Maria Friberg: Most of my work revolves about themes of power, masculinity and man’s relationship to nature. In my images, I create ambiguous tableaus that challenge preconceived notions about identity, gender and social hierarchies.My most recent pieces look both outwards, to the challenges in contemporary society, and inwards, to a meditative state of mind. In these photographs and videos, the isolation and solitude of the individuals reflect issues in society at large. The men in my images are signs for men, trying to find their place in times of turmoil.

Hannah Haworth grew up in the Mangyan tribe of Mindoro Island, Philippines. After moving to her native country Scotland in 2001, she continued to practice the traditional handicrafts of the Mangyan and also learn local Scottish craft. This has focused her interests intently on primitive cultures, and as she continues to learn more about our early relationships with the landscape, the more her work focuses on craft, ritual and our connections with other species. Hannah Haworth now lives and works in New York City.

Joshua Barndt is a community-based artist and curator, with a personal artistic practice based in painting and sculptural installation. He completed his BFA in 2008 in Interdisciplinary Fine Arts at Concordia University in Montreal.

Chicago-based artist Darick Maasen has created an elderly Mickey Mouse sculpture showcasing how the famous mouse would have aged since being “born” back in 1928.

Born in 1975, lives and works in Berlin. Axel Pahlavi studied at the National Academy of Arts, Sofia (Bulgaria). Within a few years’ time he studied at the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and visited different artist residencies in New York and Berlin. He also graduated from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris with unanimous distinction from the jury. As a mirror image to his works his career is a mixture of systems and personal experiences drawn from his numerous origins (Iranian, French, German, Kurdish, …). In an autobiographical works, the artist leads us through a maelstrom of anachronistic styles. This disparity is not premeditate and refers to classicism, comics, splatter films and science fiction movies. Drawing feelings from everyday life, Pahlavi takes up 80s popular imaging, if not referencing to Goya or Gericault and backing up his work with the history and technique of Bulgarian, German, French or American art. He’s not interested though in a mere formal citationism recreation. He keeps on tracking down a kind of transcendence, a place for possible experimentation. The artist actually claims a sort of schizophrenic state of mind, a will to explore simultaneously many systems, to intertwine styles : “I try to tell the living in a timeless and never-ending comedy drama”. (via Favardin & de Verneuil)

Bricks by Ana Dominguez and Omar Sosa. Photography by Nacho Alegre. (via The Fox is Black)

Kari Vehosalo <-- Born in 1982, lives and works in Helsinki; Graduated from Lahti University of Applied Sciences, Institute of Fine Arts and Aalto University, University of Art and Design.

Been a lot into sculpting lately because of Xooang Choi. ‘His Islets of Aspergers series, each with a serial number, shows the characteristics of Asperger’s Syndrome by exaggerating and distorting a body part. These images constantly give doubtful stares to the outer world or act indifferent to everything else besides themselves. They roam around to smell every corner, continuously make up rumors, and make big, overpowering gestures to hide their weakness and vulnerability. They disguise into tough and aggressive characters, but they are hiding a vulnerable ego that easily gets heartbroken. He says that these deformed and distorted characters are what are hidden inside the modern people who isolate themselves from the world and communication. Then, he reveals the images that are hidden deep inside each individual. The hidden desires that would be known and kept by each individual are realistically unveiled too suddenly and create uncanny emotions. These uncanny bodies are smaller than real-life and seem to be able to confront if you approach, but the body parts that are expanded and expressed very realistically, unlike the skin as rough and coarse as cracked tree barks, make you want to neglect and hide them again.’ A world of inspiration over at Akive.

Alexander Timofeev is a figurative fine artist living and working in Berlin.

” By means of creation I live different experiences linked to a state of sensitivity in which I’m constantly amazed by everything. To give things new meanings, to adopt an open, abstract position that leads me to freer sensations are some of the motives that drive me to go over my work again and again, so I have tried to conform a language which permits me to live my time in my own way.” – Elsa Mora