Jonathan LeVine Projects is pleased to present the 2nd Annual Delusional Art Competition, a group exhibition showcasing work by the following 40 artists:
Alayna Coverly, Amy Guidry, Anthony Solano, Anton Hoeger, Blank William, Risa Tochigi (boogieREZ), Carly Slade, Caroline Pool, Cesar Piette, Cielle Graham, Daniel Coves, Eelco van den Berg, Floria Gonzalez, Harumi Ori, Hilary Hubanks, Hiroshi Sato, Jonathan Aller, Jorge Catoni, Joshua Flint, Kathryn Polk, Katie Shima, Kyle Stewart, Matthew Huntley, Michael Camarra, Mikael Takacs, Mose Biz Dada, Nicola Caredda, Paul Reid, Renan Santos, Rick Newton, Robert Nelson, Samuel Wilson, Samuelle Green, Steven Chmilar, Steven Labadessa, Susannah Martin, Tina Lugo, Vicki Khuzami, Victor Fota & Win Wallace
The artists selected for this years Delusional competition were selected by a jury panel comprised of Evan Prico (Editor, Juxtapoz Magazine), Tara Mcpherson (Artist), Yasha Young (Director, Urban Nation Museum), Jeff Soto (Artist), Steven P. Harrington & Jaime Rojo (Founders, Brooklyn Street Art) and Jonathan LeVine (Gallerist, Jonathan LeVine Projects).
Working in a variety of media and styles, this group of artists reflect both current trends in contemporary art and the eclectic stylistic mix Jonathan LeVine Projects is known for exhibiting. By providing an exhibition opportunity for these outstanding artists, the gallery hopes to bring new talent to the forefront and open doors for their future endeavors. We’re honored to welcome them into the Jonathan LeVine family!
Winners
JURY’S CHOICE
1st Place – Win Wallace
2nd Place – Tina Lugo
3rd Place – Susannah Martin
LIQUITEX EMERGING ARTIST PRIZE
1st Place – Jonathan Aller
2nd Place – Caroline Pool
3rd Place – Daniel Coves
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Carly Slade
Rick Newton
Anthony Solano
About the Artists
Alayna Coverly is a Boston based artist working figuratively with oil paint. Originally from Ann Arbor Michigan, she is now part of the museum education staff at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston. She has her BFA in Painting and Drawing, along with a Museum Studies certificate and a minor in Art History from Ohio University. The work she is currently producing in her studio focuses on the intimate bonds we have with others.
Amy Guidry is an American artist currently residing in Lafayette, Louisiana. She comes from a family of artists including the late painter Eleanor Norcross. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums nationwide including the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, Aljira a Center for Contemporary Art, Brandeis University, the PhilaMOCA, the Paul & Lulu Hilliard Art Museum, and the Acadiana Center for the Arts. Guidry’s paintings have been featured in publications such as American Artist, Adbusters, and American Art Collector as well as online sites such as Hi-Fructose and the Huffington Post. Her paintings are present in public and private collections throughout the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia.
Anthony Solano was born in Hayward CA, then spent the majority of his childhood in Guadalajara, Mexico. When he returned to the Bay Area at the age of 13, art became a source of escape and comfort. In high school he was exposed to painting for the first time, sparking what would become his life’s passion. Anthony, a self-taught painter, now resides in Portland, Oregon and credits the local landscape for a major creative shift, from abstract painting to the surreal genre that he currently practices. His work explores today’s environmental conflicts, communicated with vibrant hyper-realistic imagery and thought-provoking storytelling. A sense of optimism and hope within his work allows the viewer to experience a complex, emotional response.
Anton Hoger was born in 1956 in Munich. He’s a member of the Vienna School of Fantastic Realism, which is characterized by unreal, dreamy motifs in an opulent Mannerist style. Höger’s work deals with social issues and should be seen as a part of creative and indicative actualities of our time. He’s won many international art prices and his works have been exhibited in numerous cities around the world, including Montreal, New York, Zagreb, Florence, Munich, Nuernberg, Berlin and Frankfurt.
Blank William is based in New York and reinterprets the familiar features of star wars stormtroopers as a series of wild animal armor. Three species — a rhino, hippopotamus and elephant — have each been sculpted with the same aesthetic qualities as the fictional film soldiers, characterized by glossy surfaces and gilded gold details. The New Order collection has been realized in two versions, white and black, each which see animals’ facial features warp and distort to suit the style of stormtroopers’ distinctive plastoid body armor.
