The Freelancers Union and Freelancers Hub are proud to current our Self-Portrait Artwork Showcase, a curated assortment of works by gifted freelance artists who’ve turned their gaze inward to share private and thought-provoking reflections by means of their artwork.
Be a part of us for the opening reception on April eighth at The Freelancers Hub to have a good time these unbelievable artists and their work: RSVP at the moment.
All occasions on the Freelancers Hub are made attainable because of the assist of NYC Mayors workplace of Media and Leisure.
Featured Artists
Jia Ying Lin – Reflections
Bio: Jia Ying Lin is a up to date artist based mostly in New York Metropolis. With a multidisciplinary background in science, artwork, and enterprise, her curiosity bridges logic and creativity, exploring the intersections of id and emotion by means of visible storytelling.
Her work have been exhibited on the Russell Janis Gallery, the place she continues to push the boundaries of dynamic compositions, modern strategies, and materials exploration. Pushed by curiosity and a ardour for experimentation, Jia’s evolving work displays her dedication to capturing the complexities of the human expertise.
Artist Assertion: My work explores themes of reminiscence, adaptation, and cultural duality, formed by my curiosity and artistic uncertainty. Utilizing oil, acrylic, and combined media on textured surfaces, I create surreal, symbolic narratives that replicate the stress between private id and collective expertise. I invite viewers to navigate the house between actuality and abstraction, encouraging reflection on their inventive passions and inside selves.
Adina Farinango – Nuka 2023
Bio: Adina Farinango is a Kichwa-Otavalo artist who makes use of artwork as an act of resistance,therapeutic, and self-expression. Her artwork apply serves as a way to navigate and strengthen her personal id as an Indigenous girl inside the Kichwa diaspora. Influenced closely by the resilience and energy of matriarchs in her group—previous, current, and future—she seeks to Indigenize areas, centering the reclamation of house by means of a matriarchal lens. She is presently based mostly in Lenapehoking (New York Metropolis).
Artist Assertion: As a Kichwa Otavalo girl, my work in digital illustration, pictures, embroidery, and animation celebrates Indigenous id as an act of reclamation. Rooted in private, ancestral, and collective reminiscence, it connects with ancestors throughout time, shaping my expression. Exploring diaspora and the thought of house, I honor the love and energy handed down by means of my mom, group, and ancestors. Via a matriarchal lens, my artwork embodies resistance, pleasure, and Kichwa Futurisms. Regardless of colonialism’s affect, our artwork endures as a supply of resilience and imaginative and prescient, and my apply invitations others to have a good time its enduring energy.
Catherine Walsh – Dance Whereas You Can
Bio: My title is Catherine Walsh or CatsndBats. I’m 32 years previous. I used to be born in California however I grew up in rural Eire. I studied to be a ballet dancer in London and labored with a ballet firm there on graduating. I then moved to New York to proceed my profession as an expert ballet dancer. Whereas in New York, I used to be given a degree and shoot digital camera and I started photographing my each day life within the metropolis that by no means sleeps. When the pandemic occurred I made a decision to cease dancing professionally and give attention to pictures. I went to Pearse Faculty in Dublin and did a pictures course through the pandemic. Which gave me the chance to be part of a photograph exhibition. I created a physique of labor titled ‘Danced whereas I did’. The work overlaps snapshots from a visible diary of my skilled working life as a ballet dancer with latest self-portraits.
Artist Assertion: Ballet is the one factor I’ve felt sure about in my life. My past love. I gave myself to it absolutely. There may be an inevitability about this life, this profession. I received to some extent the place the dedication began to fade and I wished to discover different alternatives. But, I nonetheless wanted it in my life and I can’t let go of calling myself a dancer. It was my id. Since ceasing my skilled dancing profession I’m realizing this. As soon as a dancer, at all times a dancer. The self portrait belongs to a physique of labor which overlaps snapshots from a visible diary of my skilled working life as a ballet dancer and newer self-portraits. With this work, I’m making an attempt to grapple with and resolve the inevitable nature of growing older in my chosen career of dance, transitions between careers, but additionally the pure transitions of life.
Eesha Suntai – Phenominal
Bio: Eesha Suntai is greatest identified for her gazing portraits and nonetheless life work that show her capacity to mix classical inanimate objects with trendy or natural subject material, and evoke robust feelings by means of the usage of a vibrant shade palette. With each oil and acrylic portray mediums, her up to date interpretations provide a deeper narrative that focuses on id, pleasure, and trauma. Throughout the confines of Eesha Suntai’s work there are nods to Black tradition, which she believes, “Provides one other invisible layer to story-telling that compels me to proceed portray”.
