Returning to the familiar language of drawing in 2016, I find myself grappling to navigate the paradox of having an environmental agenda and art practice dependent on materials while living within socio-political systems that cause irreversible damage to the planet. My drawings are pictorial representations of seeing, sensing, and thinking created to document internal and external landscapes, driven by the desire to understand the current ecological crisis, the scale and complexity of which remain hard to comprehend.

Making art was the only thing I wanted to do for as long as I can remember. Growing up, this passion was encouraged, but less so as I approached adulthood. I was accepted into the College of Fine Arts at the university of my choice, but before I could even set foot on campus, my parents got cold feet and insisted that I change course. As an 18-year-old kid whose parents were still writing the checks, I went along with their plan to study occupational therapy (OT) instead of art, not fully appreciating what impact this decision would have on my life years down the road.

Home life was toxic and for escape, I turned to music, horses and drawing. I married my high school boyfriend and raised two children in Boulder, CO, before finally realizing that I needed to make some major changes in my life. By chance, I signed up for a stone carving workshop and was instantly hooked.

My name is Tochukwu Darlington Obiakonwa and 2chuxs is my nickname, a coinage from my first name Tochukwu which I sign on my finished drawings. I am a self-taught artist from Nigeria and sometimes I think that I have always been an artist even in my mother’s womb. I studied banking and finance at Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike, Abia state Nigeria. Growing up on the streets of Orile, a lower-class suburb in Lagos Nigeria was a pure mix of fun and discipline. My immediate environment contributed immensely to my life as an artist. My playmates, siblings and childhood friends all played a role both consciously and subconsciously.

Since art school, I started to participate in shows. I studied Theology and later Art Management and Curatorship. Today I hold two Masters of Arts and the European Diploma in Cultural Project Management a nomadic study program in Greece, Portugal and Luxembourg. I spent the summer semester in Sweden and received an Erasmus grant to study art in Italy. In 2013 I graduated from Printmakers Department at the Art Academy of Latvia. And for 5 years I am a freelancing artist, teaching visual arts and I am a member of the Latvian Union of Artists.

My name is Ryan Gondarowski and I am an America-based fine artist. I was first introduced to art by my grandmother at the age of 12, who taught me to work from life. My passion eventually led me to study at the Academy of Realist Art in Boston with a one-year scholarship at age 17. Since graduating in 2022, I have continued the study of academic art to this day.

I started to feel that I was lacking truly creative design opportunities and increasingly I found myself designing furniture, often using industrial and bold materials. I quickly realized that I needed help fabricating properly, and felt a study in sculpture should be helpful, which I pursued in Belgium where we were living at the time. However, while learning to work with varied materials I was introduced to figurative sculpture, and it totally moved me. I immediately shifted my focus to sculpting figuratively and portraying the human condition.

My name is Asha, I am a graphite and charcoal artist. From a young age, around the age of 5, I began drawing people which included full-figured people in different positions whether it be standing, sitting or kneeling and I’ve always had an interest in clothing. My background includes a corporate career in fashion design during which I designed sleepwear. Alongside that, I also did commission portraiture. I went to school for fashion design from 2011 to 2015 and received a Bachelor's degree in Fashion Design. And also an Associate's degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology.

I am Mariana Ruscher and I live in Escobar with my husband and youngest daughter, where I have my studio. I love art in all its forms, I like to travel and enjoy nature. I am a mother of 3 women and I have 4 dogs. In my youth, I dedicated myself to garden design and worked in my parents’ nursery. I’ve been drawing for as long as I can remember but I began a career in art when my daughters grew up. It was something I always dreamed of doing and for some reason put off. In 2018, I was accepted into the Regina Pacis School of Art and from then I continue to improve myself in oil and graphite painting and graffiti.

My name is Joseph Bui. I am a portrait photographer and artist based in Houston, Texas identifying as Vietnamese-American and a member of the LGBTQ+ community. I recently graduated in May 2022 from Colby College in Maine with a B.A in Studio Art: Photography.

I am a Canadian artist and always have had a passion to paint and draw. I was born and raised in Toronto and my parents immigrated here from Italy. When my guidance teacher was trying to find where I should go to high school, he looked at my grades and saw my highest were in art, so off I went and entered the art program at Central Tech in Toronto. This was the start of my formal art training and I was lucky to be starting it so early. I was drawing from a live model in grade nine and was taking many other art classes. I then went on to study at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto and also received a B.A. in Fine Arts from the University of Guelph.

I am an artist specialising in conceptual imagery and self-portraiture through fine art photography. While earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2013 with a focus on creative writing and literature, I acquired a love for stories, which I later nurtured and focused into my distinctive artistic imagination. Originally from Hungary, I grew up in Los Angeles and Auckland, New Zealand before settling in Herefordshire in the United Kingdom with my husband and two children.

I am a Canadian artist with a passion for figurative art. I first knew I would become an artist at a very young age, being severely dyslexic. I drew what I could not put into words. I dabbled a bit with painting and that came so easily to me, I knew that this was what I was meant to do. However, coming from a traditional middle-class family a career path as an artist was not an option for me. So I channelled my love of drawing into studying technical Illustration at Sheridan College in Ontario which led me to a career in advertising. However, I felt that I was always pushing down my desire to paint. Finally, I decided to listen to my heart and pick up a brush and start painting. 

My name is Anna Mihailidou and I was born in 1975 in Athens, Greece. My painting journey began at an early age more as a refuge due to difficult years in my life. During the course of my life, it became an internal necessity, something that continues to this day. The life of an artist is not easy especially when you have to survive. So, because my need for painting was irrevocable but I couldn't survive just on my artwork I had to take other jobs to support myself financially.

I developed a burning curiosity for drawing and started engaging myself with painting comics and images of interest to me at the time and through exploring various mediums, I developed my practice over time. I did not initially set out to be an artist, only after earning my BSC in Plant Biology from the University of Benin did I come to the realisation that art was my true passion as I set out to pursue my art career in 2018.

I am a painter living and working in a small Midwest (USA) university town with my husband, two children (18 and 20), and pets. I earned a BFA in Painting and BA in Art History from Indiana University in 1997. I have pursued museum work as a day job but have never stopped painting. Once my children were older, I recommitted to my painting career, adopting a daily studio practice.

My advice is “don’t tell your big dreams to small-minded people.” If you suffer from low self-esteem as I do, negative comments can be the death knell of your art project. I only listen to criticism that is constructive (i.e. helps me problem solve or challenges me to improve) and I only share my artistic ideas with people who I know are open-minded.

I am a full-time professional artist, living and working in a small coastal town in England. Since a child, I have always drawn and painted and although they recognised talent at my school it was not considered the 'normal' thing to go on to university.

“What inspired you”, again, is the the crux of my artistic struggle and I’m still sorting through it! I do recall the first ‘sculptural’ thing I ever made. It was in Mrs. Pets’ 7th grade art class. We were experimenting with papier mâché. I was nudged to make something highly specific: a seed-like form, painted red on the outside, like an apple but more like a pomegranate seed, and inside was to be a long stairway leading to a special city with lots of tall, silver skyscrapers. I was inspired to call it, “The Apple Island”, and it stood in our school’s foyer display cabinet next to popsicle stick houses and painted rock paper weights for the rest of the year as an object of curiosity.

My name is Gabriella Wyke and I am a 26-year-old freelance photographer and the owner of recently established, Gifts from Gab Studios Limited- an art-based company that provides various creative solutions such as photography, videography, graphic design and much more.