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Kytana Le, Illustration

Kytana Le (b. 1995, Houma, LA) is a Vietnamese-American illustrator based in New Orleans and Baton Rouge, LA. She is currently earning her BFA in Digital Art at Louisiana State University with a minor in Printmaking and Digital Media in the Arts and Engineering. Kytana’s work is an exploration of her ties with traditional Vietnamese ideals, including morals and family, in an American setting. Rather than the art being a means to an end, it is part of a process of understanding her stance in a world divided by two extremes. She uses media that feels volatile - such as watercolor and various forms of printmaking - as a way to gain authority over her work and, by extension, her own self.

[wunderkindmag]

Sarah Leuchtner, Painting

From her bio:

My practice works within the concepts of social consumption and guilty pleasure.  The paintings combine all the great qualities of abstract painting, with a crude autobiography through recognizable objects, symbols and icons; represented by stickers, iron-on jersey numbers, smiley faces, etc. Abstract Expressionism is a point of reference to my pieces; I use it as a means of displaying the traditional painters mark. My paintings are a product of binge-watching Sex and the City and the history behind when glob of paint is applied to the surface. Interrogating what is means to be a painter while consuming culture that is known as the guilty pleasure, my paintings have a push and pull between playfulness and sophistication.

[wunderkindmag]

Mai Ly, Illustration

Mai, b. 1997, is an art student currently studying in Germany.

Her work is heavily inspired by Japanese pop culture but also the precise looks of copper etchings. the fine-line drawings of her often combine the daily life of a common teenager with morbid yet cute elements.

[wunderkindmag]

Pamela Solares, Photography

Pamela Solares is a nineteen-year-old Honduran-American aspiring photographer based in Broward County, Florida. Her interest in the arts originated in early childhood and, since then, she has experimented in drawing, painting, mixed media, and other forms and techniques of creating art besides photography. She traditionally uses film cameras, such as her beloved Minolta XE-5 and x-700 cameras, as well her the digital Nikon D3200. She is also inspired by photographers such as Tyler Shields and Elliott Erwitt.

From her statement:

When I think of photography, the first thing that comes to my mind is storytelling. My favorite thing about photography is that a picture truly is worth a thousand words. Something about the color, the softness, the lighting, as well as the expressions of those in the photo can somehow come together in harmony to create something that will elicit emotion from a viewer. Occasionally inspired by my own favorite photographs, works of art, and films, my photography has its own agenda. Photography serves as my platform to express that which I cannot verbally communicate. It represents nostalgia, sadness, youth, innocence, joy, and memories. Any and every moment can become a photograph. Any moment can tell a story, left behind by time, that can resonate with even just one person in the audience. What I want from my photography and my goal in visual arts overall is that person. Those whose emotions will stir in their stomachs when they see my work. I hope to inspire others. I hope others can find comfort in my work. And I hope to create little worlds with each series.

[wunderkindmag]

Noelia Towers, Painting

Noelia, b. 1993, is a contemporary painter based in Chicago, IL. 

From her statement:

From the darkest side of my world to the most colorful palette.My body of work is a mix of my own reality, my wildest dreams and my deepest thoughts. I finds inspiration in feminist culture through the lens of my own experiences and strong female figures who are part of my life. Anthropomorphism is an important component of my painting work where I create a fantasy world to synthesize human and animal traits in allegorical-esque portraits and still lives. 

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Julien Langevin, Painting

Julien, b. 1996, is a contemporary painter based out of Portland, ME. 

Through an analyzation of their own body, gender identity, and personal philosophy, Julien's work questions the authority of an aesthetic relationship between gender identity and presentation of self. By using traditional painting methods and drawing on the history of classic portraiture and presentation of the female body, they delve into the belly of society's need to beautify and decorate the female figure in order for it to be considered as an acceptable form, critiquing this point of view. Julien uses their own experiences being a feminine-presenting genderqueer person to cultivate relationships between color, form, and deco within their work, and critique them in a way that brings light to recognizing gender as a spectrum. By beautifying the obscurely androgynous figures within their paintings, Julien deals with personal issues concerning their own physical body and how it contradicts their gender identity, as well as confronting their viewers with an image that will force them to consider the relevance of femininity in association to gender and personal presentation.

[wunderkindmag]

Tessa Edgren, Painting

Tessa Edgren, b. 1995, is a Colorado native currently studying painting and drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Tessa Edgren creates characters in her work that allow her to portray the confusing interaction between religion and sexuality. The young twins around which much of her work revolves are a study of the over-sexualization of young girls and the fetishization of religiousness and purity in those same girls. These same intersecting issues have created a subculture—or sisterhood—of "sad girls," young women who grew up in religious households, suppressed and oppressed by the virgin ideal. These characters act out Tessa's fantasies and fears, especially those centered around sex, purity, and death. Although the twins are young, in some of the work Tessa uses that age to enhance the anxiety around preparing for death.

[wunderkindmag]

Bailey Tredway, Photography

From her bio:

My name is Bailey Tredway, and I'm a sixteen-year-old photographer from Wichita, KS. I'm currently about to finish my junior year in high school and hope to pursue photography as a career. I gain inspiration from many people that I follow on social media websites, fashion magazines, and surroundings around me. My work deals most often with contrast between lighting and the subject I shoot, which over time I began to change to photographing people more. People, more than anything else, convey so many different emotions and interact with nature (and vice versa) in so many different ways. Since seriously getting into photography about four years ago, I have grown to constantly look at people in environments in a new light. Through all forms of media I use, I aspire to not only improve artistically but learn how to convey emotions in ways that others can experience them as well. Photography and other forms of art, as cliche as it sounds, influences my life in almost every aspect, and I can only hope to affect others viewing my work in the same way.

