Brian Linares Obando

/

Brian Linares Obando

https://xzbelo.myportfolio.com/ // ig: @xzbelo

The project is based on connecting an element with a folkloric Bolivian Dance. Tinkus connects to earth with its earth-shattering dance style and Diablada Connects to fire with its devilish masks and vibrant colors. This project is to make the audience aware of the Bolivian Community around the area and to give a unique spin on the outfits used in the annual Bolivian Festival. In addition, by scanning the posters and cards using the Artvive app you can immerse yourself and experience art like never before.

Steven Luu

/

Steven Luu

http://www.stevenluuart.com // ig: @4art4food4travel

My artwork is a vessel for my healing. During my childhood, unlike many other kids with beautiful and happy memories, I endured hardship, poverty under Communism, and the unforgiving sea during our escape from Vietnam. Later in my adulthood, I enlisted in the U.S. Air Force as a medic and the theme of death continued traveling with me. I turned all my memories into living experiences through art. The materials I used for my "Abundance of Expressions" project are items that accompanied me while serving in the military and casual everyday objects.

My artwork is a vessel for my healing. During my childhood, unlike many other kids with beautiful and happy memories, I endured hardship, poverty under Communism, and the unforgiving sea during our escape from Vietnam. Later in the adulthood, I enlisted to the U.S. Air Force as a medic and the theme of death continued travelling with me. I turned all my memories into living experience through art. The materials I used for my "Abundance of Expressions" project are items that accompanied me while serving in the military and casual everyday objects. As an artist, I have chosen the process of transformation, reinvention, and repurposing of materials to articulate my inner voice and a way to seal painful memories as bookmarks. I began my first ‘expressions’ by tracing the profile of my own head on paper, then cutting around it to construct a ‘head-looking’ box. I placed the objects into this box and sealed them with epoxy resin to enclose them. Resin is a rigid substance; it comes as two inactive liquid compounds that need to be mixed to activate them and form a solid block. The process of encasing objects became a ritual for healing my trauma. I completed this project with 128 heads. They are stacked in a long rectangular form, so viewers can recognize and listen to each specific testimony of my life.

Tina Ly

/

Tina Ly

ig: @Ly_arte_

My artwork such as creating portraits, I love to create expressions, whether subtle or very exaggerated. Something about being able to recreate and paint how someone is feeling through just slight movement of the mouth or eyebrow fascinates me. It somehow gives me a better connection with the person I’m painting, even if I haven’t had a conversation with them. The mediums that I use are oil paints, acrylic, pastels, graphite, and watercolor. My work also consists of bright colors and fantasy-like illustrations. These bright colors help bring out the mood in what I’m trying to portray, but are also very eye-catching. I like my work to be not only realistic but also out of this reality. It shows both sides of me. I am grounded, but sometimes I would like to separate myself from the world and just be imaginative.

Taryn Lyons

/

Taryn Lyons

https://www.linkedin.com/in/taryn-lyons-65a1b5225 // ig: @lyonsdesign.co

Taryn Lyons is a designer committed to curating authentic, unique, and modern brand identities. After graduation, Taryn plans to pursue a Master’s degree in art education where she will apply her design skills to teach art & design in the future. Over the last seven years, she has worked her way up to the Program Operation Manager at the Silo Center where she lead students and developed art curriculum for their programs. As a designer she is excited about creating content for brands in need. As a future Art Educator, she is excited to teach students how to express themselves by communicating through their art.

I have created an interactive conversation card game intended for elementary aged kids and their parents. The game intends to provide a safe space to learn about emotions, discuss them constructively, and bridge the gap between parents and children. The card game will include: conversation cards, parent guide (instructions), and a workbook.

