaks were once a sign that the ground could be dug for graves, hence their name.

Manuel Salgado (Mexico)

Universal Territory, 2020 collage

18.5 x 18.5 inches

Universal Territory was created during COVID-19 lockdown, a time when the entire world was isolated and people were afraid of each other. I started to imagine a universal territory, a world with no borders, a land that belongs to everyone and doesn’t segregate individuals but builds bridges instead, a place that allows a deeper connection with nature, spirituality, and human behavior. This piece has no beginning or end. No matter where you start, you can see how elements interact, creating multiple connections contained in one world.

Beverly West Leach, (Alabama, USA)

We Need To Be Taught, 2021 collage, substrate copy from page of a 1949 world atlas, found images, Elmer's glue, colored paper, gel pen 12.5 x 9.25 inches

The starting point is my musings on our place in the universe and the connections to the energy it contains. My reflection on the junction between the intuitive and the rational our need to fuse fact with fancy for our survival and understanding. Nature is the starting point for connection to knowledge, feeding our bodies, minds, and our spirits in search for the truth yet to be found. The connection to good stewardship of our resources through observation and care for nature's required balance is, as I see it, vital for the future, as is the passing on of knowledge, both ancient and new.

Liz Blum (Massachusetts, USA)

Space Junk, 2022 digital collage 13.5 x 24 inches

Our knowledge and information of the world get filtered through layers of distraction, and our visual periphery is directed through screen interface frames, isolated parts guiding us toward networks and webs of pixelated and coded matter. The work presented here imagines these digital environments as dystopian futures, alternate visions beyond the familiar digitized chatter, constructed glitch, or computational variables, and comes from a place that decodes and imagines the invisible as constructed, allegorical landscapes.

Cheryl Chudyk (Washington, USA)

From Methane to Urea for Cattle Feed and More, 2022

digital collage 19 x 23.75 inches

India has over 300 million cows, and these cattle, as well as goats and other ruminant animals, produce over 13 tonnes of methane yearly. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that has over 80 times the global warming power of carbon dioxide, and methane has contributed to over 30% of global warming to date. Methane could be captured from both the manure and the burps of livestock. This methane could then be transformed into urea for cattle feed, electricity, fuel, plastics, plexiglass, aerosol propellants, antifreeze, fire extinguisher fluid, neoprene, Teflon, solvents, and more.

Ray Ogar (Arkansas, USA)

Oneironautic Harvester Somnu, 2021 digital edit of handmade collage from cut paper, found images, personal illustrations 18 x 12 inches

Exo-scale device to harvest oneironautic fluid (dream ocean), with graphs, images, objects, devices, and landscapes pertaining to the Zero Landmass Institute. Zero Landmass Institute is an art/science endeavor exploring the visualization of dream territories and emotional/psychic dream terrain.

Daniela Esponda

963 Hz The Resilience of God's Echo, 2022 digital Chladni plate frequencies simulation 24 X 24 inches

Many times, we say, "science does not believe in god." My intention is to connect science, and the belief in a divine source like God in open definition, through the belief in nature genius. I will call nature to all manifestations on planet earth, the beauty and elegance of life, and all physical laws as part too. We all are part of these divine performances on Earth. In this image, I use Chladni plate frequencies simulation to represent the frequency of 963 Hz, well known as the voice of God and overlaps with waves of the pattern. Using a technology program that emulates how the Chladni plates work, my intention is to connect technology, science, and natural behavior in a beautiful overlap image that will represent the movement of how acuity of the sound clear shapes and we cannot see. If science believes in nature, it believes in God too. A god that maybe needs to be reframed as

well as technology. Nature is a divine technology to be discovered. In this image, I use Chladni plate frequencies simulation to represent the frequency of 963 Hz, well known as the voice of God, and overlaps with waves y nods of the pattern. Using a technology program that emulates how the Chladni plates work. My intention is to connect technology, science, and natural behavior in a beautiful overlap image that will represent the movement in time of how the sound creates shapes, and we cannot see. If science believes in nature, it believes in God too. A god that maybe needs to be reframed and technology in the definition. Nature is a divine technology waiting to be discovered.

Seda Saar (California, USA)

Avata AI, 2018

source-manipulated images of code screenshots, digital painting, acrylic, ink, acrylic markers, metallic markers, archival print, canvas 30 x 40 x 2 inches

I use shapes, lines, and colors as threedimensional elements, like layers, in order to communicate. My exploration of the human and machines through code, color, and lines has been on a journey between different scales, exploring and observing the relationship between the sensory element of color change and the computational element of commands. The related security codes are grouped, depicting actions, and receding into the depths of implied color space. Both feature time and the related code fragments, acting as a bridge in between.

Anna

Fine Foer (Maryland, USA)

Phylogenic Entanglement, 2022 collage, watercolor 30 x 22 inches

With more accurate observational techniques available to scientists, more discoveries demonstrate how biological and physical states of being are less delineated and more entangled than previously hypothesized. For example, physicists tell us that particles are entangled, and the hemispheres of the human brain are interconnected by neurons "firing." As this collage illustrates, the diagram and metaphor of tree branches representing species are inaccurate.

The misleading cladogram (diagrams that depict the relationships between different groups of taxa called "clades") envisioned by Darwin did not comprehend microbial entities that enter plant and animal genomes via horizontal gene transfer and account for part of all biological and botanical inheritance. Tangled branches must re-converge.

Maica Gugolati (Italy, Trinidad and Tobago)

Cazabon Now, 2019 digital collage 9.25 x 12.5 inches

This work uses imagination as a way to question visuality connected to the act of living in extractive postcolonial spaces. Landscape etymologically means "to shape the land"; this project relates the unrepresented extractivescape of the Caribbean Island of Trinidad and Tobago with the fictional classic perpetuation of exotic tropical natural beauty's landscapes related to what was conceived as a ‘New World.’ Today this dichotomy is still on. This photo collage: Cazabon Now, aims to question viewers about the reliability of what they see and to recognize how they are ‘shaped’ by the lands they live in. Cazabon is a painter reference — Michel-Jean Cazabon was Trinidad's first internationally known artist, known for his pictorial representations of nature and country landscapes. This work provocatively makes a time bridge between colonial and postcolonial landscaping,

questioning the modalities in which human beings are "shaped" and "do shape" their lives in relation to an unrepresented extractive landscape. This research-art project combines anthropology, art criticism, fieldwork investigation, photography, and digital photo collage.

Sasha Samuels (California, USA)

Fire Study #1, 2020 oil, canvas 7 x 10 inches

Having survived the CZU Lightning Complex wildfire of 2020, on the heels of leaving an abusive relationship, I turned to my art practice to process my compounded trauma. What is on the other side of trauma? On the other side of ten thousand lightning strikes? Healing, and ultimately, posttraumatic growth. Both were elusive to me while creating this painting, but I knew intuitively the creative process would help steward me there.

Todd Bartel (Massachusetts, USA)

Glorious Mutualism, Asymmetrical Yet Reciprocal — Twenty-first Century Commensalism (A Call for A Massive Transfusion for Major Arboreal Trauma), [Landscape Vernacular 14], 2020 burnished interlocking collage; recto: xerographic prints on 19th- and 20th-century end-pages (left: How a Tree is Made into Lumber—lumberjack cutting a tree trunk into rectangular sections, Le Magasin Pittoresque, Larive and Fleury 1874; right: Clysmatica Nova, Joannes Sigismund Elsholtz 1667), definition of graft, pencil, map frame cuttings, wax paper transfer; verso: xerographic transfers of Clysmatica Nova, Joannes Sigismund Elsholtz 1667, Elsholtzia Ciliata, and a graft diagram, pencil, golden section proportion scale 1.618, endpage cuttings, Yes Glue, document repair tape8.75 x 17.125 inches

Glorious Mutualism is a satirical yet hopeful look at our species' symbiotic appreciation for tree respiration (photosynthesis). My title suggests the plausibility of mutualism; If only humanity could right the balance. Deforestation, among many other factors, exasperates

climate change by depleting one of the world's natural systems for CO2 removal. According to Our World In Data, "Over the last 10,000 years, the world has lost one-third of its forests—an area twice the size of the United States. Half occurred in the last century." Facts like that could inspire change if they are promoted with actionable solutions.

I wonder what would be possible if, as a species, we could agree to connect with a specific possibility and work together to achieve it. For example, what might our collective impact be if we all chose to do the same thing all at once? According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, "In 2020, as the country responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, CO2 emissions from energy consumption in the United States fell to the lowest level since 1983." Imagine if we agreed to regularly curtail the use of combustion engines until we have tipped the scale toward greener forms of transportation. Imagine what lessons we could learn by practicing abstinence, even for short periods. Moreover, what if we become good at working together en-masse regularly? What might humanity be able to connect with then?

recto verso

Phoenix Lacey (Colorado, USA)

Bridging the Four Directions, 2022 uncollage, photography, paint, charcoal 24 x 19 inches

Juxtaposing flora & fauna, the human & nonhuman, this piece depicts the root network of elements and spirit — bridging our bodily experience with the body of Earth. Water is a traveler between all living things, ever-changing through cycles that nurture both cells & oceans. It animates the Clay/ Earth of our flesh, journeying through our blood & combining with Ether to circulate our Spirit of Fire, which makes Air of Mind possible. The elements bring us to life, only to inevitably dissipate & return to Mother Earth.

Vaidehi Reddy (New Mexico, USA)

Kalighat, 2021 gold leaf, watercolor, gouache, paper 11.75 x 16.5 Inches

My work illuminates the migrant consciousness through my personal experiences as an Indian Émigré in the United States. Dismantling and challenging the otherness of the East done by years of colonial history by replacing my body and traditional Indian tribal figures in classical European-/American-inspired spaces is a branch of my practice that is also supported by my reverence for classical Hindu texts, ideologies, and deities. The transitional space of a port, be it physical or virtual, is a bridge for the expansion of culture. Using the traditional Kalighat style of painting, combined with new-age digitally inspired motifs and gold leaf, I aim to contextualize the greed for money and resources that led to our current state of rapid over-globalization.

Nina Fraser (Lisbon, Portugal)

Circle Series #1, 2020 collage 13.75 x 13.75 inches

By exploring the external — an obsessive fragmentation of multiple perspectives drawn from the visual culture surrounding us — I am simultaneously looking inward, drawing references from diverse philosophical sources and spiritual practices. Working with the symbolism of a circle that protects, maintains, flows, and connects, this work was produced in confinement, exploring notions of time and relationship while embodying the domestic quality of the round placemat on my kitchen table makeshift work surface.

Sara Baker Michalak (New York, USA)

Letters Looking For a Language, 2022 decollage, paper, acrylic, panel 8 x 8 inches

Human imagination is fired by our experiencing the mysteries: the incomplete, the unfirm, the perennially fluid. Exquisitely alive, relentlessly wanting, and hungry, we craft to wonder: what, this chaos? why the abyss? where, light in the dark? 'Not Knowing' is the Source: not knowing, the condition and necessity that simultaneously births our languages for inscrutable truth.

Michael Waraksa (Wisconsin, USA)

Lid, 2020 digital collage 22.8 x 15.5 inches

In this piece, I am attempting to visualize the bridging of the natural world with the industrial/ technological world that humans have created over the past century. Although the rapid advancement of post-industrial revolution technology is partly (if not mostly) to blame for our current environmental problems, technology will also probably be part of the solution if we are able to eventually mitigate and reverse the damage done to the planet. I am also constantly reminded that our most complex technology is basically cobbled together by us from earthly materials and is essentially not separate from nature. Unfortunately, however, we are now living with the disastrous consequences of us blindly combining and overusing many of these materials.

Marsha Nouritza Odabashian (Massachusetts, USA)

Queen Zabel, 2022

Onionskin dye, onions and garlic skins, acrylic paint, yarn, upholstery tacks, Stonehenge paper 91.4 x 457.2 inches

Unconnected Yet implies that a bond might develop between disparate beings, objects, places, natural phenomena, sounds, and ideas or that existing bonds might come undone. For me, both cases prompt uncertainty, hope, dread, or satisfaction. My work discovers connections between the science of natural plant dyes and imagination to draw together elements in the composition and the subject. I connect the past, present, and future; the physically and geographically estranged; and perceptions of reality and the imaginary.