Carly Slade grew up in “Big sky Alberta”, Canada. She received her MFA from San Jose State University and her BFA from the Alberta College of Art and Design. Her work is influenced by her blue-collar roots and plagued by a concern for the precarious nature of the working class. Using a mix of materials (most often including clay, embroidery, and building supplies), Slade creates dioramas of real places in an unreal perspective. Slade is currently the Artist in Resident and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA.
Caroline Pool was born in 1985 and rew up in Bangkok, Thailand. She received her Foundation Diploma in Art & Design at Central St Martin’s, London in 2004 and her BA (HONS) Illustration degree at Brighton University in 2007. After graduating and working full time in set design for feature films she returned to painting. “I’ve aways had two distinct approaches to a painting. The more analytical side that obsesses over the human form and anatomy strengthened by my love for traditional painting techniques. The second approach perhaps developed as an antidote to the first and by simplifying shapes and shadows, allows a more graphic environment in which the figure can reside.”
Cesar Piette was born in 1982 and is currently based in Cannes, France. His practice involves the very basics of figurative painting such as portraits, still life, nudes and landscapes but immerged in the digital area. His works are based on 3D software renderings that simulate a plastic effect and realized using an airbrush. They explore notions of high and low, the digital and analog and pay references to classical painting, modern art, pop art, video games, animation and toys design. His work has had exhibited in the United Kingdom, France and the United States.
Cielle Graham is a French-New Zealander visual artist. Intertwined animals forms are the main motif in her work, using them to express raw human emotion. Working with limited tools, often just a single fine nib pen, her process is patient and meticulous. A single area of the image may require many passes of etching, building up layers of details over weeks or sometimes months.
Daniel Coves was born in 1985 in Valencia, Spain and studied fine arts in Valencia and at Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan, Italy. He’s currently working on a PhD in the field of artistic production at Complutense University in Madrid. He is the recipient of many awards and grants for his meticulous figurative paintings, which capture moments suspended in time, drawing influence from cinema. He has been selected for the prestigious 2015 BP Portrait Award, for which his work was exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London. He has also shown his work in Spain, Portugal, France, Germany and the UK.
Floria González, was born in Monterrey in 1980 and she studied photography and film in Mexico City and San Antonio, Texas. In 2003 she started working as a fine art photographer and video artist. She’s the creator and director of Floto Studio, a production house that makes music and advertising videos. Her work has been exhibited in around the world, including Mexico City, New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Argentina, Berlin, Italy, London, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Harumi Ori was born in Tokyo and grew up in the multi-cultural environments of the United States and Malaysia. Using plastic mesh she develops a new concept of sculpture, which transforms the floating moments of our everyday life into eternity. She was awarded the grand-prix at the Lumine Meets Art Award (2016) and won the public art competition by DOT, NYC Department of Transportation and a scholarship from the Japan Foundation in the following year.
Hilary Hubanks is an illustrator and Surface Designer who creates bright, eccentric drawings and textiles. She has worked for labels such as Kate Spade, Rachel Antonoff and Jessica Simpson. She holds a Master of Fine Arts degree in Illustration from the Fashion Institute of Technology. She grew up in southern Wisconsin and takes much of her inspiration from her upbringing and her Norwegian heritage. She’s now based in New York City
Hiroshi Sato was born in Gamagori, Japan and from the age of three to fourteen he lived in Tanzania, East Africa. This particular period in his life nurtured his current interest in human perception due to his exposure to alternate cultures, class and language. He enrolled in the fine-arts program at the Academy of Art University, San Francisco, graduating with a Bachelors and Masters in Fine Art. Sato is focused on contemporary realist oil painting. He draws influence from past and present artists including Vermeer, Degas, Andrew Wyeth, Euan Uglow, Hopper and Chuck Close. His work shows his interest in geometric design principles of the old masters and his goal is to portray, and better understand, our various states of consciousness within ourselves through the visual medium.
I am Eelco was born in 1974 in the Netherlands and is known for creating psychedelic landscapes using the unique color palette he developed mostly on the streets of New York. Mesmerized by hip-hop at an early age, he began his artistic career writing graffiti. He realized that lettering wasn’t sufficient in order to tell the complete story, so he turned to figuration. Now, his mostly hand-drawn work stands out with its strong use of color, motifs, outlines and illustrative elements in a surrealistic pop art style. Animal imagery has been a major element of his aesthetic ever since he painted a cat in Berlin in 2013.
