Based between Birmingham, Alabama and New York City, Claire Godbee creates symbolic figurative paintings that examine transformation, identity, and the relationship between destruction and renewal. Through mythology, landscape, and contemporary womanhood, her work explores the emotional complexities of becoming and regeneration.

Kimberley Kermode creates fragmented figurative paintings that explore cultural mosaic, identity, and the emotional landscapes shaped by migration and memory. Through vibrant palettes and layered compositions, Kermode examines how personal histories and cultural backgrounds continue to influence the way we understand belonging.

Lola Fischer is a painter and graphic artist whose lifelong creative practice is rooted in abstract forms, intense colors, and expressive compositions. From international exhibitions including the Beijing Biennial and Venice Biennale contexts to her feature in Create! Magazine’s The Magic Issue, Fischer’s work explores humanity, imagination, and the healing potential of art.

Rajab Ali Sayed is a Filipino/Pakistani visual artist, educator, and chef based in Los Angeles, California. Through painting, Sayed explores storytelling, intimacy, memory, and the relationship between human experience and the sensory world around us.

Alexandria Deters creates research-driven works that investigate the construction of memory, belief, and visibility through photography, embroidery, video, and installation. By transforming archival materials and personal imagery, Deters explores how stories are preserved, obscured, and reinterpreted over time.

Chrys Roboras creates evocative figurative paintings that merge realistic human forms with expansive, colorful semi-abstract landscapes. Her dreamlike works explore movement, memory, and emotion, inviting viewers into stories where the past, present, and future exist simultaneously.

Based in Snohomish, Washington, Nikki Gardner creates evocative oil paintings that draw inspiration from the Dutch Masters while examining universal themes of mortality, beauty, and human connection. Through dramatic light, symbolism, and carefully arranged still lifes, her work invites viewers into moments of quiet reflection.

Nick Pedersen is a contemporary artist whose elaborate photorealistic works examine environmental issues through photography, digital collage, and printmaking. Exploring themes of beautiful decay, nature’s reclamation, and the impact of humanity on the natural world, Pedersen creates surreal narratives that question the legacy we leave behind.

Gherdai Hassell is a multidisciplinary contemporary artist, independent curator, and researcher whose work explores identity, memory, migration, and nostalgia. Through layered materials, textiles, collage, and painting, Hassell examines Caribbean heritage, postcolonial narratives, and the histories embedded within materials.

Vučković T. Darko is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice explores the relationship between organic forms, material transformation, and contemporary artistic language. Working across sculpture, painting, and mixed media, his work investigates the possibilities of clay, natural processes, and three-dimensional form.

Malia Gomez creates atmospheric paintings influenced by metaphysics and contemporary light artists, using color, mark-making, and visual perception to cultivate mindfulness and conscious presence. Her work invites viewers into moments of stillness and reflection through immersive contemporary painting.

Susan Schmidt’s contemporary figurative paintings explore memory, nature, and personal transformation through layered surfaces, abstraction, and expressive mark-making. Drawing from experiences of loss and connection to the natural world, Schmidt’s work reflects the enduring relationship between place, emotion, and remembrance.

Cat Rigdon’s multidisciplinary practice connects ancient Cypriot artifacts with contemporary narratives of memory, migration, and identity. Through ceramics, painting, and research-based processes, Rigdon reimagines historical objects while exploring the personal stories they carry across time and place.

Caitlin McCormack transforms crochet and fiber techniques into uncanny sculptural works that examine grief, anxiety, bodily autonomy, and the complexities of contemporary life. Through humor, craft, and unsettling imagery, McCormack considers how making can become a response to uncertainty and a way to connect with shared human experiences.

Austin-based painter Gabe Langholtz creates narrative paintings that blend representational imagery with folk art, Color Field influences, and social commentary. In this interview, he reflects on creativity, honesty in the studio, and the career milestones that followed his feature in Create! Magazine.

Painter and writer Mya Kerner explores the rhythms of nature through expressive landscapes shaped by motherhood, stewardship, and lived experience. In this 10th Anniversary Book feature, she reflects on her artistic journey, career milestones, and the enduring connection between land and self.

Metra Mitchell is a multidisciplinary artist whose paintings, drawings, and printmaking explore identity, transformation, and the complexities of personal history. Drawing from her multicultural background, Mitchell creates theatrical worlds filled with symbolic characters, emotional narratives, and magical environments that reflect strength, vulnerability, and resilience.

Sarah Detweiler is an American visual artist whose figurative and narrative mixed media paintings explore themes of unmasking, authenticity, motherhood, and the collective unconscious. Through painting, embroidery, and fiber techniques, she transforms personal experiences and transitions into deeply layered works that reflect evolution, connection, and emotional storytelling.

Justin Richel’s sculptural paintings challenge traditional ideas of the painted surface by combining illusion, materiality, and three-dimensional form. Through his unique process of building objects from wood, canvas, and paint, Richel explores perception, trickster mythologies, and the relationship between artifice and reality.

Lyz Wendland is a visual artist based in the Twin Cities whose mixed-media paintings and paper installations explore fragmentation, healing, and transformation. Through her practice, Wendland reshapes lived experiences of trauma into a visual language that reflects resilience, strength, and the possibility of beauty emerging from what was once broken.