Photo Conceptual Artist
Hank Willis Thomas is a conceptual photo artist working primarily with themes related to identity, history, and popular culture. He has exhibited throughout the United States and abroad. Hank's work is also featured in numerous public collections, including some of the most notable museums across the nation. His collaborative projects have been featured at the Sundance Film Festival and installed permanently at the Oakland International Airport, the Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, the Oakland Museum of California, and the University of California, San Francisco. He is also a recipient of the New Media grant from Tribeca Film Institute and the New Media Infinity Award from the International Center of Photography for his transmedia project Question Bridge: Black Males. Hank is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City and Goodman Gallery in South Africa.
Painter
Nina’s first big break in the art world came as an invitation to be the youngest artist in Don and Mera Rubell's historic exhibition 30 Americans, followed by a feature article in W magazine. Shortly thereafter, her work was acquired by the Brooklyn Museum and separately by that museum’s director, Arnold Lehman. Later that year, she appeared in the pages of Glamour, in an article showcasing the ten most popular women artists. Nina has been on the cover of Paper, in Juxtapoz, and, most recently, in Elle magazine's 12 Most Daring, Unexpected, and Exciting Women in Art Now. Her work has been shown at the Chrysler Museum, the Detroit Institute of the Arts, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Milwaukee Art Museum, and the Nassau County Museum. In 2017, she will have her first museum solo exhibition, containing more than 50 works, curated by Marshall Price at North Carolina's Nasher Museum.
Typographer
Gemma O’Brien is an Australian artist and designer specializing in lettering, illustration and typography. After studying Design at the College of Fine Arts in Sydney, Gemma worked as an art director at Animal Logic, Fuel VFX and Toby & Pete before deciding to fly solo as a commercial illustrator in 2012. Her typography work takes on a variety of forms, from calligraphic brushwork, illustrated letterforms and digital type to large scale hand-painted murals.
She splits her time between advertising commissions, gallery shows, speaking engagements and hosting hand-lettering workshops around the world. Her clients include Adobe, Volcom, Heineken, Kirin Cider, QANTAS, Heinz, Angus and Julia Stone and The New York Times. A number of her projects have been recognised by the New York The Type Directors Club with Awards of Typographic Excellence. In her spare time she travels and draws puke puns on barf bags for the Spew Bag Challenge.
Conceptual Artist
Aaron Taylor Kuffner is the creator of the Gamelatron, a sound-producing kinetic sculpture inspired by the music of Indonesia. A fusion of Eastern and Western traditions, the Gamelatron consists of vibraphones, drums, chimes, bells, and resonating bronze gongs played by robotics-controlled mechanical mallets. Aaron’s artwork often takes the form of multi-year projects that require in-depth research, collaboration with field experts, and the development of specialized skills. Each project aims to further the evolution of consciousness through the experience of beauty and the sublime.
Graphic Designer
Timothy Goodman is a designer, illustrator, and art director based in New York City. His clients include Airbnb, Google, Ford, J.Crew, Target, The New Yorker, and the New York Times. Previously, Timothy worked in-house at Apple Inc., and with the experiential design firm Collins. He has received awards from most major design and illustration groups and publications, including the ADC's Young Guns, GDUSA’s People to Watch, and Print’s New Visual Artists. Timothy began his career as a book jacket designer at Simon & Schuster, and he graduated from the School of Visual Arts in NYC. He co-created the blog and book 40 Days of Dating, with Jessica Walsh, to much acclaim, and the film rights were optioned to Warner Bros. His Instagram writing series Memories of a Girl I Never Knew was exhibited at Colette in Paris, France. His second book, Sharpie Art Workshop, is out now.
Photographer
Spending her time between Los Angeles and London, Sequoia Ziff’s aesthetic and eye has been compared to iconic photographers such as Annie Leibovitz and Helmut Newton. Ziff says she’s in love with people and light, something that’s apparent throughout her body of work.
Designers
Nervous System is a generative design studio that works at the intersection of science, art, and technology. Designers Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg create using a novel process that employs computer simulation to generate designs and digital fabrication to realize products. Drawing inspiration from natural phenomena, they write computer programs based on processes and patterns found in nature and use those programs to create unique and affordable art, jewelry, and housewares.
Nervous System has pioneered the application of new technologies in design, including generative systems, 3-D printing, and WebGL. Nervous System releases online design applications that enable customers to co-create products in an effort to make design more accessible. Jessica Rosenkrantz holds degrees in architecture and biology from MIT. Jesse Louis-Rosenberg studied math at MIT and worked as a consultant for Gehry Technologies. Their designs have been featured in Wired, the New York Times, the Guardian, Metropolis, and Forbes. Their work is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art and the Cooper-Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.
n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com
@nervous_system
Creator of Innovative Underwater Media
Coral Morphologic is a Miami-based creator of innovative underwater media chronicling Earth’s imperiled coral reefs. It was founded in 2007 by marine biologist Colin Foord and musician Jared McKay as a multi-faceted platform for the advancement of symbiosis between humans and coral. By elevating coral into the iconography of modern art, design, and popular culture, Coral Morphologic entreats mankind to better understand and preserve Earth’s endangered reef ecosystems through works that convey color and depth to the human experience.
coralmorphologic.com
@CoralMorph
Mixed Media Artist
Los Angeles–based artist Alexa Meade is known for creating human body portraits, in which she transforms real live people into seemingly 2-D works of art. Growing up in Washington, D.C., she originally carved out a career in politics, interning on Capitol Hill and working for the 2008 Obama campaign. After graduating from Vassar College, she found her true calling as an artist and started with a simple idea to put black paint over natural shadows. This evolved into her painting the mapping of light directly on top of 3-D spaces, creating the illusion of a world as a 2-D painting. Alexa now travels the world creating art installations and commissioned portraits and exhibiting her work, which has received critical acclaim from CNN, Wired, the Wall Street Journal, and more.
alexameade.com
@alexameadeart