Alan Maldonado

/

Alan Maldonado

ig: @mal_design98

From a young age the show Dragon Ball Z had captivated me so much to the point that I felt compelled to create my own battles between two stick figures. Drawing became my muse and form of escapism throughout grade school. By the time I graduated Highschool I took it upon myself to buy an anatomy book focused on figure drawing to take my skills to the next level. Upon my arrival at George Mason I realized there was so much more to learn and I saw the opportunity I had to grow as a fine artist. After my first year, I decided to switch my concentration from drawing to graphic design, as I acknowledged I had absolutely no digital art skills. As a fine artist, my line work does most of the heavy lifting, my style varies from cartoony, realistic, and a mixture of both. As a designer I enjoy using expressive typography, dynamic angles, and opaque or saturated colors.My goal is to place my artwork out in the real world. Specifically, in unconventional places or areas where you typically wouldn’t see artwork. Placing my work in a context such as a subway station creates a mysterious and alien effect which fits a lot of the visual design you can see in my work. I create posters that have a futuristic and extra-terrestrial tone them.

“Influence” is a story about my journey in the workforce. The narrative is told visually through photography and typography. My first few jobs were primarily in food service where I was paid astronomically low for the amount of arduous labor I provided. Following the pandemic I was let go from my retail job and ended up working mall security, a field of work I never anticipated. After half a year of working I transferred to Tyson’s Galleria where the pay was significantly higher.

Not only was the pay higher, but so was everything else. Price ranges of 5k to 20k, countless entitled characters, transactional relationships, body modifications, all the stereotypes I only saw on the internet we’re walking right in front of me.

My book aims to capture my thoughts and perceptions of transitioning into this type of environment and how I came to terms with it. My goal is to have anyone vicariously experience my journey and to have a small window into the world of High Fashion Retail.

Kevin Maldonado

/

Kevin Maldonado

tw @MAL_DESIGNS

For as long as I can remember, I have always been infatuated with visually stunning forms of art and media. Growing up as a first generation Hispanic kid with a single mother who was working two jobs 5 days a week, I had to use my own curiosity to teach myself many things and discover the world around me little by little. Along the way, I was always in awe staying up late at night watching anime, cartoons, playing video games, and watching youtube animations. I took in all of that knowledge and found myself trying to recreate what I saw. Eventually that enabled me to build a style fully focused on being professional, intentional, and dynamic.

During the pandemic I had found myself working at a car dealership. In that time I grew a strong passion for the automotive world. One thing that stuck out in particular was the Japanese scene and how much it has influenced car culture today. Drifting is the highlight of the Japanese automotive world and In this project I wanted to bring light to it by putting together a book that goes into detail of the car drifting scene from it's conception to what it is currently. The book contains history, famous drift cars and racers, and some good old 101 sauce on how to drift. This book was an opportunity for me to showcase what I enjoy visually and the dynamism that is captured in the automotive world aesthetically.

Grace Markley

/

Grace Markley

@gracieartsie

I am a mixed media artist and I create colorful and vibrant images. I go for runs and am sparked with vivid moving images that pierce my mind and become the blueprints of themes and images in my work. I work with vintage magazines, acrylic, oil, and watercolor paint, ink, and printing blocks or screens. I use material to give an aesthetic of looking into memories. Images I subconsciously chose are special to the current experience of present time. I have retrieved memories from my subconscious that I had suppressed years ago by looking at a collage I did in the past. In my work I explore themes of human suffering, male violence against women, unity, escapism, and environmentalism. I obsess over the experience of suffering and healing only to find I must overcome once again similar to the practice of enlightenment. The human experience of being here right now leads me to find that achieving peace over and over again is crucial to my work. Since I was little, I have gone through life experiencing and observing. I do not take action to change any situation. I let it happen and analyze later however traumatic or beautiful the experience may be. I realize whatever is happening in the present moment was supposed to happen or else it wouldn't have. Art has been an outlet in communicating with the world around me and understanding life.

This piece is a farewell letter to my life as a student and all the skills my hands and eyes have learned through these four years. Themes that stuck out to me in life have been how good or evil humanity can be, as well as our ability to tune into other realms of consciousness. Each panel is a perspective that represents my observations through life on earth. A place I go to for comfort and escape, a place I always hoped the world would be, and a place I see in the world today. I am meditating on a better way of living and expressing environmental anxiety as well as the isolation and division caused by modern technology. The purple panel represents my mind palace, unconfined by time and space where anything can happen. It is an escape to a healing place to deal with great issues I would like to change about the world we live in today. It is unbearable to see the wildfires, landfills, wars, poverty, animals displaced, and plastic habitats. The green panel represents duality and the good that people can do with love and sustainability, to leave our planet better than we found it as consumers. The red panel may seem like a sci-fi post-human world, however it is merely a collage of all the things I see happen every day. Buildings replace the landscape and drones replace the stars. Construction orange fills the city. A texting driver throws his cigarette out the window.

