About the Artist

Samantha Reynolds is a Long Beach based artist. Drawing from memories, dreams, her work looks for magic in the ordinary. An abundance of various items and textures weave themselves into her work creating mixed media paintings, collages and fiber works. Samantha graduated from California State University Long Beach with a BFA in Drawing and Painting in 2018. She has since worked as a scenic painter and teaches private art lessons.

Artist Statement

My work reconstructs fragmented, fading memories and captures moments of longing through a combination of paint, fabric, collage, glass and other found objects. Whether it’s a vague memory, a fleeting moment or feeling of yearning, my crows nest of materials integrated into my work offer a tactile experience grounded in a sense of unplaceable familiarity.

About the Artist

As an artist, I represent myself as YAZZIEWONPHON. I use this name to create a character of myself– as an indiscernible multi-racial person. My mixed identity influences my creative direction and my continuous research of understanding the self. There I explore themes of the other, contamination, collaboration, mutation, horror, and beauty. I graduated from The University of Iowa School of Art & Art History in December 2020 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking. I’ve shown ‘Lure’ in Iowa City at UIowa’s Visual Arts Building and Cedar Rapids at CSPS Hall as my graduating solo exhibitions. I also participated in a digital residency on Instagram with @artbeacondsm, then was featured in the All She Makes first 2021 Spring issue. Upon graduating, I used printmaking to explore textiles & fibers art, sculpture, and fashion design. At the start of my research, I became increasingly interested in bringing my prints into the three-dimensional plane. My work evolved from making sculptural prints to headdresses, and then a dress made entirely out of handmade paper. Essentially, I opened the substrate to people as the print. I started a business under my moniker and coordinated a diptych event, expressly as a fashion and textiles exhibition at The Englert Theatre in Iowa City called “Threads and Powders: An Iowan Fashion & Textile Exhibit.” It successfully debuted on September 10th of 2021 and finished with a first-issue magazine that recounts inside information about the artists, their work, and reception.

Artist Statement

My work references sensible features of aquatic landscapes with a mixed approach of science fiction and fashion design. Dark deep-sea trenches seemingly haunted by creatures that slowly traverse the floor attract prey with their bioluminescence. To look past their mesmerizing flirtations, some of these creatures reveal themselves as otherworldly, beautiful, and grotesque. I try to recreate this luring phenomenon with my viewers by introducing an element of curiosity– more so, depicting an elaborately decorated mixed breed of animals and plants in a barren space. Whether they come as prints, sculptures, or wearables, these alien forms ascribe to a deformed and fragmented emulation of the earth’s oceans. This new biome that I try to establish is a product of mutation and collaboration– of what is known to humans and the strange. Holobiome for Oddkins remarks the horrors of unearthly vicissitudes, which may appear beautiful to us. However, they are potential symptoms of something dangerously insatiable. I like to use fashion to visually convey this particular language. With The Nudibranch Gown in Paper, I reveal clumps of foul-looking blue pulp underneath a ruffled dress in rouge.

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Artist Bio

Leigh Brooklyn was born in 1987 outside of Cleveland, Ohio. In 2006 Brooklyn enrolled into the Columbus College of Art and Design, later transferring to The Cleveland Institute of Art. She earned her degree in Biomedical Illustration in 2011 and worked with several hospitals, museums, and research facilities including the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, The Cleveland Botanical Gardens, The Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Case Western Reserve University, and Novelmed Therapeutics.

In 2011 Brooklyn began moving throughout the country gaining artistic inspiration from various individuals she met through her pursuit of street photography. After hearing all the incredible stories of those she encountered and drawing from her own personal experiences Brooklyn decided to switch her work’s focus back to her roots of figurative drawing and oil painting. In 2019 Brooklyn began learning techniques for creating large scale sculptures out of oil-based clay to be cast in bronze and began taking welding courses for use in her sculptural work. After a personal upheaval in 2019 Brooklyn also began to narrow her focus toward painting women for her new women’s empowerment series titled, the “Women’s Militia.”

Brookly has won a variety of awards for her art since 2004. She recently was a semi-finalist for Figurtivas 2019 at the MEAM in Barcelona, Spain. Her work has been displayed in galleries and museums all over the country including the Makeshift Museum in Los Angeles, the Cleveland Institute of Art, the U.S. Capitol Building and Corcoran Gallery in Washington D.C., The Alliance and Lichtundfire Galleries in New York, and the Diane von Furstenberg Studio. She currently resides in her hometown of Cleveland where she plans to further expand her artistic and humanitarian endeavors in the local, national, and international community.

Artist Statement

Specializing in figurative painting and drawing, my practice originates from an intense drive to create compelling images and stories meant to inspire and give hope. I have studied realism my entire life, dedicating my education to learning how to recreate what I observe with accurate detail.