She Stands Above the Lies They Made, 2021 photography, digital collage, dybond metal 45 x 19 inches

She Stands Above the Lies They Made is a piece that was born from a conversation with a friend, Dom. She told me about her frustration with the lens through which she, a Black woman, is portrayed. Not only in the eyes of men but in spaces they occupy, which in this case is the U.S. She said something particular that really struck me: "When I look at my reflection sometimes, I don't see myself, but an illusion of the same likeness designed by someone else. All I know is this; it’s not my truth."

Chukwudumebi Gabriel Amadi-Emina (Maryland, USA)

Shari Epstein (New Jersey, USA)

Spirit, 2018 collage, acrylic, canvas 20 x 10 inches

Spirit focuses on the climate crisis with attention to voices left out of the conversation. The tendency to nurture, combined with the tenacity to affect change, make women an important component in finding solutions to the problems we all face. Spirit explores elements of the climate crisis—fire, flooding, drought, and the outcry and silencing of those impacted. The voices of those most affected, women and minority groups, stand as a beacon and a bridge between our current situation and the solutions required to win the fight against climate change.

Walden Booker (Texas, USA)

Crush, 2021 photogrammetry render 30 x 40 inches

A photogrammetry program was used to merge 40 images of my girlfriend's and my body into a model that I can manipulate within a 3D modeling program. The warped models are due to the program trying to triangulate images of our moving bodies. Crush is an overlapping combination of our stomachs — just like how we share a small twin bed and have to deal with contorting ourselves and taking into account each other's space.

Danila Ilabaca (Valparaíso, Chile)

Matria, 2020 collage 30 x 47 x 5 inches

The bridge is a leap of the imagination. In my work, Matria, I reimagine a world, a trans-generational coven, that brings together known and unknown women from the past. An imaginary spell is brought up to the present where nature is invoked as the origin of life, acknowledging and bestowing women's bodies with the Devine value they deserve. Today's times cry out for a reformulation of thought; Patriarchy and Christianity are falling apart piece by piece.

Ginnie Gardiner (New York, USA)

Interlusion 37, 2021 uncollage, oil, linen 50 x 38 x 1.5 inches

In my Interlusion paintings and collages, aesthetically, the colors are important but not for the optical effect of phenomenal transparency to work. It’s the values that have to work. Formalist concerns have always interested me when they inspire trust in their relational coherence, not just the elegance or emotive quality of a line but the overall pattern and design of the space. When we see opaque color as transparent or perceive opacity as translucence, then we experience phenomenal transparency.

Talin Megherian (Massachusetts, USA)

Iridology, (Well Series), 2020 uncollage, gouache, ink, liquid watercolors 12.25 x 19.75 inches

Hearing and reading stories of wells informs an ongoing series of paintings I created to collect the memories of the Armenian people. My Well Series invites the viewer to peer into images of wells to experience stories about the Armenian Genocide— often stories of trapped individuals put inside wells to die, stories of people who perished, and stories of people who escaped. Eyes are a common theme in my work. Often disembodied from the head, the eyes I depict can be particular—I paint the eyes of people I know—but in the case of Iridology, the eye becomes a metaphor for seeing. I use abstracted imagery of an iridology chart— which locates each portion of the body within the iris itself, to emphasize the eye portion of the diagram. Highlighting the eye portion allows me to acknowledge my family's and others' accounts— the eye that witnesses each other's stories. I

reference this science as another metaphor. Iridology is considered pseudoscience by most in the medical profession. It is an ongoing scientific inquiry yet unrecognized and unproven. It reminds me of the struggles of the Armenian people, whose history with Genocide is yet unacknowledged by many nations.

Markus Haala (New York, USA)

King of Tyres [Landfill], 2021 3D print in PLA and ABS Filament, glass dome 8.5 x 6 x 6 inches

King of Tyres [Landfill] depicts an everyday scenario of a world impacted by destructive, advanced technologies and climate catastrophes as a post-human collectible that takes printmaking to an N-dimensional level and poses questions about our relationship between the natural and the artificial world.

David Perrin (New York, USA)

Days of Future Past, 2021 digital collage 25 x 25 inches

Always Forward is an ode to the mantra that I've adopted and adapted over the years. Each step is always encouraging the next step forward. This piece represents the fusion between African ancestral roots and the technological advances of the future.

Leanne

Russell (The Bahamas)

A Feeling of Relief, 2021 digital collage 22 x 33 inches

Overlapping archival images of my home, Abaco, The Bahamas, with present-day images, brings light to the untold histories of these spaces; It has taught me to consider the sacred aspect of all spaces. The concept of lives lived in tandem, at different times, anchored in the same location, bridging the gap between past and present; The place becomes the living element, and the people become just an earmark for time. A dual reality is created in the space between the images, one that was separate but exists simultaneously.

Noreen Smith (Maryland, USA)

Angry or Assertive? May the Bridges I Burn Light the Way, 2020 collage, paper 21.5 x 19 inches

Building a bridge of understanding the Black/ Brown female experience relative to their white female counterparts when living out their feminine freedoms and truths and connecting viewers to the innate power found in womanhood and the divine feminine, inclusive of those seldom celebrated complexities and nuances of female existence over time and various life occurrences.

allison anne (Minnesota, USA)

A Device to Separate Vapors, 2022 hand-cut paper collage, recycled paperboard 8.5 x 5.5 inches

My work is a constantly evolving exploration of experience and emotion through the reconstitution and rearranging of various printed media and ephemera. It is a broader approach to thinking and moving throughout the world — by prioritizing what is found, discarded, and left behind, I explore the intersections & interactions between context, materiality, and creativity. Collage is part of a transformative creative ecosystem that rethinks the act of sharing, reframes the concept of value, and explores boundlessness and connection. An abstracted textual grouping creates a tangle of negative space over a textured field of reds, violets, creams, and grays with a slight shock of blue. A balance of intuitive abstraction with the precision of numbers and letters, exploring the tension and interconnectedness between what we consider emotional and rational.

Dejion Duncan (Texas, USA)

Boo'd Up, 2020 analog collage and digital collage 11 x 8.5 inches

Transcending love. Not only are people not monochromatic, but also love isn't.

Ehiko

Odeh (Toronto, Ontario)

Lightbeaming, 2022 collage on printmaking paper 22 x 30 inches

Following the loss of a close friend to an extreme circumstance. Lightbeaming symbolizes both the ascension into the afterlife and the light & inspiration he gave to any communities he influenced. The circular composition highlights the cyclical nature of life and death that rebirths us all.

Morphic Rooms (Minneapolis, MN, and Boston, MA, USA)

Clifton (Ruby), 2022 collaborative collage made with paper and digital elements, digitally arranged 24 x 24 inches

We were interested in using collage — and the unexpected junctions it commonly reveals — to create connections across scientific disciplines.

Toward this end, we sourced graphical elements from disparate disciplines like meteorology, electronic engineering, earth sciences, cartography, and structural engineering, exploring the theme of building bridges.

Doriana Diaz (Pennsylvania, USA)

Dancing Hands, 2022 collage 12 x 9.5 inches

My work focuses on the exploration of cultural agency, archival documentation, and the rhythms of resistance. I hope to harness and uplift not only our glory, but our alchemy, our celebration of community, and our limitless and boundless channels of light. What would I connect if I could? Memory with reimagination. I believe this form to be the work of archiving in channels and senses. However, I want to push those boundaries to expand beyond just that — what does it look like when we reimagine our memories?

Ian

Tothill (Bradford, United Kingdom)

The Conscience of the Rich, 2021 collage

11.75 x 11.75 inches

When I found the book title, I imagined what the conscience of the rich might look like and envisaged a very large black hole to represent my belief that they have no conscience. The biggest gap in the world is between the rich and the poor. In the collage, there is a group of onlookers who can see what is happening. The many can make change, the gap can be bridged, it is up to us to make that happen.

Isobel Elliott (London, United Kingdom)

I Can See Right Through You, 2019 collage, acetate, thread 9 x 9 inches

Many believe science and art to be two very different entities, but really they stem from the same curious mind. Both seek to explore the world of the unknown and, in combination, provide an exceptionally powerful tool. As science continues to discover the unimaginable, art provides a way for us to see right through it all.

John C. Fields (New York, USA)

NAMCHE BAZAAr, 2022 décollage 14 x 9 inches

NAMCHE BAZAAr is an abstract collage of the valley below the Himalayas, raising issues of the artist's fear of climbing Mt Everest and how art can bridge known limits through imagination. This collage tries to bring the viewer to NAMCHE BAZAAr, into the artist’s vision of the place below the fearsome peaks of the Himalayas. As we stand in the steep valley gazing up, trying to glimpse Everest, can we conquer our fear of death and climb to the top of the world? Both art and science seek the eternal. We want to know how the universe began so that we can stop it from ending. We want to understand how to keep living forever. I want my art to enter the collective consciousness just by pushing these buttons.

Andrea Burgay (New York, USA)

Nothing's Ever Lost (Turn The Page), 2018 collage 30 x 44 inches

The works in the Requiems series reconstruct places and experiences through the lens of memory, emotion, and imagination. Referencing the inevitability of the passage of time, they allude to the loss that accompanies it and the potential for growth and rebirth that stems from it. Art that depicts traumatic or difficult experiences can become a mirror, offering viewers a way to recognize their own experiences and emotions and find validation. In these works, I hope to connect artmaking with healing.

Jo Fobbs (California, USA) harlem re:naissance, 2021 collage, glue stick, inkjet paper 16 x 20 inches

Harlem Renaissance is part of a series I created to recognize the impactful contributions of Black queer activists, artists, and performers, many of whom were queer. The underlying theme in these works is that each of the individuals depicted played a collective role in shaping Black social movements, even if they may have had differing ideologies and bodies of work or lived in different parts of the world. My goal in this work is to bridge the past and present and see how we can gain inspiration from the work of our ancestors. A tribute to queer icons of the Harlem Renaissance. Featuring: Richmond Barthe, Lucille Bogan, Gladys Bentley, Countee Cullen, Alexander Gumby, Billie Holiday, Langston Hughes, Alain Locke, Claude McKay, Florence Mills, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Richard Bruce Nugent, and Ethel Waters.

Malcolm Lizzappi (Maryland, USA)

Danyele in Paris, 2022 large format black and white film photo, 100% Alpha Cellulose 44 x 66 inches

Liberation is possible when no one epistemology reigns completely. My work began as an interest in the leftovers of Atlantic epistemologies of Blackness. What remains outside the archives tells the story of enslaved peoples in the Americas. This line leads me to the body as a full archive and photo as a way of knowing: epistemological collaging, overlaying, and time play. These photos come from dreams of the timeline of liberation and its fleeting and amorphous nature.

Fran Forman (Massachusetts, USA)

Charting the Course, 2012 digital collage 19 x 24 inches

My images blur the boundaries between the real and the unreal. They are visual narratives that evoke a sense of transience, longing, memory, and dislocation. In merging photography with painting and portraiture with dreamed landscapes, my image-making leverages the richness of color and the patina of textures to rearrange reality. I invite my viewer to engage with me in an imaginative discourse and then to supply their own narrative — to reimagine what is possible.

Maïté Jane (Belgium)

Common Ground, 2021 cyanotype, paper 8.5 x 5.5 inches

In the Common Ground series, I played with the human connection. How can people connect on a physical and emotional level? How can they understand each other without words? How can they see each other without knowing each other?

Rosanne Walsh (New York, USA)

Jesus Anoints The Beanstalk, 2022 collage with watercolor 18 x 12 inches

Stories from Roman Catholic Mass are versions of the many metaphoric translations that have been clung to, fought over, and died for throughout history. We can love our stories, however, limited, finding comfort in them. We cannot claim human languages are sufficient substitutes for that the Forever Unknowable Force of Life. The real story is in the roots and the stars. What if Science was defined as the Theology of Wonder without the crutch of metaphor, and we could accept Biology and Astrophysics as the "Word of God?"

Sarah

Slavick (Massachusetts, USA)

Pandemic 13, 2021

collage, ink, watercolor, gouache, paper, mounted, paper 18 x 18 inches

Collage has always been an aspect of my art practice. The collages are made of painted square elements composed in a grid. The random drips, marks, and forms, as well as the paper pieces, come together to form a loosely systematic arrangement of both disconnections and connections. The grid is a formal device that I enjoy using in endless permutations. All of these were made during the pandemic when we all struggled with isolation, fear, anxiety, and disconnection while longing for connection and contact.