Fernando Martinez

/

Fernando Martinez

http://tribeonedesigns.com // ig: @Tribe_one_art_usk

Solo Los Muertos Saben La Verdad!” (Only the Dead Know the Truth). As a Latino of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent, this statement encompasses the spirit of Fernando’s art. Fernando “TRIBE” states, “Death for Latinos is celebrated and embraced, we have an intimate relationship with death.” This is commonly expressed using the symbolism of the “Calavera” or “Sugar Skull”, which is one of the recurring themes in much of his work.

Born in East Los Angeles and raised in California’s San Fernando Valley, TRIBE first took notice of graffiti at about the age of twelve. At that time, the letterforms he had seen throughout the city became a constant vision in his head. TRIBE started writing his own graffiti on the streets of the San Fernando Valley, bus stop benches, grocery store shopping carts, and street signs throughout the city. He drew inspiration from graffiti writers such as RISK, SKILL, HEX, and SWAN. Through graffiti TRIBE has been able to create mixed media filled with intense color and vibrant patterns that are reflective of his heritage and culture.

TRIBE’s work celebrates a mixture of styles that characterize the comic art style of the 90s. He paints Calaveras on canvas, using contrasting as well as complementary colors by way of both enamel spray paint and acrylic brush paints or soft pastels. Using tie wire, he creates three dimensional sculptures of life size Calaveras. These Calaveras represent a perspective of the unknown; for him they are an emblem of what death may or may not be, and a glimpse for his viewers into what he envisions it would be like for skull and bones to come back to life. Tribe has been exhibited at the virtual exhibit “Fear in Technicolor” at the Anxious Tomato Online Gallery from Oct 1, 2021, through Oct 31st, 2021, at “Rewired” a George Mason and NOVA Juried Exhibition at the Gillespie Gallery in 2021, and at the Newhall Community Center Group Show, “Around the World Holiday Traditions” Nov 1, 2021- Jan 7th 2022. Tribe can be reached by email at Tribe@tribeonedesigns.com or from his website Tribeonedesigns.com

The "Vandal Kit" is the start of and a glimpse of a larger project. The Kit will contain a carefully curated array of tools often used by graffiti writers. The motivation behind creating this box is to expose the viewer to graffiti writers and their mediums. By extension this collection can be used to ignite a conversation about the necessity of providing public art spaces where socio-economiclly disadvantaged youth can grow and develop their skills in a safe and encouraging atmosphere.

Kelly Miller, Jr.

/

Kelly Miller, Jr.

kmillerjr.myportfolio.com

Through my multidisciplinary journey as a designer, I’ve found myself very drawn to UX/UI and web design/development. I feel that these two areas engage the analytical side of myself, along with possessing the potential for artistic expression and creative problem-solving. Using my love for music and lifelong admiration of illustration as wells of inspiration, I consistently aim to create designs that build connections with others.

There are many musicians that are looking to start a band or find other musicians to collaborate/play with, whether it be professionally or casually, and there are many bands looking for musicians to fill a vacancy in their lineup. As a musician myself, I understand that finding other musicians or potential band members can be a challenge for some, and is something that I've struggled with over the years. Using my and others’ experiences as a guide, for my senior project, I designed Polyphony, an app that can help musicians and bands find and connect with each other, whether it be locally or worldwide. I went through the UX research process to help define the app's purpose and features, including user goals, user research, competitive analysis, and sitemapping, culminating in an interactive prototype. I also made a small UX case study booklet/website to help give the app some context in a gallery setting.

Jocelyn Moore-Gayles

/

Jocelyn Moore-Gayles

https://jaemg.myportfolio.com/ // ig: @kurohtak1 // tw: @kurohtak1

12 years of work, and what do you have to show for it? What can you look forward to? Was it all for nothing? "Is This The End" is an end-of-goal memoir written and illustrated by Jae Moore-Gayles. It recounts their final thoughts as a college senior. Exploring their understanding of gender, sexuality, neurodivergency, and finding self-worth outside of the capitalistic grind. Through the eyes of a Black Nonbinary Lesbian, they finally get to ask themselves, “Is this the end?”