Jonathan Aller has spent most of his life sketching everything he sees. After graduating from Ringling College of Art and Design, he traveled to Florence, Italy and studied at the Angel Academy of Art, Florence. He recently graduated from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design obtained his Masters of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing. His work deals with cultural hybridity and constructed identities. “Studying and living in different countries has molded my identity and how I relate to the world. This has informed my paintings and how I can bring all these experiences into one picture plane. Through lines, flat colors, graphic elements, and traditional/contemporary techniques, I hope the viewer gets a contemporary portraiture experience that echoes its history and speaks to the constructed nature of the sitter’s identity.”
Jorge Catoni was born in 1980 and is currently based in Santiago, Chile. This multidisciplinary artist develops his work in the areas of design, painting, illustration, video art, documentary film, photography and experimental music. He was named by the Chilean art magazine Artishock as one of the best illustrators in the country. His work represents strange situations of the unconscious, distorted memories of childhood, mixed with the imaginary of the oneiric field.
Joshua Flint is currently based in Portland, Oregon and received a BFA from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco in 2002. His work is based on references curated from digital museum archives, social media platforms, vintage shops and from family and friends. He’s exhibited at Robert Lange Studios in Charleston, Sloane Merrill Gallery in Boston and La Luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles. His work has been featured in American Art Collector, Southwest Art, and Poets and Artists. He’s currently an Associate Professor at the Pacific Northwest College of Art.
Kathryn Polk was born in 1952 in Memphis, Tennessee where she studied Fine Art at the Memphis Art Academy (now The Memphis College of Art) and Memphis State University (now The University of Memphis). She began creating lithographs in 2002 and since then her prints have been exhibited around the world, including China, New Zealand, Korea, Wales, France and Argentina as well as in museums though out the United States. In 2017, Polk and her husband relocated to a farm near Bloomington, Indiana and founded LVIS Press, a printmaking fine are studio. The subject matter of Kathryn Polk’s art focuses on everyday activities, chores, relationships between women, mothers and daughters and so on, often with the same characters recurring in different works.
Katie Shima is an artist and architect based in Brooklyn. She received a BA from Columbia University and a MArch from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. Her work has been exhibited at BRIC, the Knockdown Center, Bridge Gallery, Mighty Tanaka Gallery, Devotion Gallery, Trestle Gallery, and others in New York City as well as the GWVA Museum in Springfield, MA, and D.A.K. in Aarhus, Denmark. Residencies include Trestle Art Space, Con Artist Collective, Clocktower Gallery, and Det Jyske Kunstakademie. Katie is also a founding member of the electronic noise art group Loud Objects and has taught as an instructor at Columbia University.
Kyle Stewart was born in Ontario, Canada in 1974 and was raised in a farm house near St. Thomas, Ontario. Growing up in rural settings created a bond with outdoor life which was later challenged after years living in the city of Toronto. His ongoing series of oil paintings depict his relationship with nature as seen from an urban perspective. There are organic elements and hints of landscape, but they are often distorted or artificial in appearance; influenced by his experiences within the city.
Matthew Huntley was born in 1993 in Indianapolis, Indiana where he is currently based. He studied oil painting at the Herron School of Art and Design, where he received his Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2016. In 2017, he studied under oil painters Donato Giancola, Greg Manchess, Rebecca Guay, Boris Vallejo, and Julie Bell at the Illustration Master Class in Amherst, Massachusetts. In his current practice, he combines childhood nostalgia from shows like Power Rangers, Powerpuff Girls, and Megas XLR with his love of Baroque and 19th century academic art. He uses traditional materials to create narrative paintings of gigantic heroines and monsters. Inspired by memories of growing up in a dysfunctional household, his paintings explore non-traditional gender roles and femininity.
Michael Camarra is currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Originally from Southern Connecticut, he moved to New York to study at Pratt Institute. Working in a range of media from painting to graphic and even animation, he uses bright colors and a mixed visual vocabulary to bring his visions to life. Naturally drawn to fantasy and the occult, his work is highly influenced by ancient civilizations, forgotten religions, mythology, folklore and dreams.
Mikael Takacs is a marbler based in Sweden. He uses pipettes to distribute acrylic paint across the canvas to create his subjects, which he then distorts by dragging the paint around using various tools, such as sticks and combs. He combines the classic abstract expression of marbling with concrete figures. This results in intricate razorsharp patterns swirling across the canvas as you look at it up close, which then takes the form of a portrait as you take a few steps back. Even though the patterns in themselves are very sharp they can make the figure look blurry or fuzzy, which can have a somewhat anonymizing effect. The vivid and abstract is in contrast to the vague and figurative.