Julie C. Baer (Massachusetts, USA)

Black Chokeberry (Aronia Melanocarpa)

[Rewilding series], 2022 acrylic, wood panel 12 x 12 inches

My work reflects my close attention to the biota in my natural environment, wherever I am, and the seasonal trajectory of its life cycles: budding, blooming, fruiting, seeding, dying, renewal. The natural world is our collective home, family, heritage, and future, yet humans have caused irreparable habitat, resource, and species loss. Ecologists say native plant restoration is "nature’s best hope" for recreating biodiverse ecosystems that attract and support native pollinators and fauna. In my Rewilding series, I am painting (and planting) native plants, one species at a time. Collectively, this body reflects biodiversity, as my urban garden develops into a biodiverse ecosystem. Art can spark insight, stir hearts, and stimulate freshness and hope. I want my work to inspire viewers to care for themselves and their own biomes.

Nathan Stromberg (Minnesota, USA)

Deviation #4 with Fork, 2021 collage of a collage using period papers, an irregular shaped Birch panel 34 x 39 x 1 inches

This piece is part of some experimental art I've been making called the Deviation series — a series about the action of departing from an established course or accepted standard. A central theme to collage and to my work is a constant questioning of how disparate objects can somehow fit together and how they can work in strange new ways to illicit personal memories and narratives. This work was made by creating a digital collage of period objects and then enlarging and remaking that collage with fragmented pieces.

Gregory

T. Wilkins (Minnesota, USA)

Varanasi, India: Young Woman with Earring, 2017 photography, acrylic, ink, sewing thread, embroidery thread, yarn canvas 20 x 16 x 2 inches

Fast Fashion sweatshops consume 93 billion cubic meters of water annually. As much as 7,500 liters are required to make a single pair of jeans. Every year approximately 500 million tons of microfiber plastic is dumped into the oceans. I imagine living in a world where people and the environment are treated with respect and care. Each of us has a moral obligation to care for Mother Earth and make better choices.

Kellette Elliott (Oregon, USA)

Oregon Wildfires, 2020 collage 13 x 8 inches

I am struck by the relationship between art and science. I captured this photo during the Oregon Wildfires of 2020 in my front yard. I carefully waited to see when we would be evacuated, as the fires were only 15 minutes away. We caused this. Humans caused this to happen. I created this collage as a memory of that fearful moment; the woman representing me looking at the sky as both devastating and beautiful at the same time.

Ronald Gonzalez (New York, USA)

Healing, 2021 homeopathic remedies over wire 6 x 2 x 2 inches

My work is a quest for innumerable creations, resurrections, and alterations in search of a realm of art between the intimate kingdoms of life and death.

Janice McDonald (Colorado, USA)

What When, 2022 collage 12 x 12 inches

What When was created in response to the first stanza of a poem by Samuel T. Franklin: Questions, Answers

O restless midnight, what happens when the moon bends her wrists and braids silver mist through the trees?

Inspiration from one medium, considered and interpreted in another, furthers a creative process where ideas may be made accessible in entirely new ways, eventually prompting even more perspectives.

Linda Stillman (New York, USA)

Black Square: Oaks, 2022 collage, acrylic, leaf fragments, paper 14 x 11 inches

I’m interested in the connection between humans and nature and time past and present. In the Black Square series, I collage dried leaves and combine them with painted black squares. The black square symbolizes, for me, the dark state of the world with the climate crisis, the Covid pandemic, threats to democracy, and war, among recent dark events. I find comfort in making connections between humans, nature, and art. By saving and drying plant material, I make a bridge between past and present.

Torea Frey (Oregon, USA)

Can These Words Build A Bridge To You? 2022 collage, vintage dictionary and thesaurus papers in English and Punjabi, matte medium, Canson paper 12 x 9 inches

Language can divide us or bring us together. And yet some nuances are still lost in translation; will you continue to walk across that bridge of understanding or resist its possibilities? This piece ponders the gulf between my American English and my partner's Punjabi to suggest ways of connecting and finding meaning even in the misunderstandings.

Joyce Saiete (Washington, USA)

Listen, 2022 digital collage 15 x 15 inches

I’m originally from Maputo, Mozambique, and am now based in Seattle, WA. An architect by trade, I consider myself a visual artist focusing on digital collaging. I use this medium in an effort to decipher my nightmares, understand my traumas and visualize my subconscious. In response to isolation, I began using this tool as a form of catharsis, which allows me to use it as a form of visual therapy.

B O P G R A H I E S I

Belgium

Maïté Jane

(b. 1981, Ostend, Belgium)

Maïté Jane (22/02/1981) is a mixed media artist with a passion for the analog, a drive for experimentation, and a love of paper. After obtaining her master's degree in architecture, she explored other artistic fields such as set design, illustration, collage, photography, and cyanotype. She seeks new expectations and unusual perspectives. Questions calling for other questions. Playing with the borders of reality has always been one of her favorite games. And by doing so, she constantly discovers new realms of possibility. Real possibilities. Trespassing the limits of dimensions, time, and space, the laws of physics and anatomy, help her to understand what humans are looking for. It allows her to experience new levels of connection.

www.atelier-maite.be

Canada

Ehiko Odeh

(b. 1999, Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria)

Ehiko is a multidisciplinary artist born in Lagos, Nigeria, and living in Toronto, Ontario. Art is her spiritual practice fueled by play, which leads her to material experimentation. She explores decolonization, unraveling spirituality linked to African masks, ethnobotany, sexual violence and memory, representation of melanated hair, play, and family history. Her style is characterized by an expressive pallet, with various textiles emulating the traditional Nigerian practice of craftsmanship through large-scale multi-medium paintings, collages, and installations. After receiving a BFA with a creative writing minor from OCAD University in 2021, she showcased work in Lagos, Nigeria, and Toronto. As an emerging freelance artist, she was a recipient of The Gladstone House Art Program and public exhibition between star shine and clay with Career Launchers at Yonge-Dundas Square. Her work is now part of The Wedge Collection and has a private gallery of purchased work that can be viewed upon request. ehik0studio.cargo.site

Chile

Danila Ilabaca

(B. 1991, Santiago de Chile, Chile)

Danila Ilabaca is a graphic artist who works with imagedeveloping analog and digital techniques. Drawing, collage, and design are manifested through imagery that arises from the play of colors with elements of everyday life, popular graphics, and politics. His work revolves around erasing visual borders through analog collage, a technique in which he incorporated volume and layered composition. In this context, traveling has taken center stage to collect pieces from different parts of the world that he later recontextualizes in his works. She has had various individual and collective exhibitions. She has received awards in categories such as the Art and Human Rights Competition of the Museum of Memory, the National Youth Art Competition, and MAVI Contemporary Art. She has been nominated for best album cover at the Pulsar Awards. She has studied drawing in India and exhibited in Mexico at Paste Up and FINI, International Image Festival, and the District 13 International Art Fair in Paris. In 2020 she participated in the Kolaj Institute's Radical Reimaginings collage exhibition and publication in New Mexico. In 2022 he did an illustration residency at Circo Les Noctambules in Paris, also for the Paste Up International Collage Festival and La Ceiba Gráfica, both in Mexico. danilailabaca.com

India & Australia

Natasha Narain

(b. 1970, Wellington, India)

Natasha is a Bengali-Uttarpradeshi Australian defense force child whose childhood across India contributed to her appreciation of cultural differences and fondness for walking in nature while forming a diplomatic, empathetic, and resilient attitude. A graduate of poet Rabindranath Tagore's visionary institute for studying fine arts, Natasha majored in studio practice and art history over five years at Kala Bhavan, Visva Bharati University in Bengal, India, before migrating to Australia. Natasha has held several solo shows in Brisbane and Melbourne, participated in group shows, academic seminars, creative workshops,

and collaborations, and published her writing. Anchored in drawing, her works combine themes, mediums, and surfaces and intrinsically interlink time, people, and places. Natasha is a proud mother and loves nurturing. Working for the Commonwealth Bank in Australia, Natasha served communities through droughts, floods, and the Covid epidemic, anchored by caring and ethical behaviors. In 2015, Natasha began her master's in research, continuing onto a Ph.D. committed to reclaiming the Bengali Kantha as a versatile visual language. Natasha feels privileged to be near historically eminent Bengali artists and contemporary artworks that have traveled from afar and offer a window to other lives and experiences. She lives in Meanjin-Brisbane, Australia.

@narain_natasha

Italy

Maica Gugolati (b. 1985, Verona, Italy)

Maica Gugolati holds a Ph.D. in social anthropology specializing in visual and performance studies and department fieldwork. Her research is based on postcolonial and decolonial theories and practices. She works and collaborates with artists in the Caribbean region; she is a freelance art curator, author, visual artist, and invisible disabled dancer. Maica is an affiliated researcher to IMAf, Institute of African Worlds in France, and is a co-editor of the African Diaspora Journal by BRILL and the Caribbean In-Transit (USA). She is a co-educator with the Decolonial Dialogues web platform (UK) and an affiliated art critic at AICA (International Association of Art Critics) Southern Caribbean. Her academic productions are published by Illinois university, Taylor and Francis, CRNS Slavery and Post-slavery (National center of scientific research, France) journal, among others. She wrote several art publications at Faire Monde(s) and on online art platforms. She performed experimental conferences in international museums and universities, such as at Tate Modern Museum in the UK, and the International City of the Arts, in France. Her experimental artistic projects have been

shown online and onsite in the UK, Trinidad, Tobago, and the Netherlands. She has curated exhibitions in Portugal, France, Austria, and Costa Rica.

@maicagugolati

Mexico

Manuel

Salgado

(b. 1991, Mexico City, Mexico)

Manuel Salgado, a Queer artist, born and raised in México City, discovered and adopted the collage technique during the last years of his college studies at the Faculty of Arts and Design in Xochimilco, México. Designer by profession and artist by passion, Manuel's main inspiration is Dadaism and the work of collagists and pioneers of the movement, such as Hannah Höch (1889-1978) and the recontextualization work of Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968), as well as the work of contemporary artists and designers such as @clarecelestart and @guillermolorcagarcía. In the last ten years, Manuel's style has evolved, and he has allowed himself to experiment with the various expressions of the technique. The representation of nature and human consciousness are consistent concepts in his work, revealed through detailed and meticulous compositions. @lab_collage

Daniela Esponda (b. 1985, Mexico City, Mexico)

Daniela Esponda earned a BA in Industrial Design at Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico, in 2009, an MS in Biomimicry at Arizona State University, USA, in 2015, and a Professional Certificate in Biomimicry from Biomimicry 3.8 Institute in 2015. Esponda is a technology innovator, concentrating on the development of natureinspired design. She is a biomimetic industrial designer with 13 years of experience in product design and development, biophilia, and green businesses. Esponda holds the position of Functional Leadership in the Biomimicry Mex network, based in Mexico City, and is a founding member of the "Biome," a collaborative group of individuals from diverse backgrounds that initiate projects where art, science, design, and nature meet. Esponda

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is the Founder of Nature Design Lab—a firm focused on developing sustainable, innovative technologies that read nature and emulate organisms, combining art, design, and science. Esponda has acquired several patents and trademarks for her developed technologies. She has earned international recognition for her creative and innovative biomimetic solutions. Esponda was a finalist in the Biodesign spring challenge in collaboration with Google with the project Micromining in 2021. She was awarded second place in The Biomimicry Launchpad with the project BioThermoSmart in 2018. She was a finalist in the green business competition Cleantech Challenge Mexico in 2012 with the project Yubarta. Esponda was awarded the Haechi Prize bronze medal for the International Olympic design in Seoul, Korea, with the Yubarta project in 2009. In 2008 she was awarded first place in the Green Shelter Facility competition from Iberoamericana University. She has facilitated conferences and workshops on the Science of Biomimicry and is currently a professor of Biomimetic Sciences at the Faculty of Sciences of the UNAM in Mexico. naturedesignlab.com

Portugal

Nina Fraser (b. 1984, St. Albans, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom) Nina Fraser graduated in Textile Art from Winchester College of Arts (UK) in 2006. Nina utilizes collage, sculpture, and painting to explore the human relationship with place, particularly the dimension between personal and collective landscapes and how these mutate through times of disruption and chaos. Currently investigating socially engaged art practice through the coordination of Art & Craft Refúgio - a project integrating migrants and refugees in central Lisbon, with sponsorship from the Gulbenkian PARTIS & Art For Change fund. Residencies include; LARGO Residências, Lisbon, Portugal (2022); BODY & PLACE, Owlpen Manor, Gloucestershire, UK, (2019); and MArt experimental learning program, Lisbon, Portugal (2015 - 17). Individual exhibitions include: Home, Espaço Cultural Mercês, Lisbon, Portugal (2021); TAXIS DERMA, Museum of Natural Science

and History, Lisbon, Portugal (2019); and Sublime, Mute Gallery, Lisbon, Portugal (2019). Nina's collages have been published in magazines and books, including, most recently, Collage Care: Transforming Emotions & Life Experiences, published by Kanyer Art Collection in 2021. Nina's work is represented in public and private collections worldwide. She lives and works in Portugal. ninafaser.xyz

The Bahamas

Leanne Russell (b. 1982, Abaco, The Bahamas)

Leanne was Initially interested in the visual arts, but chose to pursue commercial studies, obtaining a Bachelor of Commerce from St. Mary's University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 2002. However, after returning home to Abaco, she was reunited with her first love of painting and has been a practicing artist for 20 years. She is a cultural worker involved in preserving and restoring Abaco history, specifically Green Turtle Cay, and is the founder of Abaco Alchemy Atelier. She has exhibited in The Bahamas, the United States, Canada, St. Kitts, and Jamaica, and her work is a part of the Imago Mundi Collection. In 2015, Leanne was a Bahamian Icon finalist in the Fine Art Category for creating platforms for young Abaconian artists to showcase their talents. She has participated in the 7th, 8th, and 10th National Exhibitions (2014, 2016, and 2022) and, most recently, Refuge (2019), Medicine and Memory (2020), and The Evolution of The Arc (2021) at The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas. Other recent group exhibitions include A Burning for Home at The D'Aguilar Art Foundation (2020) and The Otherside of The Pentaprism at Tern (2021).