Gaelin Murphy

/

Gaelin Murphy

https://caoilin8murphy.wixsite.com/astra-knights // ig: @astra_knights

Connection is an especially important part of my art. I want to form a connection between the viewer and the art in a personal way. To create that relationship with the viewer, I focus on storytelling and creating a story itself through set dressing, such as what items are in the room or what the culture of fashion dictates based on the subject’s clothes, and what I allow the viewer to see verses what they do not see. The stories are often bold in nature, focusing on subjects and issues that I don’t see explored commonly in artwork. Such as the struggles of dealing with the guilt of terrible actions and the growth no one sees and carrying the weight of trauma that makes living unbearable.

I approach these subjects usually with digital 2D animation or video art, due to how personal these subjects are. I tend to stay close to my comfort zone with my medium and style of choice since I’ve been doing it for over 6 years. I present these subjects similarly to chucking a baseball as hard as you can at someone’s face, with desperation to get the negative feelings out with little regard to how it affects the person on the other end. Often, I feel alone in my own headspace, and I use art to connect with others. I’m awful at expressing how I feel with words. I feel desperate to get my feelings out even though while making the art, nothing would make me feel better than to give up. The connection I’m searching for isn’t as skin-deep as I stated at the start, I’m looking for a connection that makes the pain more bearable. The connection between like-minded people. The connection with those who don’t understand but are scared for me. Any connection would be the connection I want. Me being seen as I am and making a connection with others is all I want.

Guilt is something we carry with us years after the fact. It continues to haunt us and taunt us with what we had before and what we lost because of what we did. Sherwin is in the middle of a major depressive episode that has been going on for months after his girlfriend, Lanie, left him and as a matter of consequence she was assaulted by Sherwin’s closest friend. Wracked with guilt, he has lost all sense of time after the event and is haunted by severe hallucinations of past events leading up to Lanie’s assault. He awakes everyday to go through the motions of hallucinations to punish himself in his own personal form of hell. He wishes to constantly remind himself of the good he had and how it was his fault Lanie left and how it was his friend who assaulted her after she was no longer his, making her assault indirectly his fault. Sherwin’s inability to let go of the guilt of his past actions is a cautionary tale of the dangers of allowing your guilt and past mistakes manifest in a self-destructive way. I have the stance that if you feel guilty for your past actions, you have already grown past the person you once were.

Larry Nguyen

/

Larry Nguyen

I believe storytelling is an art form that effectively draws out emotional responses from its audience. Books, films, and even games can make us cry or laugh because of its story. The stories I create are in the form of comic books because I mainly draw. The themes of my stories relate to the human spirit such as its strength and flaws. What I want for my stories is that they become vehicles that can withstand the onslaught of time to reach readers from all over and resonate with a part of their soul. I have so many ideas that come to me spontaneously that I struggle to write them all down. Few of them become fleshed out but am compelled to bring all of them to life. The reason behind my motivation is that I love a good story. I love characters that remind me it’s ok to have flaws because that’s what being human is. The great emotions I want my readers to feel are emotions I have felt when I experienced great stories. Good stories can outlast many things, including the creator. I hope that as people remember my stories, they will also remember my name as a form of life after death. Every time I draft up a comic with my pencils and pens, I remember what my favorite stories did for me. They gave me the strength and courage to pursue my passion and I hope my stories will do the same for someone else.

What if a digital person were to create a physical comic? What would it be or look like? How would it be received by a physical audience? How would a physical audience react to a digital creator? This previously one-sided physical relation between creator and comic now flipped brings forth possibilities on what could be real or not real. A dog in a comic is not real to us but is real to the characters that interact with it. So, does that mean a digital person creating physical work can produce something that is real to us but not themselves?

The physical relation between creator and comic is one-sided. The creator is always physical and the creation could be physical or digital. Because of this, people tend to favor physical creations and some would ask “Will print media die?” as technology advances into our daily lives. I believe that it does not matter how a story is presented. If the story can capture the hearts and minds of people who experience it, then it transcends both of those two states and its existence becomes immutable.