My photomontage process explores our buying habits and how we are led by a culture of artful sellers. My stories are about our conflicts and dualities illuminated by the objects we nimbly consume. I invite my audience to meander through my decorative tableaus to rediscover the underbelly of our humanity--to better understand who we are, who we've been, and who we are becoming.

I've always been interested in our willingness to be sold, but our options have multiplied and it's wearing us out. More than anything else this is why enduring loyalties are formed. Once we believe that our values and choices align, we're happy to choose what has earned our trust.

But what happens when our choices and values conflict? How often are we attracted to something we also find unsettling? Do we buy it anyway, soothing our emptiness? Or do we leave it behind and walk away? 

Ryan Bock specializes in painting, drawing, puppetry, animation and experimental film methods. Preferring a hand crafted aesthetic, and feeling as if the use of computers diminishes the presence of his artistic hand- the majority of Bock’s work is devoid of digital mediums. Instead he focuses on the use of older, time tested analog methods. At the root of Bock’s practice is a need for narrative structure. Resting somewhere between mythology and nightmare Bock depicts mise en scène riddled with symbology and allusions both cinematic and painterly in nature. With a new found fascination for shape, shade, shadows, structure and optical illusions, Bock breaks his subject matter down into often barely recognizable delineations and structurally unsound repetitive patterns. In an attempt to confront the modern individual’s relationship to mortality, fear and superstition, Bock often depicts correlations between the human figure and its innovations: technology, architecture and religion- both historically and fictitiously. By consistently contrasting historical issues with those of current times, and using the reoccurring patterns found to generate predictions about our future (a process he refers to as ‘dusty futurism’) bock aims to propel his audience to question the routine human experience and disclose the illusions set in place to keep them from questioning. 

Ivette Urena is an artist born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. Her passion for the visual arts developed in her childhood years, inspired by watching her father creating art, she doodled and sketched every free moment she had.

In adulthood, she has found solace in painting and will often say art is her therapy.  Her style combines the figurative and nature elements in vibrant colors depicting beauty to camouflage the underlying troubled reality.  The artwork is inspired from her emotions of her past/present experiences, her emotions on social issues and/or admiration of nature. She expresses artistically what is sometimes difficult to communicate verbally.

Currently Ivette paints for pleasure and special projects. When viewing her artwork you may feel her affliction surrounding social issues or sometimes think a tormented inner child painted it or it’s simply beautiful artwork.

I combine figurative and nature elements painted in vibrant colors. The elements of nature painted in the vibrant colors depict a beautiful world and imply notions of calmness despite the troubled characteristics in the figurative to create a distraction from their underlying distress.

My magical mystery collage adventure started many moons ago in a little silk screen shop known as Daydream Silkscreen in a basement in Orange County, NY. Me and my friend Eric had an original clothing line and I started experimenting with collage to create designs for our shirts.

The more I made, the more addicted I became with the process... the search for books, the cutting and collecting of images, and of course the placement of the images. Making collages became rather therapeutic as well. Eventually people took more notice to my original collages than the t-shirts. I then took a new path and moved to Brooklyn where I started to hop on every group show I could find. Then I curated my first show in Bushwick in 2008 featuring over 40 local artist. It was a huge success and after a few more shows I decided to start the Brooklyn Collage Collective in 2013. 

BIO:

Morgan Jesse Lappin is a collector of the unusual, the sensual, and anything “magical”. Sometimes you can see him on his magic carpet hovering around Brooklyn, spreading love like butter on a hot southern biscuit. Morgan was kidnapped by a religious fanatic and survived, he can do 30 jumping jacks faster than any 7 year old in the world, yet he makes sure his room is vacuumed at least 4 times a day. Pro Russian Dancer, he travels the earth within his own mind, leaving bits and pieces of himself where ever he goes. 

When making collage pieces the images Morgan uses come strictly from old encyclopedias, and other older publications. He uses nothing more than a physical cut and paste/tape method with all his work. The goal of his work is to make the viewer think about the characters in relation to the situation and environment in which they are placed. The juxtaposition of character and setting create witty and poignant statements that make people think, and most times smile. Newer works have taken on a new style in which smaller images are pieced together as if it was a puzzle that doesn’t exist. These grouped images eventually take on its own entity when completed. 

Web Site: www.MorganLappin.com

IG: @Morgan_Jesse_Lappin

Bio: Masha Simonova attained a BFA in Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) in 2015. She was born in Moscow, Russia, and currently lives in New York, NY, and works in Bushwick, Brooklyn. 

Artist Statement: "I view painting as a window into our world, In my work, I discuss complex human experiences, emotions, and shortcomings by creating fictional setting for actions and events to occur. I have been using the loose setting of “a jungle” to build scenes that engage with issues pertinent to contemporary society, as well as human history. The jungle is this place of chaos, brightness and exoticism, and a fitting location to stage happenings with human characters and jungle creatures, which act as stand-­‐ins, or spirit animals. Main themes in the work are desire, fear, anxiety, and violence, that tie into a metanarrative geared at a critique of our society. Through my work, I engage the viewer into scenes of dystopia of which they become complicit."
 

David Chan (b. 1990, Singapore) is a visual artist based in Brooklyn, New York. He holds a BFA in Photography from Parsons School of Design. An escapist rebelling against a pragmatic upbringing, his work investigates his experience of the physical world, in which the romantic and scientific are at a constant friction with each other. He is interested in the moment when one breaks routine and loses a sense of familiarity with the world, being reminded of the nature of being and self as a result. Using a combination of photography, machine-made materials, and everyday objects, his work at once provokes wonder and disappointment, as visual phenomena are created using readily-available objects in unsophisticated ways. Through his work, he seeks to understand the distance between the picturesque landscapes of the world and the abrasive realities of day-to-day existence.