United Kingdom

Isobel Elliott (b. 1998, Oxford, United Kingdom)

From a young age, Isobel has always been passionate about art and science. At 14, when she was in the hospital with appendicitis, the surgeon painted her

anatomy, as he did for all his surgeries, to communicate with the young patient—a perfect example of how two seemingly very different subjects can, together, provide a powerful tool. Unknowingly, this surgeon inspired a lifelong ambition. As a medical student living in London, the artist continuously uses art to explore science, from visualizing difficult concepts to providing artwork in clinical settings to introduce beauty to an otherwise unsettling environment. In addition to this, Isobel had a solo exhibition in Southampton in 2017 and has since taken many commissions. She lives in London and works closely with Dublin band Fizzy Orange, commissioned to create collages for their most recent EP and international tour posters.

@isobelelliottart

Ian Tothill

(b. 1959, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom)

Ian is both new to collage and revisiting his youth. For several years in the early 1980s, making collages was a way of fitting together his love of surreal images, the political commentary of John Heartfield, Hannah Höch, and Peter Kennard, the Dada movement, and a DIY punk ethic of anybody can have a go. Life and responsibilities intervened, and the piles of magazines were set aside for decades. A global pandemic gave him hours at home and no venues to play music (his regular work). He made a picture for a zine his daughter was making, then a few cards for people. He became reconnected to the methodology of being able to make pictures without traditional or technical art skills. Instagram was a useful virtual space to see the astonishing work of global collage makers and join in the prompts and challenges set by wonderful people worldwide. His collages started to be accepted for virtual and physical exhibitions, and he had his first solo collage show in 2021. His style combines photographic and graphic elements, hints of narrative and characterization, observations and commentary, abstract and figurative—anything goes. It's all about the process.

iantothill.com

United States

Chukwudumebi Gabriel Amadi-Emina (b. 1994, Baltimore, Maryland, USA)

Chukwudumebi Gabriel Amadi-Emina, aka "Chuks," is a Nigerian (Igbo & Yoruba) American contemporary photographer and digital and video artist currently residing in Baltimore, Maryland. Gabriel has a BFA in photography and graphic design and an MFA in photographic and electronic media from the Maryland Institute College of Art. Using photography, collage/ montage theory, digital editing, painting skills, and other techniques, Gabriel tells stories through portraiture that revolve around the duality of perspectives and experiences of being raised in Africa (Nigeria) and being a Black individual in America. Through portraiture photography and digital manipulation and painting—collage/montage, storytelling, and worldbuilding—he creates environments around his subjects that interweave pan-African perspective, effects, and spirituality into western mythologies, allegories, and misconceptions of the Black body. Using photographic narratives embedded with performance and ritual, Gabriel reveals moments of those whose entireties result from the fusion of their African-ness and Blackness. artbychuks.com

allison anne (b. 1985, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA)

allison anne is a queer, nonbinary multidisciplinary artist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA (unceded Očhéthi Šakówiŋ land), working in collage, zine-making, mail art, mixed media & graphic design. By recontextualizing images and materials, allison seeks to create complex textural, intuitive abstractions and configurations that prioritize what is found, discarded, and left behind, exploring the intersections & interactions between context, materiality, and creativity. allisonanne.com

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Julie C. Baer

(b. 1960, Brunswick, New Jersey, USA)

I was born in 1960 in New Brunswick, NJ, USA, and have painted for over 40 years. Struggling with lifelong PTSD, chronic pain, and depression due to

childhood trauma, artmaking saved my life, providing discipline, calling, and identity. Making art is a recursive, developmental practice of solving problems, creating order, and discovering the "adjacent possible." My pain informs my empathy and deepens my sensitivity as an artist and naturalist. I studied for the first two years of college at Rhode Island School of Design, graduating from the New School for Social Research in NYC, after which I painted and exhibited full-time for many years. In 2007, however, depression forced me to take a break from art. I needed a change, so I attended graduate school for education, earning a master's from Harvard Graduate School of Education and a doctorate from Northeastern University. For 15 years, I taught writing to students of all ages and backgrounds in higher ed, workforce development, and community-based programs. The pandemic unexpectedly brought me back to making art. I want my work to inspire viewers to care for themselves and their biomes. My gallery is Atlantic Works Gallery in Boston, MA. View my work at juliebaer.com

Sara Baker Michalak (b. 1951, Westfield, New York, USA)

Sara Baker Michalak was born and raised near Buffalo, NY. After brief stays elsewhere in the States, Europe, and the Caribbean, she has lived in the Great Lakes Region since. Growing up in a creative family, she was more a 'budding intellectual' than an 'artist.' The social and political upheavals of the 1960s profoundly impacted that course. After completing a BFA in Textile Processes at Rochester Institute of Technology, Baker Michalak went on to make contemporary tapestries. The artistic movements of the 20th century were increasingly influential in her practice which grew to include painting, drawing, and collage. Additionally, as the environment became a part of daily discourse, she returned to school and earned an MA at SUNY Fredonia's Interdisciplinary Graduate Program, Geoscience, and Humanities. Currently, Baker Michalak's work explores the natural world's beauty and ephemerality and our race's philosophical/spiritual challenges in contemplating 'our place' in place, change, and time. Her art has been exhibited widely, most recently in Art That Matters to the Planet at Roger Tory Peterson Institute

and Unfoldingobject at Concord Art. Additional venues include the American Craft Museum, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Burchfield Penny Art Center, and Albright Knox in Buffalo. sarabakermichalakart.com

Todd Bartel

(b. 1962, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, USA)

Todd Bartel received a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, concluding his studies at RISD's European Honors Program in Rome between 19841985. He earned an MFA in Painting from Carnegie Mellon University in 1993. He received the Jacob K. Javits Fellowship (US Department of Education, Washington, DC) in 1990 and a Connecticut Council on the Arts Fellowship Grant in 2000. Bartel has taught at Brown University, Manhattanville College, Carnegie Mellon University, and Vermont College MFA in Visual Art, among others. He has been a guest critic at RISD, Vermont College's MFA in Visual Art program, and New Hampshire Art Institute MFA program, among others. Bartel was the inaugural recipient of RISD's Art and Design Educator Award in 2019. He has lectured at Kolaj Fest New Orleans, Alfred University, Brown University, Western Connecticut State University, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Montclair State University, Chatham College, and Knoxville Museum of Art. His work has been exhibited nationally at Palo Alto Art Center, Katonah Museum, Brockton Art Museum, The Rhode Island Foundation, Zieher Smith, Mills Gallery (Boston, MA), and Iona College. He is the founder and Gallery Director at the Cambridge School of Weston's Thompson Gallery, a gallery dedicated to thematic inquiry, including such exhibition series as Sublime Climate, Collage at 100, Kiss the Ground, Nowhere Everywhere, With Eyes Open, and About Vulnerability. A seasoned teacher since 1986, Bartel currently teaches drawing, painting, collage, and conceptual art at The Cambridge School of Weston. toddbartel.com

Allan Bealy

(b. 1951, Montreal, California, USA)

Allan Bealy is a Canadian artist, art director, and graphic designer who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. In the 80s, Allan was co-publisher of Benzene, an arts

magazine, and has had several books of his collages published, most recently: Conjure by Red Fox Press in 2021. He has had solo shows in Canada, Sweden, and the United States and has been represented in numerous group shows. Allan's practice focuses on collage and mixed media, occasionally publishing under the Benzene Editions banner. allanbealy.blogspot.com

Liz Blum

(b. 1958, London, United Kingdom)

Liz Blum is a multidisciplinary artist and collaborative researcher based in Boston. Currently working between the US and UK, her approach is driven by a process of collecting data, research, and information to interpret as visual and digital imagery or performative events. Her work investigates environmental concerns within the digital sphere and technology. She received her MFA from SUNY at Albany, New York, exhibits her work both locally and internationally, and has contributed writing and work to, DiSCo Journal, House Letters, The Scaffold, Folium Publishing, London, Murze Magazine, Extinction Rebellion, London, ToolBook, Soho, NYC, On Contemplation, ELSE The Journal of International Art, Literature, Theory and Creative Media Transart Institute, Photographic Powers, Aalto University/Aalto ARTS Books, Helsinki, Finland. lizcooperblum.com

Walden Booker

(b. 1998, San Antonio, Texas, USA)

Walden Booker creates artwork through digital processes and reorients that work back into the physical world. Being part of a generation who grew up during the rise of the digital information age, a lot of developmental moments in his life have happened in tandem with computers and the internet. Alternative to the modern obsession with technology disrupting natural processes, Walden makes work bridging the beauty of his personal human experiences with the pieces of him that are connected to the digital world. While he exploits digital processes such as Photogrammetry, Inkjet printing, and AI generation that many see as lowering the fidelity of intimacy or personal emotions, he searches for a perspective to reintroduce life into the original

subjects presented. Walden Booker lives and creates in San Antonio, Texas. He is the co-creator, with Abby Billingsley, of the 2022 collaborative MO(U) LD printmaking trade portfolio and exhibition. The recipient of a Presidential Full-Tuition Scholarship from the Southwest School of Art, he graduated with a BFA in Sculpture and Printmaking in 2021. He was recognized in June 2016 at New York City's Carnegie Hall when he received a Scholastic Art and Writing National Gold Medal.