Mose Biz Dada is the moniker that Mark Dukes has chosen to go by to present his freshly developed secular work that reference Byzantine and early Italo religious icons and certain modernist art strategies of Surrealism and Dadaism. “Biz Dada” is a shortened form of the term “Byzantine DaDaism.” “Mose” is a play on “Mos’,” “Most,” and “Moses.” His body of work deals with some personal existential quandaries and concerns that the artist’s character of St. Sambo expresses as “not being an enigma as much as it being an ENIGGERMA.” Mose Biz Dada relishes unusual juxtapositions that attempt to give glimpses into what the classic Surrealists might call ‘super-reality.’ Born and raised in Columbus, Ohio, Mose Biz Dada/Mark Dukes attended the Columbus College of Art and Design. And as a liturgical icon artist, Dukes spent almost twenty years decorating with religious icons two innovative and high profile churches in San Francisco. Mark Dukes currently lives in Thailand and is working on a graphic literature picture-book featuring his characters of St. Sambo of Americoonia and his mother Aint Jah’s Momma of God.”
Nicola Caredda was born in 1981 in Cagliari, Italy and studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Sassari. His work transcends reality by utilizing a dreamy-visionary language, creating dense compositions that blend elements from distant expressive vocabularies and narratives that appear to be ripped from the subconscious.
Paul Reid was born in 1975 in Scone, Perth, Scotland. He studied at Dundee Art College and graduated in 1998 with 1st Class honors in Fine Art, Drawing & Painting. During that time he developed a painting style inspired by comic book art and old master paintings. For subject matter he mines the potent imagery of Greek mythology as preserved by the authors Homer, Ovid, Virgil mixed with a good deal of modern Science Fiction such as H.G.Wells, Kurt Vonnegut, H.P. Lovecraft, Arthur Machen and others. His works have exhibited extensively in the United Kingdom and he was the Official Tour Artist for H.R.H Prince of Wales when he toured the Middle East in 2004 and Canada in 2009.
Renan Santos is a self-taught Brazilian illustrator who started his carrier studying architecture. He specializes in three techniques: pen and ink, printmaking and oil painting. His portfolio embodies illustrations for children’s books, large format panels, street art and fabric print boasting. His work has been exhibited at Hatos Gallery in Tokyo, Hellion Gallery in Portland and Artistik Rezo Gallery in Paris.
Rick Newton was born in West Palm Beach Florida and received a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art. Stylistically inspired by scientific textbook illustrations, her presents his personal mythology concerning the future of our world. By incorporating Cold War imagery interacting with animal life set in surreal landscapes, he supposes a world where there has been a shift in hierarchy.
Risa Tochigi (aka Boogie) is one half of the dynamic duo boogieREZ. An illustrator, painter and a muralist, truly lives life to the fullest, and can’t stop, won’t stop creating! She works on a wide range of projects in a number of mediums. Recently she has been heavily involved in using ply-wood to bring her illustrations to life. Her imagination and love of nature and design has led her to create organic works throughout Nord Anglia international school, where she is currently an artist in residence.
Robert Nelson was born in Florida and grew up in Los Angeles, where he is currently based. He studied Fine Art/Studio Art in college before joining the US Navy, from which he retired. After the Navy he attended Platt College in San Diego and studied Graphic Design and Multimedia Design. He worked as a Graphic Designer for eighteen years. He utilizes a vivid palette for his fine art work, mixing pop and surrealist styles and juxtaposing images that play with deep concepts, such as the compression of time, innocence and corruption, and technology as the potential savior – or downfall – of man. From the sentience of robotic life forms to playful, prescient combinations of Renaissance-era images and retro-futuristic figures, Nelson offers lively, provocative art.
Sam Wilson was born in 1986 in Wicihta, Kansas and is currently based in San Antonio, Texas. He is a self-taught artist and painted his first oil painting under the guidance of his father, a major influence in his art. Since then Sam has been painting and creating art, pushing and evolving his style and technique. The name “Spot Slim”, which for a time was how Sam signed his work, originated as a name he used as a street performer and he still holds the name for his other creative endeavors.
Samuelle Green was born in rural Pennsylvania and went on to practice her work in New York for many years. She recently returned to her studio in Pennsylvania where she continues to paint and sculpt. Her work has always been multidisciplinary, from oil on canvas, gouache on paper, sculpture, to large scale installations. The subject often involving natures interaction with the human made word and is strongly based on the idea that there’s structure and detail inherent in nature, which we often borrow from and take for granted.
