Bobby Blazek is a multi-media artist working and currently residing in his hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. His work focuses on macabre storytelling through paintings, comics, and illustrations. Blazek combines biological, technological, and religious imagery while emphasizing color contrast, movement, repetition, and texture in order to convey narratives pertaining to marginalized bodies in the current state of the world. Currently he is at MICA majoring in General Fine Arts, minoring in Illustration and Sequential Art.
Joshua Littlefield (b. 1995) is an interdisciplinary artist and educator working primarily in the contexts of photography, collage, and installation. Originally from St. Petersburg, Florida, he obtained his B.F.A in Photography from the Savannah College of Art and Design in 2017, and his M.F.A in Photography and Electronic Media from the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2020. He is currently based in Baltimore, Maryland, and serves as an adjunct professor at Stevenson University in Owings Mills, Maryland, where he teaches Fundamentals of Design courses.
Joe Kraemer is an award winning filmmaker, artist and writer based in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. He received his M.F.A. in Film and Media Arts at Temple University and his B.F.A. in Film from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee’s Peck School of the Arts. His films have exhibited at film festivals and conferences both nationally and internationally. His most recent film, Just Another Day, was nominated for a regional Emmy Award, received numerous industry accolades including a Gold Telly Award, and reached over 7 million views on YouTube in the three years since its debut.
Artist Bio for Lea Craigie-Marshall Born in Falls Church, Va in 1976, self-taught, contemporary artist Lea showed talent from an early age. An natural creative spirit, she spent time taking private art lessons with her mother at home as well as in the mountains of scenic West Virginia with her grandmother, both artists. These strong female influences helped mold and inspire Lea to be the dynamic, multifaceted, feminist artist she is today.
Patricia (Patsy) Card is a long term resident of Anne Arundel County since 1974. Her graphic art career spans 28 years supporting government contractors in the District of Columbia and Northern Virginia areas. She holds a AA degree from Northern Virginia Community College in graphic arts. Patricia continued her fine art classes at UMUC and at AACC where she has taken classes in oil painting, intaglio, lithography, and silk screening. Her oil and watercolor paintings are done with an expressionistic approach with the use of light and shadow to bring the image into focus.
Tyler Yvette Wilson is a multidisciplinary artist who primarily works with text, photography, and video. She blends children’s motifs, autobiographical, current, and historical narratives to discuss the aftershock of colonialism and the troubling foundations that underlie most of Western society. Tyler was raised in Austin, TX and Atlanta, GA. She studied at Davidson College from 2010 to 2016. After graduating with a B.A. in Studio Art, she attended Oglethorpe University for post-baccalaureate studies. In 2020, she earned her M.F.A.
Yam Chew Oh is a multidisciplinary, multilingual artist and educator who explores notions of self, family, and circumstance through abstraction, language, and the everyday. His work has been exhibited in the United States, Asia, and Australia, and featured in Commotion, Lumina Journal, The Match Factory, Studio Visit, and Velocity. Oh is Faculty at the School of Visual Arts in New York, where he received an MFA in Fine Arts and teaches studio art. He is a writing tutor at the Maryland Institute College of Art and a member of the international collective Atlantika. More at www.yamchewoh.com.
Annette Wilson Jones received her BFA from MICA in 1978 and, in 1980, she was hired by Beautiful Walls for Baltimore as a full-time muralist. In 1986, her work was chosen by New Museum Curator Brian Wallis for a five-person show, Sweet Land of Liberty, at School 33 Arts Center; was featured and awarded an honorarium by Baltimore City Paper for her drawing, Self-portrait as St. Sebastian, Tattooed on My Husband’s Back; and she had her first child/ spiritual guide.
Steve Wanna is a multi-disciplinary sound and visual artist whose work includes music, sound design for dance collaborations, sculpture, installation, photography, and works for mixed media. His work showcases the hidden, often ignored beauty he finds in chaotic and seemingly random phenomena. Abstract, experimental, and multimedia, his work is inspired by science, nature, and philosophy, often incorporating elements of controlled randomness—uncertainty is built into the process. Born and raised in Lebanon, he immigrated to the US with his family as a teenager.
Ileana Hernandez is a Mexican visual activist and 2019 graduate from the MFA in Photography and Related Media at Rochester Institute of Technology. Works from her thesis project My Dear Americans have been featured at The Nation’s blog and were shown at the 2019 SPE Media Festival and the 2018 Northeast Exhibition Tipping Points. A maker and a thinker, Ileana believes that art has the power to share ideas and make people care. She uses her art making as a form of activism.