@waldenbooker

Andrea Burgay

(b. 1981, Syracuse, New York, USA)

Andrea Burgay creates collage-based works that evoke cycles of destruction and renewal and present a physical manifestation of the passage of time. Combining collected, handmade, and painted paper, she arranges and builds up layers of materials before deconstructing and composing anew. Originally from Syracuse, NY, she currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She has exhibited in galleries in Genoa, Paris, Warsaw, New York, and throughout the United States. She is a recipient of awards and residencies including, Jentel Artist Residency, Banner, WY, The Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Nebraska City, NE, The Eileen S Kaminsky Family Foundation at MANA Contemporary in Jersey City, NJ, and a fellowship and solo exhibition at AIR Gallery, Brooklyn. Her work is included in the Kanyer Collection, the MERZ Gallery, and numerous private collections. Andrea Burgay is the founder and editor of Cut Me Up Magazine. She also explores collage concepts and processes through interviews and curatorial projects. andreaburgay.com

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Cheryl Chudyk

(b. 1984, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada)

Cheryl Chudyk is a multidisciplinary artist with a bachelor's degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences. She has a background in wedding photography, ballet, jazz, and contemporary dance. She dabbles in watercolor, oil painting, and comics. Her collage work has been published in {the.ink} Publication, Cults of Life, OLTRE, transitional MOMENTS, COLLAGE, two issues of Poetry

X Collage, and four issues of Cut Me Up Magazine, and she has exhibited her work in the US and Europe. She is the co-curator and co-founder of Sharp Hands Gallery, the newsletter editor of The Northwest Collage Society, and a member of @thecollageclub on Instagram. She is always looking to make collaborative pieces with other artists.

stitchpixie.com

William Close (b. 1996, Stamford, Connecticut, USA)

William Close received a BFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design in 2021, concluding his studies at MassArt with Fine Art 2D Painting Department Honors. In 2020, he was the Yale Norfolk School of Art Finalist (canceled in response to Covid-19) and the inaugural artist in residence for the North County Land Trust's 2021 Four Seasons Artist Residency. Close also received the 2015 American Visions National Award, representing his home state, Massachusetts, as best in his region for young emerging talent. Close's studio practice explores landscape, nature, and the relationships between Earth and human life on a local and global scale. His work takes the forms of realism, abstraction, and conceptual art, often in a collage or assemblage format. Additionally, he works with digital formats, installation, and time-based media. His work has been exhibited nationally in venues that include United States Capital (Washington, DC), Fitchburg Art Museum (Fitchburg, MA), Area Code at Salem State University (Salem, MA), Student Life Gallery MassArt (Boston, MA), Abigail Ogilvy Gallery (Boston, MA), Concord Art (Concord, MA) and Keefe House at Woodman Museum (Portsmouth, NH). He is the founder and principal of Will Close Studies, a greeting card business with the mission to create a greater connection between people, community, and nature. He is also the founder of Biome, an evolving group of individuals formed in response to a shared mission — creating conditions for regeneration between self, community, and nature. Founding members include William Close, Todd Bartel, Anna Wilkins, Daniela Esponda, and Jessica Robey. In addition, he has established the slow woodworking program or sloyd program for the Carroll School in Lincoln, MA. A traditional hand-craft and nature connection training program designed to champion and

activate lifelong learning in students with dyslexia. Close currently teaches sloyd woodworking, nature studies, bushcraft, rock climbing, and maple sugaring at the Carroll School, Lincoln, MA. willclosestudios.com

Doriana Diaz

(b. 1998, El Paso, Texas, USA)

Doriana Diaz is a multidimensional artist, archivist, and memory worker rooted in Philadelphia's soulful rhythms. She believes art has DNA; her work explores cultural agency, archival documentation, and rhythms of resistance and expansion.

@bydorianadiaz

Cynthia DiDonato

(b. 1950, Providence, Rhode Island, USA)

Cynthia is a multidisciplinary artist who works in digital and analog media. She is particularly interested in abstract experimental techniques and sees both digital and analog artwork as a personal journey of exploration. She counts herself as a techspressionist who spans traditional and digital art. Color, line, pattern, and atmosphere fascinate her. They are her visual language as she maps the mind through imagination, intuition, and memory. Cynthia is an Elected Member of the Art League of Rhode Island and a Signature Member of the International Society of Experimental Artists, New England Watercolor Society, and Rhode Island Watercolor Society. She has won numerous awards. Her work is shown both nationally and internationally. cynthiadidonato.weebly.com

Ben DiNino

(b. 1973, York, Pennsylvania, USA)

Ben DiNino studied sculpture and art history at Tyler School of Fine Art, graduating with a BFA in 1996. For 20 years, he didn't pursue showing his work and instead traded it with other artists, donated it to fundraisers, and gave it away. In 2018, after attending the first Kolaj Fest in New Orleans, he became more serious about making and showing his work. Since then, he has been in over 60 exhibitions internationally, featured in various print and online publications, and won a public art grant with the city of Minneapolis. Ben is also one of the founding

members of the Twin Cities Collage Collective. His recent work is focused on collage and book art. He lives in Minneapolis with his partner and two children. bendinino.com

Dejion Duncan

(b. 1994, Dallas, Texas, USA)

Dejion Duncan is a DFW-based artist born and raised in Dallas, TX. He currently resides in the Cedar Hill area south of Dallas and graduated from the University of North Texas with a BA in Technical Communication and a minor in Computer Education. He found his love for fine art after taking advanced art classes while doing video editing and filmmaking in secondary school. Much of his work involves looking back into the past so that the future can be told and make audiences aware of their present. Piecing together vibrant colors and textures to show the void of monochromaticity within ourselves. That display of collage work, which encompasses both analog and digital work, showcases the embodiment of all the very real and true extensions of ourselves that tell a story on their own. With this connection to your inner self and the emotions of his culture and ancestors, the goal is to envision a better world (without racism, bigotry, patriarchy, and capitalism) outside of our realm. His goal is to transport the audience via these multiple practices courtesy of imagination, ancestral work, and artistic intention.

baseforyourface.github.io/DejionODuncan/About.html

Tammie Dupuis

(b. 1964, Missoula, Montana, USA)

Tammie Dupuis was raised in Northwestern Montana, USA, on the Flathead Indian Reservation. Her father was Qlispe' and Seli’š, and her mother was the daughter of non-Indigenous settlers who moved to the reservation in the 1920s. Her aesthetic is situated between these two cultural heritages and explores their complicated history and her identity as a mixed-blood person. Fusing Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of making and seeing, her work ranges across several different processes, such as casting, sculpture, printmaking, painting, and textiles. The materials she works with include but are not limited to oil paint, acrylic, wood, fabric, resin, hair, bone, paper, and beads. Tammie

earned a Master of Fine Arts from Massachusetts College of Art and Design, located in Boston, MA, in 2022 and a Bachelor of Fine Arts, summa cum laude, from Cornish College of the Arts, located in Seattle, WA, in 2019. Additionally, she holds a Bachelor of Science in Anthropology/Archaeology from Montana State University, Bozeman, MT. She and her art practice live in Bremerton, WA. dupuiscreative.com

Kellette Elliott

(b. 1979, Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA)

Kellette Elliott is an analog collage artist and art educator in Clackamas, Oregon, USA. She has been creating daily collages since 2018. It started with a resolution to create art for 365 days, and in mid-2018, she found her artistic voice in collage and Minimalism with strong negative space using images that bring about nostalgia. In 2019, after significant life events like her mother's passing and medical issues, she saw collage as therapy and an escape from the pain. Her work documents events in her life, community, and the world using vintage resources and ephemera. Kellette is an active member of the International Collage Club and co-founder of the PNW Collage Collective. She has created illustrations for Playboy Magazine, New Statesman Magazine, and The Poetry Foundation, along with album artwork, book covers, and art exhibitions worldwide. She has taught secondary art in the public school system for 15 years. kelletteworks.com

Shari Epstein (b. 1953, Newark, New Jersey, USA)

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Shari Epstein works in collage painting, fabric, and photography. She recently exhibited her work at 14C, New Jersey's art fair in Jersey City. Publications include a profile in Kolaj magazine and, in 2022, an interview for Tri-City News, Asbury Park, NJ. To accommodate viewing outdoors during the pandemic, she had shows in the windows of the Atlantic Highlands Art Council and Studio Montclair, both in New Jersey. Other solo exhibits include Patterns, her abstract work using clothing patterns; Seaing, a series of fabric seascapes exhibited at Johnson & Johnson Corporation in New Brunswick, which included her 12-foot piece, Dancing

In The Light. Group shows include Sandy, The Once and Future Storm, shown at Bergen County Community College featuring work from her Sandy series, and in 2015, photos from her A Walk Home series were shown at Spectrum Art Fair held during Art Basel Miami. Shari holds a BA from the University of Maryland and has studied at the Maryland Art Institute, the Vermont Studio Center, and the New York Studio School. She lives in Long Branch, New Jersey, and teaches painting through the Monmouth County Park System. shariepstein.com

John C. Fields

(b. 1952, Paterson, New Jersey, USA)

It started long ago when John C. Fields, age 70, found he had an enjoyment of books—not only what they said, but how they looked. Then, as he collected for many years, he kept finding marvelous, marbleized boards that had fallen from antiquarian books. He used them as paperweights for the piles of documents on his desk before retiring as an affordable housing lawyer in NYC. Eventually, the patterns on his book boards began to taste Elmer's Glue and attract little scraps of paper: parts of maps; pieces from pages of misprinted newsprint; mottled, squashed paper from the damp streets of New York City; miscellaneous things Japanese. John does not use scissors. As a dedicated décollagist, he prefers to just go ahead and glue. Then he rips. He says the resultant abstract images may reflect psychological distortions of events or aspects of his life: growing up African/Native/American in Newark, NJ in the sixties; Harvard '74; NYC attorney; wife & daughter; art. Or, he says, they may not. "I'm just glad that this short autobio is not posthumous and that I find so much daily pleasure in making the collages that I may keep making them . . . Forever.

@Johncfields8

Anna Fine Foer

(b. 1957, Boulder, Colorado, USA)

Anna Fine Foer decided she would be an artist when she was 11-when she lived in Paris for a summer, visiting every museum and gallery. While a fibers/crafts major at Philadelphia College of Art (now University of the Arts), she became fascinated by the relationship between

maps and the land they represent, embarking on a lifelong interest in landscape and topography, depicted with collaged images. After emigrating to Israel, Anna worked as a textile conservator in Haifa and Tel Aviv. She studied at the Textile Conservation Centre, Courtauld Institute in London, where she received a Post-Graduate Diploma in Textile Conservation. Back in the US, Anna worked in conservation for the Textile Museum in Washington, DC, and for many museum clients as a freelance textile conservator. At the same time, she continued to construct collage landscapes with scientific, political, and metaphysical significance, depicting three or more dimensions on a two-dimensional plane. Anna now lives in Baltimore and has two adult sons. Her work has been exhibited at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, the Maryland Governor's Mansion, and the Israeli Embassy and is in the permanent collection of the Haifa Museum of Art and the Beer-Sheva Biblical Museum. She was awarded a prize for the Encouragement of Young Artists for work exhibited in the Artist's House in Jerusalem. She received a Maryland State Arts Council grant for Individual Artists in 2008, 2016, and 2021. annafineart.com

Jo Fobbs (b. 1999, Redwood City, CA, USA) Jo Fobbs (they/them), also known as Jo Xacto, is a 23-year-old Black trans, genderqueer artist from the Bay Area. While they've always been artistically inclined, they've only been active as an artist since 2019, fueled by both personal and political revelations and their experiences with anti-Blackness. Xacto's work is closely linked to their gender and racial identity and their passion for education and social justice. Following the lead of Black queer pioneer James Baldwin, Jo is currently studying abroad in Paris, France, aiming to enrich both their knowledge of art history and movements for human rights. They primarily work in analog collage, where they are presently focused on a digital humanities project titled Shattered Prisms. This project uses interactive collages as a medium for a visual archive, with a concentration on Black queer histories of activism. Through interactive image laps overlaid on scans of these collages, viewers can hover and click on each portion of the artwork, revealing critical biographies of

the individuals depicted, as well as articles, videos, and other educational resources. This project asks: What happens when Black trans bodies and performances go viral? What happens when that virality shatters normative ideas about the Black body, cultural production, and-perhaps more importantly--Black flesh? How can a publicly accessible, community-based "artchive" transform the field of education for the better and secure vital resources for the Black queer community? shatteredprisms.com

Fran Forman

(b. 1945, Baltimore, Maryland, USA)

Fran's photo paintings are in the permanent collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum (NASM, Washington, DC), the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Grace Museum, Abilene, and others. In 2022, she was awarded Top 50 from the prestigious Photolucida Critical Mass. Fran's latest book, The Rest Between Two Notes: Selected Work, was published in 2020, won an International Photo Award, and was selected as a best photo-book for 2020 by Elizabeth Avedon and What Will You Remember. Fran's book was also the exclusive feature in the photography magazine Dek Unu, featured in The British Journal of Photography, L'Oeil de la Photographie, and others. Escape Artist: The Art of Fran Forman, published in 2014, has also won several prizes, including a Best Photo-Book by Elizabeth Avedon. Fran has mounted many solo exhibitions, including The Henry Fox Talbot Museum, England; The Massachusetts State House and The Griffin Museum of Photography; AfterImage Gallery (Dallas); the University of North Dakota; Galeria Photo/Graphica (Mexico); Sohn Fine Art; OpenShutter (Dorango); and the Pucker Gallery (Boston), as well as numerous group shows. She has been featured in many magazines and publications and has received multiple awards and prizes. Fran resides in New England. franforman.com

Torea Frey (b. 1983, Portland, Oregon, USA)

Torea Frey is a collage artist based in Clackamas, Oregon. She works with found papers, glue, and paint to

explore the potential of mundane materials others may see little value in. Her work, which has appeared in group shows in the Pacific Northwest and beyond, touches on themes of gender, identity, belonging, and memory. She is a member of the Northwest Collage Society, National Collage Society, and Collage Artists of America. She lives and works in Clackamas, Oregon.