My earlier work was created with the intention to give a voice to the voiceless, creating compelling portraits and figurative-based narrative paintings and drawings to provide representation for underrepresented communities and people. My education as a medical Illustrator has informed much of my practice with a concern for details and observation, but my work evolved to focus on stories and people. My passion for activism led me to paint stories imbued with causes like women’s rights, LGBTQ equality and acceptance, anti-racism, homelessness, gun reform, disability awareness, and many other subjects.

Although my current body of work still focuses on stories and people, I have now narrowed my focus toward women. Inspired largely by personal experiences and partly by the military presence in my family, my new body of work is focused on building an army of women warriors, armed and ready to defend the good in the world. One soldier at a time, I am creating a female militia to unite, overcome, uplift and fight for ourselves and each other. This army of diverse women are survivors who will overcome all battles, together and alone.

I want to contribute to this world while I am here in it, and my art is the way that I can do that. Guided by the tumultuous times in our culture, as well as my own personal battles, my work must uplift and motivate awareness and change. Through my work, I want to capture the issues that are important to our collective community, and inspire others with my symbolic soldiers.

What does “Gaze” mean to you & how do you connect it to your work?

When thinking of the male gaze, I think of women’s body’s being broken down into parts; legs, hips, and breasts. The way women are portrayed in art and in the media has traditionally not been one of strength, and perseverance but rather the object of desire. They have not been depicted to show their struggles and their resilience to overcome. They have not been the strong leads in film, but instead the supporting actress. Even if the woman is the lead of her own heroine adventure she will still almost always be required to dress scandalously and need to ask the man for help. I have chosen to portray women in my work in a way that shows their humanity and determination. The women in my work do not shy away or lounge gracefully. They stare the viewer directly in the eyes, reclaiming the gaze and letting the viewer know that they see them and there is going to be a change in how things are going to be done. My women are fighters that have overcome their battles and they are here to stay.

Artist Bio

As a half-German, half-Peruvian woman who grew up on a Mexican-American border town, feeling stretched between four cultures has led to a strong interest in issues of identity in my work. My work always stems from my own personal experiences, and I often turn the camera towards myself to combat the frustrations I feel about my body image, being an unmarried woman, and even the color of my skin. In my work, I feel compelled to tell the story of what it means to be a modern millennial woman.

Artist Statement

This project started in the middle of a Texas summer. While cleaning out my family’s garage, I found a letter from my grandfather to my mother. I moved from the hot garage to the comfort of my cool room to inspect the letter further. It was dated 1989, a year after I was born, and a time where the only method of communication for my parents and my grandparents was through scheduled phone calls, letters, and packages filled with photos or VHS video recordings. My father and mother were born and raised in their respective countries of Germany and Peru. They immigrated to the Rio Grande Valley, the southernmost tip of South Texas, and a portion of northern Tamaulipas, Mexico.

I, along with my siblings, are first-generation multicultural Americans. It has been hard to feel a sense of belonging or acceptance anywhere. I often question what makes up one’s identity, and when several cultures are involved, is there one that dominates above the rest, or can they all live within someone harmoniously? Growing up, it was not uncommon to hear things like “You wouldn’t understand because you’re not Mexican” or “I forgot you were Peruvian” from both close friends and family members, leading to a feeling of being othered by my communities. These feelings have led me to question my understanding of place, my sense of personal identity, and even the impressions of my memories. This project is a metaphor for the in-between– discovering a mental space that I have constructed while delving into my family’s past.

I have created a visual narrative that reflects the loss of ethnic roots, exploring the isolation and confusion felt from multiple cultures. This project consists of photographs constructed from my memories and life events. I rely on symbolism to relate to my cultures and combine them to find a new meaning representing my experience. The color red is consistent throughout my project. It is the only color that brings all four cultures together through their flags and a complex color that holds many meanings, from love and passion to anger and religious fervor. I use my family archives to explore my family’s history throughout several generations and make sense of myself.

What does “Gaze” mean to you & how do you connect it to your work?

To me, Gaze is a bit of a loaded word. I automatically think of it as a template that I’m supposed to follow in order to be accepted into society, and how that template is impossible for me to actually succumb to. From my skin color to my weight, I will never fit the typical gaze, and in my work, I regain power and agency by turning the colonial gaze upon itself. In my most recent work, En Medio de la Nostalgia, I question what makes up one’s identity, and when several cultures are involved, is there one that dominates above the rest, or can they all live within someone harmoniously? By creating a visual narrative that reflects the loss of ethnic roots and exploring the isolation and confusion felt from multiple cultures, this project is a metaphor for the in-between– discovering a mental space that I have constructed while delving into my family’s past.