Vivid - About the Artists
Clara Bolle
As a philosopher, I view my writings and art as tools to do research. My main question in relation to thinking and making is: What does it mean to be your body instead of having a body? My aim is to think of bodies in a non-medical, anti-capitalist way and look for other ways to experience our bodies, for example, a new anatomy of the body, the hand as a self-portrait or the relation between nature and our body.
Website: www.clarabolle.com
Natalie Bradford
I'm a mixed media artist currently based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. My work focuses on memories and nostalgia; I pull both personal and borrowed memories from family photos, letters, and other found vintage ephemera to create new 'memoryscapes' and stories that reflect both the vividness and fleetingness of memories with a strong sense of nostalgia and a hint of melancholy.
Link to website/social media: https://linktr.ee/natalie.bradford
Danté-Danýel (Atelier Dédé)
Danté is a multiracial artist and writer based in Europe.
Coming from an artistic family, he was enrolled in art classes and in art school from a young age.
He had his first solo exhibition at the age of 13 but, due to trauma, stopped painting altogether four years later and turned to writing essays, short fiction, poetry and columns for European and American magazines and anthologies instead.
In 2021 he started painting and creating objects again to process his childhood trauma and PTSD and his experiences with racism and loss.
More of his work is displayed on his Instagram under @dan_dan_paints
Artist statement:
My work aims to transform and process memories and experiences to turn them into something visible.
"Love is red, but you left me colorblind" captures the feeling after a breakup when you are not entirely okay yet but feel like you want to be ready again to meet someone and when you feel the need to connect with someone but as you jump back into dating it feels nice yet wrong. You want to be open and enjoy yourself, but deep inside, you feel this type of being not really there yet, the worries that this new chapter could end like the last that causes you to see red flags instead of the vivid and lively shades of red that love once had in your mind.
Margot Dermody
Margot Dermody is an artist currently living in Pittsburgh, PA. She was born in Maryland and has lived and worked in San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Nashville. Growing up, she lived in Rome for a year. Margot has been exploring and making art for more than 30 years, and for the past 4 years, she has had a full-time studio practice. She primarily works in acrylic on canvas, wood, and paper and in mixed-media with photography, collage, oil, found materials, and most recently, glass. Margot's work includes nature and human emotion elements in a palette that varies from vibrant to monochromatic.
Artist Statement
I create artwork that incorporates memories of personal experience, significant places, feelings of hope and serenity, and my lifelong passion for nature. My work is also informed by changing conditions of light and the texture of water. The dance of making marks, considering them, and responding to them is an integral aspect of my process.
I work intuitively to express the beauty I see in my surroundings and places experienced. I feel awe and inspiration at the edge of a body of water, alongside mountains, or in the deep woods. Using contemporary methods with acrylic, mixed media, and glass, I create opaque and translucent layers to achieve depth. As I work, I explore the tension between minimal and overworked spaces.
Today, I am interested in how we can bring light into our lives and keep it fresh. My artwork reflects the beauty of light and the courage to find it. I hope my work will lift viewers emotionally. I am grateful to be able to express myself freely through my work while also using it to connect with others.
Website: linktr.ee/Margot.Dermody
Lauren E. Godfrey
Lauren E. Godfrey is an American fine art painter living in Hamburg, Germany. In her colourful and energetic works, she depicts unique perspectives of the human figure, everyday objects, and landscapes. Her oeuvre focuses on exploring her subjects visually and emotionally to establish a deeper connection and capture a dream-like reality in which the viewer is invited to explore their own narrative.
In her new series of landscapes, her subjects become memories of places, emotions felt there and colours perceived to establish visual imageries of her experiences. She is continuing to explore the soak-stain technique, which develops a feeling of spontaneity as the colours ebb and flow into each other, creating beautiful colour combinations. The abstracted scenes capture a feeling or sensation and portray an effect similar to watercolour.
Website: https://www.laurengodfreyart.com
Instagram: @l.e.godfrey.art
Chris Jorel
Chris Jorel, IG @SixSpeedArt, works primarily in oil, creating vibrant cityscapes of her current home of Atlanta, GA. She is influenced by the late and greats: Monet, Rothko, Warhol, and Van Gogh, as well as many contemporary artists. Chris' work aims to bring visual excitement through colours, brushwork, and composition.
Vladimir Marcu
Vladimir Marcu is a multidisciplinary artist interested in the relationship between the viewer or reader and the creator. His presence is mostly felt offline rather than online, but you can see some of his work here.
Michelle Phillips
Michelle Phillips is an MFA candidate at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA.
She has a background in science & art and finds daily practice in the studio begins with walking in nature as a warmup. Every day allows her to collect vivid colours and shapes and, when she returns home, to be inspired by all she has seen and felt, by the action of moving across life's surfaces before working. Showing up each day to the same route is never a dull moment because the most creative artist spirit out there in the universe and everything Mother Nature is busy doing, constantly changing and transforming. Her contemplation investigates the human conditions of understanding life, creativity, and what the "birthday suit" and the "big pictures" are really about. We are all one, all part of a never-ending story, and the vivid proof is ours for the taking, life moves fast, enjoy a little magic, create some too!
Instagram: @sbp.art.113
Jonathan Rossney
Bio
Sleep apnea, sarcasm, chocolate; too many cameras, books and opinions; likes wintry beaches, forests, cities at night, and bento boxes.
Statement
All my work is based on mirroring photographs (sometimes digital, sometimes large format film) to create strange, unsettling, and occasionally humorous creatures that I hope resonate with the viewer. As for what they mean, they may be a reaction to living in a time where the splintered funhouse of social media surrounds us with mostly illusory monsters, or a reaction to the disorientation and anxiety caused by the pandemic, or a comment on how we impose meaning on a chaotic world or evoking the alienness of the natural (or indeed the industrial) environment by anthropomorphizing it; or because I'm a big fan of monster movies. Or whatever you're having yourself...
Website: https://jonathan-rossney.format.com/
Instagram: @jonathanrossney/
Michelle Schultz
Michelle Schultz is a painter based in Bend, Oregon. She has a degree in Studio Art from the University of Georgia and studied art in Italy and Costa Rica. After university, she moved to New Zealand, where she showed and sold works for 3 years. Now she is an artist and mother of 3 in the Pacific Northwest USA.
Instagram: @michelleschultzart
Matina Vossou
Matina Vossou is a self-taught artist living in Athens, Greece. She uses acrylics and a toothpick, a technique which she learned from her father, who was a naïve painter. She paints faces like perfectly unfinished mosaics of emotions and ideas. She believes that every face is a journey, and probably looking at them will be our longest, most adventurous and knowledgeable trip.
Instagram: @matinavossou
Other links: https://www.saatchiart.com/account/artworks/1398719
https://www.madsgallery.art/item/54492a30-1725-4ccd-9cf1-e0e79e1e16da/artist/matina-vossou
Larry Wolf
A criminal defence attorney in Los Angeles for 45 years, Larry Wolf became an artist about ten years ago, merging his profession with his passion into a collection of abstract works he has chosen to call "A Brush with the Law." His work reflects a never-ending search for new alternatives and solutions to problems both in art and in the courtroom. Larry utilizes an intriguing and unique process whereby he pushes acrylic paint through the back of a silkscreen canvas, resulting in strikingly vibrant abstract compositions layered in eye-catching shapes and textures.
Website: www.abrushwiththelaw.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/abrushwiththelaw
Instagram: @_abrushwiththelaw