My work explores the quiet tension between nature and human presence, while capturing fleeting moments of light and atmosphere. Through a realist approach, I focus on figures and landscapes that evoke, for me, a sense of place. Inspired by the virtuosity, symbolism, and narrativity of Dutch Baroque paintings, I blend precise observation with loose brushwork to create images that feel both contemporary and timeless.

 Through the lens of my family and close friends and our trials and triumphs, my work reflects on how America’s racialized past continues to affect people of color today. By depicting myself and my loved ones in our everyday spaces, such as our homes and neighborhoods, I explore how the effects of larger social systems reflect themselves within our personal lives.

 My practice is grounded in oil painting and my work exists within the amal-gamation of figuration and expressionism, exploring the nuances of memory, nature, and technology as they relate to the human body. While they weave a personal narrative, my paintings generally speak to a mode of preservation through different styles of rendering, using mark making as a way to commun-icate memory and denote the passage of time.

 My paintings incorporate elements of personal narrative, fantasy, and history to explore themes of belonging, connection, intuition, and ritual. They reflect the many ways we engage with this world. Questioning the universe we’ve built, I examine the sensations of being alive in a society that is increasingly digitized, overstimulating, and terse.

 My artistic style is deeply rooted in oil painting. I draw inspiration from the vibrant and dynamic celebration of Caribbean Carnival. Through my art, I aim to capture the beauty, energy, and diversity of the annual event, focusing on the costumes and the individuals who bring them to life. Painting elaborate Carnival attire allows me to merge fantasy with reality, blending the raw energy of celebration with the discipline of realism. I pay close attention to the intricate textures of costumes, variety of flesh tones, and the interplay of softness and strength in curvaceous forms.

 Ayana Ross is a visual artist whose work, using figurative realism, combines traditional oil painting methods with the elaborate treatment and decorative design as a visual language to evoke nostalgia, elevate her subjects, and provide greater context into her work.

Often autobiographical in nature, Ross’s paintings weave together layered narratives to explore social and intergenerational themes, including identity, race, equity, and the broader evaluation of our value systems. Her work seeks to highlight the profound lessons we can draw from everyday people and moments.

 Painting allows me to explore perception, the space between emotion and cognition. I paint to produce new, visual patterns that, in turn, produce new patterns of thought, an array of colors and lines that stimulate the dance of neurons in the brain. Moiré patterns are the active, warping armature on which I explore color theory and the effect of color on the mind. These patterns are composed of lines so thin that they’re nearly just edges, carrying gradients that vary in hue and saturation.

 My work, primarily expressed through painting and installations, is a symbolic celebration of existential and intellectual inquiries that are fundamental to me, as they are deeply inspired by my intimate and spiritual life. Through a nuanced lens, I explore masculinity, identity, race, relationships, and love—complex and often controversial themes filtered through a personal and poetic perspective.

 My work reimagines the ancient technique of buon fresco painting through a contemporary lens. While fresco was once a dominant medium in architectural spaces, its demanding process and technical complexity have made it nearly obsolete today. I am interested in reviving this medium in ways that honor its rich history and make it relevant to modern audiences.

 Mutone’s musings center on figures within intimate settings and warping memory. She employs abstraction by pushing images back and forth within a digital editing realm and funneling the compilation into oil paint. She works to mediate her opaque, geometric paint application with the overall impact of translucent, layered fluidity. This obfuscation of Mutone’s digital touch plays with legibility and allows the viewer to piece together the composition. Duplications of a single subject are set in motion, yet housed in a stagnant space.