EKAH

I am a visual artist known as EKAH. I am interested in exploring and creating fictional worlds that combine the use of all media – illustrations, digital worlds, and animation. I hope to combine my knowledge of various fields and tools to develop and create works using unique processes and visuals. Some of the tools I use include brushes, pens, pencils, pixels, 3D polygons, and motion.

I was born in Seoul, South Korea and grew up in New York City.  I attended High School of Art & Design in NYC, then studied Communication Design at Parsons School of Design in New York City and Paris, with background in fine arts foundation. After college, I have worked as a graphic designer and art director for advertising agencies in New York City. My interest in 3D/CG led me to eventually working in broadcast animation and video games. I have since lived in France, San Francisco Bay Area, Orlando, and Montreal, Canada. More recent works have been featured in Sky Gallery, MTD ART: Moving Pictures Through Your Neighborhood, LIGHTBOX public-art installation, and 40 Point One gallery.  I have also participated as a presenter at Pechakucha Night Champaign-Urbana.  I currently live in the greater Champaign-Urbana area with the most supportive spouse and two cats.

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Kira Schnitzler

Kira Schnitzler is a senior in studio practice at the University of Illinois with a concentration in painting. She is a figurative artist and is best known online for her series of single line drawings, which tenderly depict lovers intertwined in a kiss.

Her oil paintings are large scale, and heavily deal with allegories and mythical narratives that seek to explore bodies of spiritual knowledge and the nature of consciousness.

Schnitzler is currently working on her BFA thesis, entitled Intimate Connection, which will be on display in two separate exhibitions in April.

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Katie Netti

The moral and social ethics involved when sourcing animal parts or materials for art objects is an integral part of my creative process. The anthropomorphic effects on the environment, along with contemporary infrastructure do not allow for individuals to live free from exploitation. Concerns for wildlife are overshadowed by personal comfort. Certain species lives are federally protected and valued, others are regarded as a nuisance and targeted. While working with the “less desirable” animal materials I find conflict within the value of a life.
As a craftswoman, I use mixed media to explore these conflicting feelings, and preserve the beauty of discarded nature.

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Frank Vega

Frank Vega is an Ecuadorian-born artist who grew up in Chicago. In 2015, he moved to Urbana-Champaign where he is pursuing his BFA in painting at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Vega has already been included in various exhibitions including his most recent solo exhibition “De Huesos Blancos” at La Casa Cultural Latina, Urbana, IL. One of his upcoming shows includes “2018 Thesis Exhibition” at Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL.

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Emmanuel Pratt-Clarke

I am a senior BFA Painting student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. While I enjoy creating more abstract images, my work spans a range of mediums and combines major influences of graffiti, architecture, cultural identity and language.
My work explores relationships between language, place, experience, and cognition through compositions that combine abstract forms and representations with recognizable imagery into collages of color, language, and space that attempt to capture or complicate perceptions and experiences.

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Vivian Le

My work explores my fascination with how history and contemporary media continue to portray children in art as romantic symbols.
The characters I depict collectively inhabit a single dystopia I continuously develop in my imagery.
Through using dolls as metaphors, I am raising questions about the adult gaze and what it means to have agency as an adolescent.
I am an artist and illustrator currently living in Chicago.

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Elliott Stokes

My work attempts to capture—with neither judgment nor comment—the marks left by humankind on its world. I believe true beauty lies in the memories and exchanges we form through shared experience and collaboration. I make work to move forward towards higher ground from collective effort and self-liberation. I utilize interdisciplinary skills, creating a web of visually stimulating artwork bridging: street photography, observational drawing, abstract painting, woodcuts, relief/monotype printing, screen-printing, large-scale installations, sculpture, manufacturing experiences, social practice, community engagement, activism and outreach. My mission is to expose the repressed artwork in everyday places, encouraging individuals to move forward, persevere and find the balance and hope in life’s transience.

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Rachel Newell

Rachel Newell is a mixed media collage artist. She is an analog collage artist who uses other people’s unwanted paper materials, like magazines and books, to create with. She has been collaging her entire life after her mom taught her how to collage as a young child. Rachel was born in Mesa, Arizonia but grew up in Chillicothe, Illinois. She grew up in a very inspiring household filled with a talented family so there was never a shortage of art in her life. Her mother and sister are both artists and her father is a welding artist. Their love and support over the years has helped shape her into the artist that she is today. Her best friend’s mom, Jean Razo, was also a huge influence on her early life and took her to the Peoria Fine Art Fair every year where she dreamed of becoming an artist someday.

Until a few years ago, collage art was just a hobby. Over the past few years, Rachel has been a part of many group shows. She has also had many solo shows in Peoria, Illinois and has even been a part of Women’s Works, an international art show. Two of her pieces have been blown up and featured in two different art parks. Her piece, The Core, can still be seen on The Muir Building on Main Street in Peoria.

Rachel currently lives in her hometown, Chillicothe, Illinois, with her boyfriend and best friend Rex Hartmann. He is her inspiration and her “idea guy.” She would not be creating today without his help, love, and support. Their house is constantly filled with various scraps of paper, much to the enjoyment of their two orange tabby cats, Archer and Amos. When Rachel isn’t creating new and unusual pieces of collage artwork, she is teaching art lessons to her two art students, spending time with her family and friends, or working at River Beach Pub in Rome, Illinois.

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