toreafrey.com

Ginnie Gardiner

(b. 1951, Shaker Heights, Ohio, USA)

Ginnie Gardiner's work has been exhibited extensively throughout the US since 1985. Gardiner received her BFA from Cornell University in 1974. She is widely known for creating collages that serve as studies for her paintings. In 1997 Gardiner curated a collage group exhibition, The Re-Associated Image, at Flanders Contemporary Art, Minneapolis, MN. Her collages and collage-based paintings have been shown in many exhibitions at Pavel Zoubok Gallery, New York, NY, including And I Quote, 1998, Talking with Tiepolo, Solo Exhibition, 2000, Collage, Signs and Surfaces, 2005, The New Collage, 2006, Daughters of the Revolution: Women & Collage, 2009 and In Translation: Austin, Deem, Gardiner, 2010. In 2018 she had a Solo Exhibition, The Color Prophecies, at the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum, Woodstock, NY. In 2019, Gardiner's work was included in the exhibition, Unfoldingobject, curated by Todd Bartel, at the Concord Center for the Visual Arts, Concord, MA. In 2021, Gardiner had a Solo Exhibition, GINNIE GARDINER: INTERLUSION: Recent Painting & Collage, at the Carrie Chen Gallery, Great Barrington, MA, and a two-person exhibition, Echo: Ginnie Gardiner & Amy Talluto, Recent Painting and Collage, curated by Kathy Greenwood, Director, Art and Culture Program, at the Albany International Airport, Albany, NY. ginniegardiner.com

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Caroline Golden

(b. 1960, New York, New York, USA)

Caroline Golden is a New York City-based collage artist. After graduating from college, she worked as a pasteup and mechanical artist, graphic artist, and art director for businesses and agencies. In 1996, realizing that

she could combine these technical skills with her innate talent and vision, Golden made the leap and became a full-time fine artist. Her studio is an inviting space for the creation of original art. It houses an ever-growing collection of found imagery and objects that become the material she uses to create her work. Caroline's collages are sometimes whimsical, often disturbing, but always thought-provoking. She creates work that investigates hidden realms, reveals inner truths, and explores the relationship between reality and fantasy. Her work has been shown in multiple solo and group exhibitions and can be found in private and corporate collections worldwide. In 2020, Golden's art inspired writer Derek Owens to create companion pieces for her series The Villagers. This collaboration is on display in a book of the same name, published by Animal Heart Press in February 2022.

carolinegolden.com

Ronald Gonzalez

(b. 1952 Johnson City, New York, USA)

Ronald Mario Gonzalez is a contemporary sculptor, assemblage, and installation artist known for generating bodies of work that explore the intersection between found objects and figuration. At the core of the artist's practice is the complex fusion of time-worn materials that blend personal memories and histories into proliferations of hybrid heads, figures, and assemblage objects articulated by personal symbolism and psychological complexity. His ongoing investigation into the nature of physical objects and their materiality emphasizes the disturbing overtones of found objects and detritus materials as a metaphysical grounding for our human condition. Since the mid-seventies, the artist has created elegiac sculptures and installations that are embodiments of mortality, memory, and survival, combining elements of both assemblage and bricolage, remaking dated leftovers at hand in the process of dissolution and renewal. Always working in anthropomorphized serial form, Gonzalez features permutations of materials, scale color, and texture giving degraded materials human status and presence through improvisation and craft. Gonzalez's sculpture is mournful, confrontational, and estranged. His restless investigation of animating materials has produced art with archaic,

apocalyptic, and quasi-alien distressed elements that permeate his work.

Scott Groeniger

(b. 1968, Columbus, Ohio, USA)

Scott Groeniger (aka Elasticlimit) is a multimedia artist working in various media, including printmaking, sound design, drawing, photography, and video. Recent exhibitions/performances include Drones for Peace, Colorado Modular Synth Society, Sound Design Live, Bas Bookshop and Gallery, Honolulu, HI, Bitfactory Gallery, Denver, CO, SITE: Brooklyn Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Niza Knoll Gallery, Denver, CO, Center for Contemporary Printmaking, Norwalk, CT, Czong Institute for Contemporary Art, Gimpo, South Korea, Lawrence Arts Center, Lawrence KS, Target Gallery, Torpedo Factory, Alexandria, VA, Galerie 103, Kauai, HI, University of Hawaii at Manoa Art Gallery, Honolulu, HI, White Box Gallery, Brisbane, Australia, Pacific Rim International Print Exhibition, Christchurch, New Zealand, Boston Printmakers North American Print Biennial, 808 Gallery at Boston University, Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts, Grand Rapids, MI, The Residence Gallery, London, UK, AC [Chapel] Gallery, New York, NY, Beijing Studio Center Gallery, Beijing, PRC, and Open Source Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. Groeniger is an Associate Professor of Digital Imaging and Chair of Printmedia in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is also the co-founder of the experimental printmaking collective known as the Lithopixel Refactory Collective. Groeniger was born in 1968 in Columbus, OH, and currently lives in Honolulu, HI. Groeniger's current visual artwork is focused on several major themes: the drawing of fictional maps referencing the recent discoveries of Earth-like planets, long-term generational space exploration, off-Earth architecture, methods of transoceanic navigation, the future of human life on other planets, and the extinction of humans on their current home planet, Earth. Much of his work also visualizes future designs and development of collective off-world colonies as humans begin to migrate to off-Earth living environments. The maps he renders reference the works of early cartographers, and he makes hybrid prints that combine traditional materials with digital technologies. Groeniger is also a sound

designer and modular synth artist, performing under the moniker Elasticlimit. scottgroeniger.com

Markus Haala

(b. 1982 Recklinghausen, Germany)

Markus Haala is an interdisciplinary artist whose research-based studio practice surveys environmental and ecological systems, often translated into projectbased, conceptual installations to explore the collapsing nature-culture distinction through examining materials, images, and sculptural objects. Components of his creative process are often found in dialogue with organic matter to underline the dichotomy of object and subject, to question what nature appears to be, what it seems to be not, and how its preconceived definitions collide with our general understanding of the natural and the artificial. Haala's interest in advanced technologies has led him to explore the application of 3D printing to express objects consistent with the general idea of materiality and edition related to printmaking. Haala received his MFA in Visual Arts from the New Hampshire Institute of Art in Manchester, NH, where he studied with artists Mark Dion, Mathias Kessler, Michael Oatman, and Craig Stockwell. His work has been nationally and internationally exhibited. Haala lives and works in New York City. studio-haala.com

Phoenix

Lacey

(b. 1998 Dallas, Texas, USA)

Phoenix Lacey is a non-binary multimedia artist and herbalist born in 1998. Their artwork, a self-taught spiritual practice, is a channeling made flesh–inspired by the animist spirit that resides in all things, which is governed by stars, archetypes, and the myths that give them meaning. Intrigued by all that is unseen, by collective shadows, messages in dreams, the elements that bind us and break us, and stories long forgotten, Phoenix seeks to weave unlikely threads to honor the complexity and interconnectedness of all things. Their work is not only an attempt to illustrate the ethereal but also a dream of stirring the cultural pools of humanity to reconnect us with other realms that live in layers upon our own. When we can shift our hearts to hold

everything around us in reverence, with a perspective motivated by nuance and curiosity, we can experience a true revolution of love that surpasses all categories used to blind and separate us. Phoenix's art is a labyrinth, inviting you into a mythic narrative with the hope that what you find will touch your subconscious, be carried by your spirit, and reverberate to create change.

@artemisia.panacea

Nancy Goodman Lawrence (b. 1949, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA)

Nancy Goodman Lawrence was born in 1949 in Pittsburgh, PA, and moved to Los Angeles in 1961. She attended UCLA, where she received a BA in art. She began as a painter and became interested in cut paper over the years, which has become an essential part of her work. She incorporates maps, vintage-style wrapping paper, and found papers into her mixed media paintings. Her work often features invented shapes, which can be read as living things found in nature or as mysterious objects. They often float in environments reminiscent of landscapes. Her work has been published in a variety of publications, which include: Corporeal Gestures (Clive Knight), How Art Heals (Andra Stanton), GASHER Literary Journal (Summer 2019), Kolaj Magazine #14, Geo Graphic, A Book for Map Lovers (Index Books, Barcelona), The American Journal of Nursing (illustration: Hot Flash!!), To the Power of N: When N Equals 10 (Lulu Publications), A Gathering of Sparks (Jewish Artists Initiative), Masters: Collage: Major Works by Leading Artists, (Randel Plowman), and Collage, Assemblage and Altered Art (Diane Maurer-Mathison).

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NancyGoodmanLawrence.com

Beverly West Leach

(b. 1959, Rochester, New York, USA)

Beverly West Leach was raised in a small town in the Fingers Lakes region of upstate New York. She received her BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio, and completed her MFA at Penn State in 1987. Beverly lived in Baltimore, Maryland, working as a graphic designer for twenty years before relocating to the south fourteen years ago. Currently, she bridges her past graphic design experience with

her skills as a trained painter and printmaker at Troy University in southeast Alabama, where she teaches foundations in art and design. In 2016 she received the Faculty Senate Excellence Award for her contributions to research, service, and teaching. Beverly's work has been exhibited throughout the United States in juried exhibitions, also solo and group shows. Her work is part of several corporate collections, private collections, The Baltimore Museum of Art Prints and Drawings Collection, and the Wiregrass Museum of Art. Throughout her career, she has worked in a wide range of media and methods. In her studio practice, collage and mixed media assemblages have been her medium of choice. In addition to her artistic pursuits, Beverly has been a beekeeper for eleven years. bevwestleach.com

Malcolm Lizzappi (Baltimore, Maryland, USA)

Malcolm Chong Lizzappi is a visual artist, scientist, and organizer. His work includes documenting Black and Palestinian movements for justice and life. In 2015, Malcolm received an Institute for Diversity in the Arts Community Arts Fellowship to document critical moments in the movement for Black lives. His present photographic work aims to expand and explore the visual vocabulary of alternative epistemologies of Blackness, e.g., Michelle Wright's Epiphenomenal Time. He recently received his BAH in African and AfricanAmerican Studies from Stanford University. Presently, he investigates Caenorhabditis elegans glia biology in the Laboratory of Developmental Genetics at Rockefeller University.

Janice McDonald (b. 1956, Evanston, Illinois, USA)

Janice McDonald makes elegant, abstract collages from repurposed paper and packaging. As the child of a family that moved all over the US (living in 8 different cities before starting high school), Janice surmises that her affinity for the collage aesthetic may have come from piecing together all the disparate experiences of her youth. She earned a BFA, with a concentration in design, from Oregon State University and has had a design

practice in Denver, Colorado, for 40+ years. In the late 1990s, she began experimenting with handmade collage as a creative counterpoint to computer-based design work. Since then, she has become an indefatigable collector of obscure and overlooked materials, ripping elements of color and texture from their original context to re-purpose in her work. Rearranged reality, assembled moments, and constructed views materialize. Janice's work often explores concepts of time/balance, growth, and environment. Her work has been widely exhibited. Her collages find homes with individual collectors in sitespecific commissions and corporate collections. These days Janice enjoys splitting her time between a Denver studio and one on the Oregon coast. janicemcdonald.com

Talin Megherian (b. 1962, Queens, New York, USA)

Talin Megherian studied painting at The School of Visual Arts NY and received her BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1985. She also studied painting in Rome at RISD's European Honors Program from 1984-85. She received Spark Grant from Creative Armenia in 2019 and a Pennsylvania Council On The Arts Fellowship in 1991. Megherian was chosen "Artist to Watch in 1992" by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. In 1992, she received the Gloria Fitzgibbons Award from the Greater Pittsburgh Commission for Women. She has exhibited her work on the east and west coast, in Rome and Scotland. Talin studied Italian Renaissance painting firsthand, and her work incorporates her Italian master's influences while also borrowing imagery from diverse sources of Armenian art, Surrealism, and religious iconography. Talin's visual vocabulary weaves recognized symbols with everyday objects to explore issues of identity, empowerment, and rebirth using additive and subtractive painting techniques that imply a collage format. Her most current work gives voice to the history of the Armenian Genocide while also celebrating her heritage and its rich traditions. Talin resides in Watertown, Massachusetts, where she teaches art and organizes student art exhibitions at the Atrium School. talinmegherian.com

Claudine Metrick

(b. 1979, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA)

Claudine Metrick is an interdisciplinary artist and Associate Professor at PrattMWP, an affiliate of the Pratt Institute. She will serve as an artist in residence at The Oak Spring Garden Foundation in the fall of 2023. Other awards include residencies at Norton Island and The Sumac Project and an Individual Artist Commission Grant from CNY Arts. Her work has been exhibited at the Vessels' Gallery, formerly in Boston's South End, as well as Carroll and Sons, the Dedee Shattuck Gallery, Danforth Museum of Art, the New Bedford Art Museum, the Cotuit Center for the Arts, AS220, the Memorial Art Gallery in Rochester, NY, The Thompson Gallery at The Cambridge School, Arizona State University, Morehead State University and in the New York City area at The Painting Center, Site: Brooklyn, and Curious Matter. Recent shows include the "26th Annual Drawing Show" at The Boston Center for the Arts in Boston, MA, and a solo exhibition of works "Biophilia" at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY.