[wunderkindmag]

Darius Airo, Painting

Darius Airo was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois where he currently lives, works and is a student at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Airo’s work is observational. As an individual who digests the environment that surrounds him visually, Airo employs a nuanced drawing language that is derived from cartoon imagery, commercial imagery, and the vastness of art history that responds to its setting in a way similar to his own. Arshille Gorky, Franz West, Philip Guston and Eddie Martinez resonate strongly with Airo; in the midst of digesting his space, he is constantly negotiating the image world and maintaining a fluid discourse with urban life and contemporary painting.

[wunderkindmag]

Wendy Robles, Graphic Design + Letter Press

How To Meet An Echo

This book was written with the inspiration of creating a short how to manual on meeting an echo. The process begins with entering an abyss, from there the pages begin to darken in tone. The last page is a black ink print on Arches black paper. The book was created in two sizes, the smaller size 4" x 12" and the larger size 8" x 12", both creating different tones for the story based on size. The text moves through a five column grid structure with each page until encountering the last page in which the words "meet an echo" are pressed into.

[wunderkindmag]

Kelsey Critchfield, Painting

From her bio:

My name is Kelsey Critchfield and I am 24 years-old. I am a fine artist and illustrator. I graduated with my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Illustration from Brigham Young University in 2015, moved to New York City shortly after, and lived and worked there as the Membership Administrator at the Society of Illustrators for one year. Since then I have returned to Utah in hopes of applying my talent and experience in a more direct way with my art career.

[wunderkindmag]

Alexander Hayden, Drawing

Alexander Hayden (b. 1993) is a figurative artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. His works currently center on themes of manipulation, violence, the inconsistency of identity, the relationship of consciousness and environment, acceptance of the entire spectrum of one's character traits, and seeking peace in indifference. The artist strings these melodies along more intimate content based on the experiences of his personal life. Hayden notes other major themes are the inaccuracy of communication and perception, and an emphasis on direct personal experience. Addressing this, he allows a broad range of emotions and ambiguous imagery to show in his work, leaving each piece unhindered by the artist's definition, and open to the viewer's.

[wunderkindmag]

Layla Zubi, Mixed Media

Layla Zubi (b. 1991) is a visual artist from St. Louis, Missouri. In her recent and continuous body of work Zubi is producing, her concepts focus on assembling traditional patterns from wearables and fabric. These printed sources are the Uzbek ikat and the Palestinian keffiyeh. Both specifically concentrate on her Palestinian and Uzbek cutural background of her personal experience and what it means growing up as a minority and a first generation American. What started out as applying both patterns in motifs of an entity, Zubi has created dynamic compositions by taking apart the bits and pieces from their original source in celebrating its rich uniqueness and forming narratives by merging biological tools through an abstracted aesthetic point-of-view.  

[wunderkindmag]

Simone Quiles, Painting

Simone Quiles is a Chicago based interdisciplinary artist. Her work is primarily influenced by her mixed race identity as a Puerto Rican, and African-American woman and how this effects her in her daily life. Most of her work explores the negative side affects of being a mixed race woman such as the societal exploitation and fetishization of her body. In most societies the female body is often sexualized and commoditized, and even more so when it is a female body of color. Although her sexuality is exploited, she challenges this by depicting images that convey a reclamation over her own body and sexuality. She often portrays these themes through the medium of oil paint, in which she primarily paints self portraits. These paintings often use vibrant colors and tropical fruit, alluding to the visual aesthetics of island life in the Caribbean. Simone also looks into themes of mental health, which she portrays not only through paint but fibers materials as well. She uses materials and techniques such as felting, sewing and dyeing of fabrics. She currently attends the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

[wunderkindmag]

Alexa Bunnell, Print Media

Alexa Bunnell is a print media and ceramic artist currently based in Calgary, Alberta.

I currently work heavily in imagery, especially in my print media work. I look to use imagery in this work as a form of communication. By occasionally placing my work into a book format, I can enjoy playing further with the imagery as a form of information and as an exchange of ideas and concepts. My ceramic work is currently also imagery based, but in a different approach. Due to the permanence of fired ceramic material, I work a lot with memeory, and how these pieces contain memories, not only in their making (fingerprints, throwing lines), but in the images inscribed in their form. My work focuses on the intimate, I am interested in keeping an audience and cradling them, versus alienation or intimidation. I want to comment on the human condition, and the experiences in this condition.

[wunderkindmag]

Devon Rodrigues, Painting

As I continue my investigation of the underground world, I learn new things about people. I roam the subways with my sketchbook and camera to record the psychology of the overlooked. Through my work, I want to express my fascination with contemporary urban life. I paint people how they are, studying the gestures, facial expressions, and mannerism that reveal their psyches. I observe my surroundings and paint what impresses me. My goal is not to replicate photography, but rather, to instill in the viewer a sense of empathy for the subject. 

[wunderkindmag]

Jeremy Steffen, Painting

Jeremy Steffen (b. 1991, Goshen, IN) is a realist painter based in Chicago, IL. He studied at Columbia College from 2010-2014. He is currently expanding his portfolio and establishing his techniques.

       The work of Jeremy Steffen is a reflection of humanity through a combination of abstraction and realism. The models in his paintings are generally close acquaintances to Jeremy, and it is important to him that he captures that connection. Through the gaze and the manipulation of color and medium you can see his intentions. When looking over one of Jeremy’s portraits and looking deep into the subjects eyes, you feel as if you’ve known this person intimately and are transported into their world.

      It is a great display of humanity, nature, and the relationship they have with painting.