Lou Haney
Lou Haney’s work transports viewers into imagined domestic interiors where charm meets excess, and memory intertwines with fantasy. Using layered oil, acrylic, and fiber art, her paintings explore nostalgia, femininity, and the tension between reality and escape. Inspired by Pattern & Decoration and Pop Art, Haney transforms familiar spaces into surreal compositions filled with quiet traces of human presence.
Lilian Day Thorpe
Lilian Day Thorpe’s photomontage work blends film photography with digital collage to create serene, textural landscapes that hover between memory and imagination. Her compositions prioritize mood over realism, offering a pause from the everyday and a space to reflect on beauty, quiet, and stillness.
Brittney Denham Whisonant
Brittney Denham Whisonant transforms personal and collective experiences of motherhood into visually rich, tactile works. Through quilts, cyanotypes, and natural dyes, her practice explores identity, domestic labor, and maternal material, creating a dialogue between tradition and contemporary artistic expression.
Christina Lucia Giuffrida
Christina Lucia Giuffrida’s paintings invite viewers into a surreal, Queer-centered adventure, where vivid color, graphic figures, and layered environments challenge perception and celebrate irreverent women. Her work combines fantasy, humor, and material experimentation to explore identity, movement, and the unpredictable beauty of life.
Michael Hambouz
Michael Hambouz, a Brooklyn-based multidisciplinary artist, musician, and curator, creates work deeply informed by chromaesthesia and personal history. Drawing from music, memory, and his Palestinian-American heritage, Hambouz experiments across mediums—painting, printmaking, sculpture, and animation—to explore themes of loss, transformation, and resilience. His vibrant abstractions, often influenced by sound and architectural forms, invite viewers into layered reflections on identity and generational experience.
Andreea Alunei
Andreea Alunei’s work transforms grief, humor, and imagination into intimate, layered paintings. Drawing on the birth of her daughter, the loss of her mother, and a deep interest in personal mythology, her surreal imagery—halos, unicorns, and whimsical children—invites viewers to reflect on life, death, and the delicate balance in between.
Sarah Sanford
Sarah Sanford’s work captures the fleeting beauty of light and the hidden patterns of the natural world. Through layered prints, dimensional collage, and installations, she invites viewers to reflect on impermanence, interconnectedness, and the quiet moments of wonder in everyday life. Featured in the Lightness of Being exhibition, her art offers a contemplative space for connection and discovery.
Nerea Azanza
Nerea Azanza, a Spanish visual artist based in Paris, presents her innovative abstract figurative work in Create! Magazine’s Lightness of Being virtual exhibition. Combining mixed media on paper, wood, linen, and eco-friendly textiles, Azanza transforms small portraits into expansive installations that explore motion, spatial patterns, and the interconnectedness of life. Her art reflects a deep engagement with transformation, resilience, and the dynamic flow of the world.
Vikki Drummond
Featured in Create! Magazine’s Lightness of Being exhibition, Canadian artist Vikki Drummond transforms nostalgia, whimsy, and philosophical inquiry into playful yet thought-provoking portraiture. Her work blends 1970s-inspired shapes, signature distortion, and layered narratives to explore the boundaries between seen and unseen, real and imagined, inviting viewers into a world where beauty and absurdity coexist.
Nataliia Center
Featured in Create! Magazine’s Lightness of Being exhibition, multidisciplinary artist Nataliia Center creates intimate, mysterious works in photography, video, and oil painting. Her pieces explore the unspoken—charged gestures, tactile details, and the space between bodies—inviting viewers to step in and complete the story through their own sensations.
JP Morrison Lans
Morrison Lans’ art reveals intimate emotional journeys through layered colored pencil, encaustic, and underpainting techniques. Highlighting themes of motherhood, transformation, and identity, her work invites viewers into a space where anatomy meets soul. Currently featured in the “Lightness of Being” virtual exhibition, Lans’ unique blend of figurative realism and abstraction offers a poetic meditation on the emotional body.
Nicolle Cure
Nicolle Cure’s mixed-media abstract paintings delve into the delicate intersection of sound, emotion, and visual form, inspired by her personal journey with Ménière’s disease. Featured in the “Lightness of Being” exhibition, her work invites viewers into quiet moments of introspection and resilience, revealing beauty in stillness and transformation.
IsaC
Featured in Create! Magazine’s Lightness of Being exhibition, this artist merges feminine forms with rich natural elements to explore themes of vulnerability, ecology, and transformation. Her work invites viewers into a contemplative space where the human and natural worlds seamlessly intertwine, reminding us of our shared responsibility to care for the Earth.
Irina Forrester
Irina Forrester is a Russian-born British artist whose work spans still lifes, landscapes, and portraits. Featured in AQ Volume VI, she brings together oils and mixed media techniques, capturing life with sincerity while exploring new artistic possibilities through color, texture, and form.
Ghia Haddad
Ghia Haddad bridges fine art, fiber traditions, and cultural research in her dynamic practice. Featured as an AQ Volume VI artist, her work reclaims marginalized histories and voices through embroidery, paint, and textile-based narratives that confront identity and social justice.
M.E. Leaver
Discover the vibrant mixed media paintings of M.E. Leaver, a Davidson, North Carolina artist featured in AQ Volume VI. Her work explores the beauty that emerges from life’s chaos, using oil, ink, watercolor, and acrylic to create contemporary and abstract pieces meant to uplift and inspire viewers.
Rajul Shah
Rajul Shah blends ancient philosophies and contemporary abstraction in her layered Kintsugi-inspired works. As a featured artist in AQ Volume VI, Shah uses color, texture, and symbolism to explore resilience, renewal, and the beauty of imperfection.
Mesoma Hammida Onyeagba
Mesoma Hammida Onyeagba’s vibrant work bridges painting and textiles, transforming salvaged fabrics into powerful visual narratives. Influenced by her Nigerian heritage and collaborative practices, Onyeagba honors identity, nostalgia, and community through rich textures and immersive storytelling. In this interview, she shares insights into her creative process, inspirations, and her ongoing exploration of representation and joy.
Jo Gamel
Inspired by global myths and personal dives, Jo Gamel’s still life paintings reimagine ocean relics as symbols of the feminine psyche—tempestuous, sacred, and enduring. Her practice blends traditional oil techniques with spiritual storytelling, inviting viewers into spaces of wonder, memory, and transformation.
Eduardo Sarmiento
Eduardo Sarmiento’s multidisciplinary practice invites viewers into a deep exploration of human emotion and our connection to the environment around us. From his beginnings in Cuba to his current work in Atlanta, Sarmiento’s art merges poetry, surreal imagery, and bold experimentation. His sketches serve as honest reflections of feeling, making his work both intimate and universally resonant.