ClaudineMetrick.com

Morphic Rooms

(Jeremy P. Bushnell, b. 1972, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and allison anne, b. 1985, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, USA), Morphic Rooms is a collaborative collage laboratory founded in 2021 by allison anne (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA) and Jeremy P. Bushnell (Dedham, Massachusetts, USA). They produce layered, abstract work that utilizes systematic parameters, creative rulesets, chance operations, and collaborative interplay as tools for radically reimagining a collection of images, texts, ephemera, and detritus, drawn from centuries of cultural accretion and mechanical reproduction. Together, they support the expansion of the public domain, cast a critical eye on the mechanisms of capitalized acquisition, aspire to produce convivial tools for making art, and work to make these tools accessible to all.

morphicrooms.com

Michael Oatman

(b. 1964, Burlington, Vermont, USA)

Michael Oatman is an artist living and working in Troy, NY, where he teaches in the School of Architecture

at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Born in 1964 in Burlington, VT, his art practice walked out from the woods of his home state into historical, scientific, and personal archives across America in search of the material culture that informs his installations and collages. Made from thousands of components, these 'un-vironments' can be seen long-term at MASS MoCA, The Tang Museum, and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. His works are in hundreds of collections and have been exhibited internationally. Oatman received the Nancy Graves Prize in 2003 and used the funds to create Conservatory, a working greenhouse comprised of 2500 criminal mug shots on glass plate negatives dating from 1898 to 1923. Factory Direct, an arts/industry residency, was exhibited at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, PA, and ArtSpace in New Haven, CT. His architecture students designed ROSE OCEAN: Living With Duchamp for the Tang Museum in 2018. Identifying his practice as "the poetic interpretation of documents," Oatman also collaborated with his parents (Gordon Oatman, 19372018 and Shirley Oatman, 1937-2019) on numerous installations, performances, and standalone works. While at RISD, he assisted Anna Mendieta in making one of her last earthworks, entitled Furrows, 1985 — the first of many collaborations and mentorships, including Alfred DeCredico, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Kate Ericson/ Mel Ziegler, British artist Tom Phillips, and violinist Todd Reynolds. Oatman was the first artist invited to work with the personal collections of Astronaut Neil Armstrong; in 2019, Purdue University's Museum featured his installation, My Father, Neil Armstrong, My Mother, The Moon.

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Marsha Nouritza Odabashian (b. 1954, Boston, Massachusetts, USA) Marsha Nouritza Odabashian, the grandchild of Armenian immigrants and genocide survivors, received her primary and secondary education in the Boston area. Odabashian studied at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, the Art Students' League in New York, and Massachusetts College of Art. She received a BFA from the University of New Orleans and an MFA from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts in Boston. Her paintings, drawings, and installations have been exhibited in galleries and museums in

Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, California, Louisiana, and Armenia. They have been reviewed by Art New England, ArtScope, ArtSlant New York, The Boston Globe, The Providence Journal, and Armenian Art Magazine (published in Yerevan, Armenia). Her work is in numerous private and public collections. Her past series Bus Stop addresses cycles of isolation and social gathering revolving in time through drawing, painting, and photography. Her series Palimpsests, In the Shade of the Peacock, and Stalking the Peacock draw upon medieval manuscript iconographic traditions to explore themes of modern and historical identity, dislocation, and memory. In her more recent bodies of work, EXPUNGE and Reliquaries, she relies upon ancient, medieval, and contemporary sources along with specific materials such as compressed cellulose sponge, onionskin dye and children's modeling compound, and acrylic paint to evoke strength and fragility, destruction and preservation of cultures and identities. She is interested in giving prominence to artistic traditions ignored in mainstream culture with a personal emphasis on feminism and her Armenian ancestry. Her studio is in Boston's South End. marshaodabashian.com

Ray Ogar

(b. 1973, Chicago, Illinois, USA)

Though originally born in 1973, Ray Ogar occasionally exists as if in 2130 or 1899. He is a surveyor of chronic lucid dreaming and practices collage, obsessive scrap paper collecting, and pink administration. At present, he is a collagist and meta-graphics technician by way of chemistry, then math (BS 1996), then music, then writing, then graphic design (BFA 2003), then graphic communication (MFA 2006), and is now an Associate Professor oriented towards illustration and design at the University of Central Arkansas. When not searching for books or material to resurrect through cutting and altering, it is safe to say that Ogar collects administrative office artifacts, discarded ephemera, and used graph paper. He is the founder of Cetapath Recordings (an independent music label featuring experimental sound, IDM, and avant-pop), the Zero Landmass Institute (a 5-volume, 3500+ page design/art project focusing on the intersection of dreams, scientific image collecting,

and bureaucratic creativity), and the Bureau of Visual Standards (a collage and collecting project focused on the counterfactual epistemology of image use, knowledge redaction as knowledge creation, and the detouring of vernacular design forms). If Ogar is not walking or teaching, then he can be found cutting paper. sites.google.com/view/ray-ogar

David Perrin

(b. 1988, Brooklyn, New York, USA)

David is an award-nominated Art Director, and graphic designer focused on collage photo illustration and a passion for social justice and activism through creative expression. His work is about representing Black and Brown issues and people in the progressive space. His work has been featured by American Illustration, World Illustration Awards, and the Brooklyn's Children's Museum. David's ultimate goal as a Black creative is to produce powerful imagery representing his culture and community. While managing Dpicting Studio, he also works as the Lead Graphic Designer for The Ford Foundation, where he produces powerful visual assets for print and digital media. His goal for 2023 is to continue to build a more inclusive space for Black designers and create access to design opportunities for the next generation of creatives/designers coming behind him. dpicting.com

Vaidehi Reddy (b. 2000, Pune, India)

Vaidehi Reddy is a traditionally trained Indian artist whose works explore the intersection between her cultural and historical background and her contemporary, predominantly Western visual education. The main aim within her practice is to redirect the focus from judgemental biases, labels, and identities onto more universal emotions, using art to increase empathy and a sense of collectiveness. Paralleling the stained glass of churches, her art aims to be accessible, ensuring it includes people of various social classes, backgrounds, and languages. She represented India at the Google Webrangers global summit at the Google Headquarters in Silicon Valley and has received multiple awards and grants, including Cornell Council for the Arts (Individual

Grant for Experimental Art), Alok and Majini Oberoi Scholarship, and David R. Bean Prize. She has also exhibited in solo and group shows, including at Palazzo Santacroce (Rome, Italy), On-site (Venice, Italy), Lalit Kala Akademi (Mumbai), Main Street Arts (Clifton Springs, NY), Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art (Ithaca, NY), Cornell University, and Papergirl (Brooklyn, NY). Reddy's work is also held with private art collectors internationally. Working between New York and Santa Fe, Reddy graduated with her B.FA from Cornell University in May 2022. artistvai.com

Seda Saar

(b. 1961, Teheran, Iran)

Seda Saar is a multi-faceted artist with an abstract visual language. Her tools for expression are painting, installation, sculpture, digital and interactive works composed with geometric forms in saturated chroma or enigmatic compositions. The artist explores transcendence, existentialism, consciousness, and unconsciousness, the visible and the invisible. She focuses on relationships between form, color, light, space, and movement, proposing a visual experience that represents her optimistic vision of the world. Seda studied Interior architecture and design at the London Metropolitan University in London and has a long and prolific career as a themed entertainment designer. In her artworks, she takes the viewer on a journey where color is the vector, the main element that intertwines forms and materials, transporting us into a chromatic universe. Her artistic process consists of constructing a series of 3d digital models, fabricating sculptures with light reflective or translucent materials, printing her digital paintings on canvas, and modifying them with a brush by creating textures and producing subtle lighting effects. Like a chromatic puzzle, the works are interconnected but entirely autonomous. The visual experience they propose is playful and celebrates science, technology, and infinite possibilities. The artist currently lives and works in Los Angeles. studiosedasaar.com

Joyce Saiete

(b. 1993, Maputo, Mozambique)

Originally from Maputo, Mozambique, and now based in Seattle, WA, an architect by trade, Joyce considers herself a visual artist focusing on digital collaging. In response to isolation, she began using this tool as a form of catharsis, allowing her to use it as a form of visual therapy. She uses this medium to decipher nightmares, understand her traumas, and visualize her subconscious. joycesimbinesaiete.com

Sasha Samuels

(b.1962, Mahopac, New York, USA)

Artist and designer Sasha Samuels creates in highly diverse cultures; Silicon Valley, the Pacific Northwest, and Italy (her Tuscan studio was, for a time, a 14thcentury Romanesque church). Samuels relocated part-time to the Bay Area expressly to cross-pollinate with world-class scientists in the region, particularly psychologists specializing in trauma recovery. Receiving her BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, she spent her senior year abroad as a member of its European Honors Program in Rome, Italy. This led to a lifelong multidisciplinary exploration, some with Italian masters, in painting, Florentine stone mosaic, goldsmithing, ceramics, sculpture, blacksmithing, and enamel, as well as numerous exhibitions, publications, and awards (including a juried exhibition/award at a national museum in Salerno, Italy). A self-supporting artist, primarily as a metalsmith, Samuels has always remained dedicated to her fine art practice in painting and sculpture. The artist is currently merging her metal arts with her fine art practice to produce interactive wall sculptures inspired by the Jungian perspective of alchemy. SashaSamuels.com

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Gregory Scheckler

(b. 1968, Kenosha, Wisconsin, USA)

Gregory Scheckler lives in the Northern Berkshires of Massachusetts. His artworks have been included in over a hundred exhibits, including the One West Art Center, the Bennington Museum, the Center for the Visual Arts Gallery at Illinois State University, and the National Science Foundation. He earned degrees from the

University of Notre Dame (1990), Washington University in St. Louis (1992), and Utah State University (1996). He also accomplished graduate studies at the New York Academy of Art (1993) and studied for a year at the University of Innsbruck, Austria (1987-88). In addition, he is a proud graduate of the legendary Clarion West Writer's Workshop (2018). He is a Professor of Art at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, where he founded the art major program and teaches creativity and critical thinking through drawing, painting, and digital media. He envisions the arts as survival strategies, playgrounds, vivid storytelling, rich ways of thinking, and core functions of our humanity. When he's not writing, artmaking, or teaching, he and his wife ski, hike, and bike the Berkshires and tend their solar-powered home. timespans.art

Sarah Slavick

(b. 1958, Munich, Germany)

Sarah Slavick is a member of the Fine Arts faculty at Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Among her rewards are a Massachusetts Cultural Council grant in painting and artist residencies at the Baer Art Center in Iceland, the Millay Colony, and the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art. Currently, her work, along with her three artist sisters, is on view in Family Tree at the Dowd Gallery at SUNY Cortland. Past exhibition highlights include Big Bang! Abstract painting for the 21st century at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park and Dix Artistes Americaines in Strasbourg, France. Her work has been featured in: Interalia magazine, an online publication concerning interactions between the arts, sciences, and consciousness; The Boston Globe; Hyperallergic, an online journal of contemporary perspectives on art and culture; Diacritics, the online journal of literature and art; Posit 9, and more. She has participated in the larger regional community through open studio events, charity auctions, and benefits for non-profits. She acts as a union leader, activist, artist, gallery director, curator, critic, juror, and teacher. She lives with her husband in Jamaica Plain, Boston. sarahslavick.com

Noreen Smith (b. 1972, Baltimore, Maryland, USA)

Noreen is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist born in Baltimore, MD, in 1972. Her love for making began from observing the women in her family create out of necessity or simply for the sake of making something beautiful but rarely for recognition or monetization. Those authentic experiences taught Noreen that art is a birthright belonging to everyone, a universal form of communication, and an intimate exchange that can evoke a visceral response on the deepest level. Knowing she could cultivate an artistic voice that could be seen, felt, and heard was the catalyst for her beginnings as an Artist. In exploring her artistic practices during the COVID-19 pandemic, Smith rediscovered her partiality toward creating paper collages. She sources materials from comics and graphic novels to change the narrative of the underrepresentation of Black/Brown female characters and create new storylines about the social/ racial inequities between Black/Brown women and their white female counterparts living out their feminine freedoms and truths. Noreen's collages emphasize the innate power found in womanhood and the divine feminine—inclusive of seldom celebrated complexities and nuances of female existence over time. njustisart.com

Linda Stillman

(b. 1948, New York, New York, USA)

Linda Stillman is a New York-based artist who works in various media, including drawing, painting, photography, and collage. She focuses on the natural world and the documentation of the passage of time. She has been awarded fellowships and residencies at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts (VA & France), the New York Foundation for the Arts MARK program, the Wave Hill Winter Workspace, and The Studios at Mass MoCA. Her work has been featured in many solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums around the country and abroad, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Dorsky Museum, Hunter College Art Galleries, the Arts Club of Chicago, and the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey. Stillman's artwork has been reviewed in numerous publications including the New York Times and Hyperallergic.

