The innate feeling of comfort is what draws us in, but the unwelcoming replication of home is what keeps us out.

 Life, for the most part, was unfathomable. Relationships between imperfect beings only deepened my confusion. News of death served as a reminder that all living things carry the seed of their own end. In my solitude I turn to painting as a way to confront these thoughts, immersing myself in the quiet depths of darkness.

 My work examines sociopolitical confinement and immobility through the visual and material exploration of painting. These concerns are influenced by my ongoing experience of immigration and the social constructs of gender that control and limit my social and physical mobility. Using references to architectural barriers and silhouettes of bodies, I create spaces that function as both entrances and escapes. Cut-outs, tears, frays, and threads of canvas unravel and spill outward from the fixed and bounded picture plane, allowing physical and visual spaces to clash, merge, and blend.

 The transformative action of light compels me to paint, and my work results from what I notice. I have no romantic attachment to autobiographical, grand, or dilapidated subjects. Instead, I choose spaces where mystery and presence come from attention not prescription.

 Marcus Robins is an oil painter who explores the intersection of Black identity and classical fine art traditions. He draws inspiration from the techniques of Baroque artists of antiquity and his proud First-generation Nigerian American heritage. By incorporating oil painting methods honed over centuries, Robins seeks to elevate Black subjects within the historical canon of fine art spaces, where these subjects have often been overlooked or excluded.

 Ryan Richey’s works are honest and direct, concerned with connecting with the viewer and communicating without pretense. He depicts both the intimate and the mundane, the traumatic and the joyous, utilizing straightforward compositional strategies, relatable perspectives, and humor to build common ground with audiences and explore vulnerability, shared experiences, and life in America.

 My work explores the relationship between narrative, identity, and the human psyche through figurative painting. Centering myself as the nude subject, I reclaim the female body as a site of strength, introspection, and authorship, moving beyond objectification to craft personal, emotionally resonant narratives. These images often revisit childhood memories and literary influences that shaped my sense of self when growing up in Korea, while also expanding into broader themes of Asian identity and cultural reflection.

 I paint a far, far away land where violence magically transforms femmes into monstrous size; their pain must be seen, felt, and reckoned with. I want to bring the viewer to the lowest lows and highest highs, to mirror what it feels like to live with post-traumatic stress disorder, something I struggle with daily since surviving extreme domestic violence.

 Walking, sailing, ice skating, canoeing, and swimming within the coastal landscape of the rural peninsula where Morse lives is fundamental to his painting practice. It is a process that emphasizes being in, and interacting directly with, the rural landscape and small villages that surround the artist’s studio. Morse’s practice focuses on oil painting and wooden sculpture. A natural mystic, he listens to the land and contemplates our relationship with it. His works embrace the interpretive nature of being, rather than the mechanical nature of seeing.

 After the birth of my son, my painting habits were forced to change. I often found myself painting the same plant over several days and at different times of the day, watching the plants move through their tireless process of becoming more closely than I had before. Leaves wilted and drooped and roots drank and they stood tall again. Watching these changes in what seems like stop motion, and then integrating that flux into my work, gave me a sense of ease as I waded through the constant, sometimes chaotic changes to my child, my body, and my life.