Steven Labadessa is a native New Yorker (Brooklynite) and received an MFA in Painting from the University of Pennsylvania. Prior studies include studying at SAIC, SMFA Boston, NYAA, SVA, the Arts Students League and Brooklyn College CUNY. His paintings exact a preference for hyperbole and psychological texture suspended in the mythical timelessness of the medium, exploring the notion that transcendence lies not in purity, but in finding virtue in the impure. Prominent influences and sources of inspiration include; Japanese aesthetics, fringe and popular culture, Western High and Low Art from the Northern Renaissance, the Baroque, 19th-century French Art and MarvelComics. He has taught and exhibited throughout the United States.
Steven Schmilar was born in Grande Prairie Alberta where he spent most of his childhood on a farm. While living in Calgary from 2000 – 2008, he played music professionally and won a national songwriting contest in the spring of 2006 at CanadaMusicWeek in Toronto. From 2008 until 2012, he lived in Victoria BC where he painted and performed as a solo musician. In 2011, a career shift to full-time visual artist was made after the success of his first show. Since moving to Toronto in the spring of 2012, Steven won “best in show” at the Toronto Outdoor Art Exhibit.
Susannah Martin was born in 1964 in New York City. She studied at New York University and received a SEHNAP scholarship for painting. Among her most notable teachers there were; John Kacere, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine and Peter Campus. Following her studies she was self-employed as a muralist and painter of sets for film and photography in New York, Berlin and Frankfurt am Main, where she is currently based. In 2004, she returned to fine art and is interested in contemporizing the classical subject of the nude in landscape. Avoiding a falsely idyllic scenario, she focuses on mans´ estrangement from nature. The figures may appear absurd, stripped of all social indicators and possessions, or ecstatic in unexpected reunification with their natural selves. Her work creates a stage in which mans´ struggle between the two poles of his identity, the natural and the synthetic, may be contemplated. She’s exhibited throughout Europe and the United States of America.
Tina Lugo was born and raised in The Bronx, New York. She studied at the School of Visual Arts where she obtained her BFA and worked with fellow artist, Nicolas Touron. She’s currently based in Portland, Oregon where she continues to make glass paintings in her Pacific Northwest studio. Lugo lists as her biggest influence, the Ero Guru Nansensu art movement of Japan—a name comprised of fractions of the English words erotic, grotesque, and nonsense. The movement focuses on eroticism, sexual corruption, and decadence, all themes salient in Lugo’s work.
Vicki Khuzami was born in Brooklyn, New York and earned a BFA from SUNY New Paltz, studying painting and filmmaking. After college she traveled 2 years overseas to India, Nepal, and Japan, which culminated in a one-woman show in Kyoto. Soon after returning to New York she spent 4 years painting Harlequin Romance Novel Bookcovers. She was then introduced to Evergreene Architectural Arts, where she helped to create 26 new historical murals for The Capitol Building in Washington D.C., among many other large scale projects. In 1996, she opened Khuzami Studio and has created over 50 murals for corporate, public, and private commissions. In 2008, she designed and produced Bloomingdale’s famous Lexington Avenue Holiday Windows, creating hand painted vintage 1950’s Christmas scenes. Her work has been exhibited throughout New York City.
Victor Fota was born in 1989 in Bucharest, Romania, where he is currently based. He received a Bachelor and Masters degree in Art History from the National University of Arts in Bucharest. He’s currently focused on experimenting with oil paintings that illustrate concepts and phenomena described by the scientific method, combined with personal introspection. He utilizes a clean technique that resembles the old Flemish method of rigid forms and a successive glazes of paint. Since 2017 he’s been working on the Entropy series, which focuses on the subconscious and imagination to illustrate complex surreal scenes with organic structures as the subject. This concept is based on the Second law of thermodynamics and on the flow of energy in the universe.
Win Wallace was born in South Carolina and is currently based in Austin, Texas. His recent practice focuses on conte and charcoal portraits, as well as ink drawings. Since high school, Wallace has played in bands and has made posters for bands like the Melvins, Neurosis, Sleep, Helios Creed, Alice Donut, DMBQ, Animal Collective, Scratch Acid, The Dicks and many others. He moved to Austin in the mid 1990’s to study drawing at the University of Texas. His drawings are influenced by history, art history, dreams, nature and pathos. His works have been exhibited extensively in Texas, throughout the United States and internationally.