Her art is in many private and public collections such as the Dorsky Museum, Montefiore Hospital, and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. Stillman graduated from the University of Pennsylvania (BA), the School of Visual Arts, and Vermont College of Fine Arts (MFA). lindastillman.com

Nathan Stromberg

(b. 1978, Springfield, Massachusetts, USA)

Nathan Stromberg is a collage artist and painter based in St. Paul, Minnesota. He holds a Master in Fine Arts degree from The Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. He is a co-founder and member of Minneapolis's Twin Cities Collage Collective. For 18 years, he has exhibited his work locally and nationally through many solo and group exhibitions. His work tends to reflect iconic and nostalgic American subjects. Made from found newspaper and vintage color magazine fragments, his collages appear at first to be realistic or photographic. However, on closer inspection, his collages reveal loads of detail and historical references through images and type, exploring memory and commenting on our connections with designed objects. nathanstromberg.com

Kim Triedman

(b. 1959, Boston, Massachusetts, USA)

Kim Triedman is a practicing visual artist and an awardwinning poet and novelist. She works primarily in collage and often uses her photography in her pieces. Much of her work focuses on gender expectations and historical perceptions of femininity and sexuality. There is a lot of fragmenting in Triedman's collages: dissociated arms and legs, eyes peering or assessing or spying, mouths stuffed, agape, or blacked out. As an artist, it seems to be where she lands. Nobody is entirely intact. Figures are there and not there is the same time. Her imagination tends toward the provocative -- the visually arresting pairing or detail. A dapper business executive sideeyes a 16th-century Dutch girl, her left hand nested neatly over her belly A deconstructed Eve in the garden brandishes a perfect, tiny, silver nipple ring. Triedman's pieces have been shown widely throughout the United States and garnered numerous juror awards and

mentions. In 2018, she curated and participated in the show "Waste Not," which was featured as the cover story for ArtScope Magazine (Nov/Dec 2018). She has also been the "Featured Artist" in ArtScope Magazine (Jan/ Feb 2022).

kimtriedman.com

Rosanne Walsh

(b. 1964, Woonsocket, Rhode Island, USA)

American contemporary Artist and Educator Rosanne Walsh, b.1964, was raised in Massachusetts and trained at The Rhode Island School of Design, graduating with a degree in Film, Animation, and Video in 1987. She worked in various film production crew positions on Independent films and commercial videos for ten years before turning her energies toward education. Her M.ED from Lesley University allowed her to teach K-12 Visual Art for twenty years. A highlight of her public school teaching career was co-creating and writing curriculum for The Franklin Arts Academy—a school within a high school specifically designed for students to learn their Academic subjects by—with and through the artmaking practices of all art modalities. Walsh's allegorical paintings have been exhibited in New England and New York, but her dedication to integration is best satisfied through her current practice of collage and assemblage. Recently her work has been published in issues 8, 9, and 10 of Cut Me Up Magazine. Additionally, several of her works are currently being exhibited in a small, four-person show, at the James W. Palmer III Gallery at Vassar College entitled Imploding Meaning. @rosannewalshart

Michael Waraksa

(b. 1966, West Bend, Wisconsin, USA)

Michael Waraksa is a Milwaukee, WI-based artist/ illustrator working in the medium of collage. He has exhibited his work worldwide, and his illustrations have appeared in various publications, including The New York Times, TIME, and The Los Angeles Times. michaelwaraksa.com

Gregory T. Wilkins

(b. 1967, Chicago, Illinois, USA)

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Wilkins moved from the urban

center to a small town—Eustis, Florida, when he was nine. Raised in a multi-ethnic, multinational family, he faced adversity that shaped his development, social activism, and education. Working at the Smithsonian American Art Museum during the United States Congress' Culture War on the National Endowment of the Arts, he was empowered to use his artistic voice to create dialogue opportunities and address modern-day concerns. As an artist and educator whose mixed media and fiber pieces integrate hand and machine-constructed processes, he encourages viewers to reflect on the environment and social justice while encouraging people to think about their privilege and how they might affect change. The act of sewing is stitched throughout Wilkins' work. Historically, sewing has been labeled as "women's work". Wilkins fosters questions about privilege, what is "valued" work, and how it fits in a global context. Through reconstruction and imagination, he builds layers of paint, embroidery thread, photographic collage, ink, etc. Just as "women's work" has lost cultural currency, Wilkins emphasizes the power and importance of collective history/herstory to understand our collective truth and social constructs. gregorytwilkins.com

BBB Bios

Ujjal Sarkar, BBB Founder

Dr. Ujjal Sarkar (b. 1979, Howrah, India) earned his B.Sc in Chemistry from Presidency College, Kolkata, in 2000 and his M.Sc. in chemistry from IIT, Kharagpur, India, in 2002. In 2009 he earned a Ph.D. at the Prof. Kent S. Gates laboratory in anticancer drug design and the mechanisms of drug action and metabolism at the University of Missouri-Columbia, USA. He joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T) as a postdoctoral associate, was promoted to a Research Scientist, and worked with Professor Steven R. Tannenbaum in the department of Biological Engineering. While at MIT, Dr. Sarkar collaborated with scientists, engineers, and US government officials to develop the first multi-human-organs-on chip technology, funded by the US Defense of Project Agency. Dr. Sarkar then joined AstraZeneca to drive innovative Oncology

drug discovery, and he was acknowledged Global Oncology Innovation and Achievement Award by IMED in 2018. He received several awards, including the top Young Investigator Award on Human organ on Chip, The American Chemical Society, National Meeting and Exposition, Boston, Innovation in Biotechnology Award as Co-author; American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists sponsored by Genentech, Donald K. Anderson Recognition as "Outstanding Teacher" the University of Missouri-Columbia. He is currently heading translational drug biotransformation function at a Cambridge-based premier Neuroscience company, Cerevel Therapeutics. He has been an organizing committee member of Biotransformation Science–Applied Pharmaceutical Analysis-India Chapter since 2017. He has been a member of several scientific associations, including the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), American Institute of Chemists Foundation (AIC), American Chemical Society (ACS) Division of Chemical Toxicology, International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics (ISSX), American Chemical Society (ACS). Dr. Sarkar initiated a Global American Chemical Society-TOXI Chapter in India in 2022 and brought together partners from industry and government to forge US-India collaboration in chemical toxicology, water, food, drug safety, and related topics.

Teri Henderson, Curator, International Call Teri Henderson (b. Fort Worth, TX, 1990) is a Baltimorebased independent curator, the Arts and Culture Editor of Baltimore Beat, and the author of Black Collagists: The Book. Henderson holds a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Texas Christian University. She formerly held a curatorial internship at Ghost Gallery in Seattle, Washington. Henderson previously served as the Art Law Clinic Director for Maryland Volunteer Lawyers For The Arts and is currently on their Board of Directors. Her written work has been seen in: BmoreArt, All SHE Makes, Artforum, Justsmile Magazine, Kinfolk Travel, and the St. James Encyclopedia of Hip Hop Culture.

Pradip Maitra, Curator, Inda Call for Art Pradip Maitra (b. 1959 West Bengal, India) is an eminent artist who completed his BFA from the Indian College of Art in 1984. Maitra is a freelance artist, living solely from

producing and selling his watercolor paintings. His solo exhibitions include the Seagull Foundation for the Arts at Birla Academy, Birla Academy of Art & Culture, Calcutta, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai, Gallery 42, New Delhi, and Nehru Centre, Mumbai, and many more. His work was included in <I>Chariot of Civilisation</I> at the Birla Academy of art and culture, Kolkata. He participated in the Annual Exhibition and the All India Art Exhibition, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, (M.P), organized by the Society of Children Welfare. His work has been exhibited in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangkok, and Hong Kong. He pursued his career as an external examiner at Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata, and Khairagarh University, MP. He has worked as an art director in a Bengali feature film. His paintings have been auctioned in Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, and London (Bonham). Sotheby's. His paintings are in many museum collections, including the Museum of Bengal Art, Kolkata, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, Chitrakala Parishad, Bangalore Museum, Governor House, Orissa, Lancashire University, and many Private Collections in Germany, France, and the United States.

Somenath Maity, Curator, India Call for Art Somenath Maity (b. 1960 Darua, Contai, Midnapur east, WestBengal, India) received his 5-year Diploma College of Visual Arts, Kolkata, under the guidance of Shuvaprasanna. He received a 5-year diploma from the Indian College of Arts and Crafts 1980-85. He received the B.P. Poddar Memorial Scholarship from College of Visual Arts, Calcutta, 1984-85, and was awarded a Research Grant from Lalitkala Akademy, New Delhi 1993-4. In 2002 he received the IFACS vest Award, New Delhi, and a Birla Academy Award, and he received Senior Fellowship honors from the Ministry of Culture, Government of India 2003-4. He attended Workshop Dresden-Calcutta Artist at Arts Acre organized by Max Mueller Bhavan, the Terracotta workshop at Barn Gallery, U.K., the WOODCUT Workshop conducted by Richard Hards, organized by U.S. IS. and Arts Acre, the Graphic Workshop organized by Paula De Prima, organized by Alliance Franchise & Arts Acre, the Luxor International Artist symposium, and the Jaypur international artist symposium, the Portfolio, Dream and Reality, "Shuttle" Intaglio prints and poems by Dresden-Calcutta Artist

and poets. Maity has had more than 42 solo exhibitions from 1986-2016, including Gallery Sanskrity (Kolkata), Visual Art Gallery (Kolkata), India Habitat Center, Lalit Kala Akademy (New Delhi), Leela Palace (Bangalore), Ueno Royal Museum (Tokyo, Japan), Tao Art Gallery (Mumbai), LASALLE-SIA College of Arts (Singapore), 2002 at Barn Gallery (Henley, U.K.) and in New York, London, Stokhome, and Stuttgart. His work has been included in the Participants National Art Exhibition of Lalitkala Akademy from 1984-1994 and the II Bharat Bhavan Biennale, Bhopal, MP. His work is in the collections of the National Gallery of Modern Art (New Delhi), Lalitkala Akademy (New Delhi), N.C.E.R.T (New Delhi), Fukuoka Museum (Japan), Hindustan Lever (Mumbai), Tata Tea (Calcutta) and Munner Gujrat Heavy Chemicals, B.M Birla Science Center, Birla Academy, Taj Hotels, Hilton Hotel and numerous private collections in India and Abroad.

About The Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata

One of India's oldest fine arts academies, the Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata, was founded in 1933 by Lady Ranu Mukherjee. Initially located in a room rented out by the Indian Museum, the academy moved to its present location in the 1950s. The efforts of Lady Ranu Mukherjee, Dr. BC Roy (the then chief minister of West Bengal), and Jawaharlal Nehru, the then Prime Minister of India, are worth mentioning in this respect. The academy houses a vast collection of paintings and art by prominent Bengal School artists Gaganendranath Tagore, Jamini Roy, Nandalal Basu, and many others. Additionally, the academy holds regular exhibitions of art and painting by contemporary Indian artists. A theatre auditorium at the academy, one of the city's most popular theaters, organizes performances daily and has an annual theatre festival.

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