EILEEN S. KAMINSKY FAMILY FOUNDATION
Lee Russell Holin
Shortly after graduating the New York Academy of Art in 2002 with a degree in figurative drawing Lee embarked on a journey of self discovery by taking his art to the streets. On the street art scene, working with the varying terrains as well as meeting and collaborating with different artists and their diverse ways of manipulating art on urban landscape, he learned avant-garde ways to create art not taught yet in schools. There was a freedom of expression with no immediate need for validation. Experimentation was as important as the art that was being displayed.
Some examples of this experimentation with uncommissioned art installations consist of Bolt-ups (the act of bolting premade signs to traffic poles), tearing and manipulating pervasive street ads or simply creating his own street ads, to fabricating a self sustained working video game on a news box or a functional pinwheel catching the wind with deconstructed development signs.
Placing art on the street comes with an understanding that the work will be met with destruction. Whether slowly or immediately the pieces will be eroded and decayed by the environment be it weather or others making their own marks. It is this feel of decay and ephemerality that he is now working with in a studio practice.
During a time of 24 hour news cycles, conspiracy theories, social media and the “influencers” that follow, the overabundance of information whether important or trivial has echoed into a wall of noise. Incorporating the destructive elements, materials, and tools learned from his days working with street art into a studio practice to realize a new body of work that is focused on dealing with fear, anxiety, and confusion that comes with the age of information we find ourselves treading in.
Lee Russell Holin (b. 1976) is based in New York City. He received a B.F.A. in drawing and painting from L.I.U. and an M.F.A. from the New York Academy of Art with a drawing concentration. After graduating the academy he spent a decade working with art on the street under the moniker Russell King. He is a featured artist in the book Outdoor Gallery New York City (2014), “15 street art terms you should know” complex (2012), New York Times “East Village Guerilla Art” (2015). Select shows include Red Bull Curates (2012), Tehran to NYC/NYC to Tehran (2014), and Combined Talents at Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts (2019).
Cheryl Gross
Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, Cheryl Gross is an illustrator, painter, writer, and motion graphic artist living and working in the New York/New Jersey area. She is a professor at Pratt Institute and Bloomfield College.
Cheryl received her MFA from Pratt Institute. Her work has appeared in numerous films, TV shows, publications, and graces the walls of many corporate and museum collections including Zebra Poetry Film Festival, Berlin, New York Times, 100 New York Painters, Schiffler Publishing, Riverside Museum, Riverside, Cal., USA, The Museum of The City of New York, Mississippi Museum of Art, The New York Times, Comedynet.com, Associatedcontent.com, Current TV, Laforet Harajuku Museum, Tokyo, Japan, and Artist-In-Residency, Kunstlerhaus, Saarbrucken, Germany. Finalist Elizabeth Hulings Foundation, 2014, Artist-In-Residency Program, Dilsberg, Germany, 2015, 4- time recipient Eileen Kaminsky Family Foundation Artist Residency (ESKAFF), Jersey City, 2018-2019
When asked about her work:
“I equate my work with creating and building an environment, transforming my inner thoughts into reality. Beginning with the physical process, I work in layers. I am involved in solving visual and verbal complexities such as design and narrative. My urban influence has indeed added an ‘edge’ to my work.”
Vikki Michalios
I have always been interested in people and their stories. As a kid, I would sit in my aunt’s and godmother’s kitchen, respectively, and listen to their stories. The stories were about them and other people, but far from being gossip oriented; they were focused on life experiences and lessons on how to approach life from a kinder perspective.
Those conversations left a seed in me, and I watched it grew through the years and realized how easy it was for me to connect to people emotionally. I had learned to welcome people and their stories. At some point, I considered studying psychology, convinced it was the best way to put this trait to good use, but I turned to painting instead.
Through painting, I am able to connect not only with other people’s stories but also with my own. No painting reveals a specific story, but instead, they are the sum of many stories. My subject matter tends to be broad, and inclusive for this reason. I don’t wish to paint solely about one story or focus on one sentiment. The human experience is a combination of emotions that rise and subside. Therefore, my work can be a mix of heartbreak, love, death, friendship, lust, kindness, sexuality, spirituality among other things, things that as human beings we can relate to.
As an artist, I am intrigued by how we negotiate these aspects of our lives and how we navigate life itself in different times and spaces, always striving to make the best of our lives.
Jada Fabrizio
Jada’s work has been exhibited in museums and galleries, throughout the New York metro area as well as in cities all over the country. Her work appears in a wide variety of publications including Musée Magazine, Split Rock Review, Chaleur Magazine, Pikchur Magazine, and High Shelf Press. Jada studied at the School Visual Arts, The International Center for Photography, SUNY New Paltz, and the Munson Proctor Art Institute.
Ms. Fabrizio’s work makes good use of her experience with many disciplines, taking the form of set building, sculpture, and photography. Jada loves to tell stories and is interested in telling them in all sorts of ways. Her work can be thought of as a documentary, but only if you are documenting a dream or the subconscious.
Grace Ramsey
Grace Mikell Ramsey lives in New Jersey and is an Assistant Professor of Art at William Paterson University where she teaches painting and drawing. She received an M.F.A. in Painting from Tulane University in 2012 was awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant Award that year. In 2014 she was awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Career Opportunity Grant. Her work has been shown nationally, including at the Contemporary Arts Center New Orleans, the Historic Arkansas Museum, the University of Alabama at Birmingham Art Gallery, and the Art Fair 14C Juried Show in Jersey City, New Jersey. Her work has been published in the Oxford American, Artvoices, Arkansas Life, The Idle Class, and Momma Tried.