‘ Allison Schulnik choreographs her subjects in compositions that embody a spirit of the macabre, a Shakespearian comedy/tragedy of love, death and farce. The subjects often stare back at the audience and study them as they are in turn studied, aware of their ancestors from the Grand Theme works of the past, the genre paintings that inform them. Although a haunting sense of foreboding, discomfort and unease is palpable, a sense of understanding, compassion and hopefulness for her cast of characters is still evident in the heavy impasto paintings. Her sculptural use of oil paint references her clay-animation background, as a motion-like sensibility affords her paintings unparalleled depth and energy. Born in 1978 (San Diego, CA), Schulnik earned her BFA in Experimental Animation from the California Institute of the Arts, Valencia (CA).’ (via Mark Moore Gallery)

Kevin Francis Gray is a London-based sculptor working in cast resin, bronze and marble. His works merge classical forms of old masters with a gritty, urban aesthetic. Figures cloaked in modern-day street wear are given a meditative, somber quality. Gray’s sculptures project a sense of nobility and admiration for an often marginalized and consciously melancholic inner-city youth subculture.

Jessica Drenk was raised in Montana, where she developed an appreciation for the natural world that remains an important inspiration to her artwork today. Tactile and textural, her sculptures highlight the chaos and beauty that can be found in simple materials. Drenk’s work is also influenced by systems of information and the impulse to develop an encyclopedic understanding of the world.

Check out this cool coin installation by Spanish artist Ana Soler. Absolutely delightful!

For this purpose, I use pieces of glass in which I apply a self-created silver procedure that reflects partly like a mirror. I personally call it “Liquid Mirror Paintings”. – Paulo J.Futre

Daniel Maidman is a painter who applies a classical grounding to a contemporary sensibility. His art has been shown in juried exhibitions in New York, Washington, DC, California, Ohio, Missouri, and Oregon, and was selected by the Saatchi Gallery to be displayed at Gallery Mess in London. His art and writing on art have been featured in ARTnews, American Art Collector, International Artist, Poets/Artists, Manifest, The Artist’s Magazine, The New York Optimist, and the publishing arm of SUNY-Potsdam. He blogs for The Huffington Post. His writing on Da Vinci is currently taught at DePaul University and Roosevelt University. His paintings range from the figure and portraiture, to still lives and landscapes, to investigations of machinery, architecture, and microflaura. His images occupy a spectrum from high rendering to almost total abstraction.

Marela Zacarias is a contemporary visual artist. Her work combines painting and sculpture and is characterized by an interest in site specificity, the history contained in objects, and current events. Zacarias’s wall and free standing sculptures are constructed from window screens and joint compound and painted with original patterns and geometric abstract shapes.

” My work is about the creation and amalgamation of creatures and their surrounding stories. It alludes to the experience of hybrids derived from fables but going on from there to invent new characters, with a particular interest in transformation. The intention with all of the work is to make the viewer conscious of both their response to and their involvement with the characters; whether it is an awareness of the uncanny and the absurd, the notion of the spectacle; whether they are intrigued or repelled. The work also seeks to maintain a tension between this and more playful encounters with inventiveness and storytelling that leave space for the imagination to work.” – Esther Jervis

Kali Ciesemier (pr. Cali Cease-my-er) is a freelance illustrator and adjunct faculty in the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) Illustration department. She has illustrated for such clients as The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper Collins, Amtrak, United Way, LA Times, and the Boston Globe, and previously worked as a concept artist for Big Huge Games.

By all means, please check out Weedong Yun‘s beautiful watercolor paintings on paper. I’m certainly inspired.