Eesha Suntai has participated in artwork exhibitions across the NY & NJ space since 2017. In 2021, she was chosen for a solo exhibition at The Augusta Savage Gallery, situated on the College of Massachusetts Amherst. Final yr, her portray “Can I Name You Jimmy?” was chosen because the headliner piece for the 2024 Queens Rising exhibition “Say It Loud: Unsung Heroes” at Tradition Lab LIC, and was on view during Nationwide Delight Month. Most lately Eesha Suntai has participated in Artist Exhibitions at Flushing City Corridor, Brooklyn Artwork Haus, and Kente Royal Gallery, respectively. Eesha can also be an energetic member of the KAC Gallery of Fellow Artists.
Artist Assertion: I’m a black feminine Artist from Queens that focuses on portray on medium and huge scale surfaces, using completely different types and subject material. My portray fashion is essentially influenced by the Fauvism motion, the place the Artist makes use of vibrant shade to create a dramatic expressive response. With each oil and acrylics, I make the most of shade to advertise calm and therapeutic, whereas concurrently interweaving advanced problems with id and self- consciousness, particularly affecting Girls and the African-American group.
Shan Graf – In My Personal
Bio: My title is Shan Graf and I used to be born and raised in Montana. I’m about to graduate with a BFA specializing in portray and drawing. I’m additionally receiving a minor in small enterprise and entrepreneurship.
Artist Assertion: Born and raised in Montana, I replicate on my life by means of the artwork that I create as a type of escapism. I’m presently within the undergraduate program for a Bachelor’s Diploma in Tremendous Arts in addition to a minor in small enterprise and entrepreneurship at Montana State College.
My paintings is closely influenced by private wrestle and escapism. My inventive apply focuses on experimenting with oil paint to create two-dimensional works that mix impressionism and realism. Colour is a central theme, the place I exploit vibrant colours to boost emotional depth by emphasizing and modifying components to evoke particular emotions. Influenced by private experiences—resembling rising up in Montana, political opinions, psychological well being, and childhood recollections—these points inform my subject material and shade selections, including depth and relatability. This integration permits me to create artwork that resonates emotionally with viewers, reflecting each private views and common themes relating to queer experiences.
Daniel Jackson – Indigo Pulse
Bio: Daniel Jackson is a Philadelphia-based visible storyteller and the proprietor of Embassy: Interactive, a pictures and video manufacturing firm. Via his work, he captures significant moments and uplifts various narratives. His inventive journey started in music, resulting in the launch of Embassy: Interactive in 2011 to highlight expertise on-line. By 2015, the corporate shifted its focus and developed into visible storytelling, increasing its scope and initiatives. Devoted to serving the group, Jackson collaborates with creatives, nonprofits, and small companies, delivering tailor-made providers. His work transcends documentation, emphasizing tales with affect. Choices embody promotional movies, headshots, music movies, occasion pictures, and social media content material, alongside addressing urgent social points in Philadelphia. Collaboration and group empowerment stay on the core of Jackson’s mission.
Artist Assertion: “Indigo Pulse” captures a pivotal second of reflection and renewal through the prolonged isolation of 2021. The deep blue tones within the portrait embody the emotional weight of navigating by means of melancholy, whereas additionally symbolizing the energy it takes to emerge from that shadowed state. Taken throughout a quiet pause in work, this self-portrait tells a narrative of resilience, vulnerability, and the transformative energy of self-awareness. It stands as a testomony to discovering gentle and rediscovering creativity, even within the midst of life’s darker chapters.
Dara Feller – Homebody
Bio: Dara Feller is a photographer/multidisciplinary artist dwelling in LA. Her apply focuses on portraiture, self-portraiture, and reside music pictures. After receiving a BFA in Studio Artwork from Chapman College, she utilized her expertise in multimedia studio apply to inventive direct, fashion and construct her personal photoshoot units. Dara’s work will be seen in publications resembling Polyester Zine, Galore Journal, Enterprise Insider, and Go the Aux, in addition to an artist characteristic in SD Voyager Journal.
Artist Assertion: “Homebody” was born by means of a literal interpretation of the expression. The eyes being “home windows to the soul”, the capability of the mouth to be “open” or “shut” like a door. Via this exploration we come to guage the thought of the self— are we our physique, or can we merely inhabit it?
Tiffany Kehinde – Celebrated, Not Tolerated
Bio: Tiffany Kehinde is a trend and sweetness photographer and videographer identified for her daring use of shade, texture, and light-weight manipulation. Her journey into pictures started at New York Trend Week (NYFW), the place she captured the vitality of runway reveals for manufacturers and publications—an expertise that jump-started her profession and sharpened her eye for high-fashion imagery. Impressed by the wonder in on a regular basis objects, Tiffany transforms frequent supplies into dynamic visible components, incorporating gems, rhinestones, colourful gels, prisms, and holographic props to create hanging pictures. Her experimental strategy to gentle—whether or not by means of projection, distortion, or reflection—provides a dreamlike high quality to her work.
Artist Assertion: “Celebrated, Not Tolerated” is a declaration of self-worth, and an invite to at all times select areas that remember you, and never tolerate you. This work speaks to the significance of belonging, of being welcomed wholeheartedly relatively than reluctantly included. It challenges the viewer to replicate on their very own environments, and the relationships they nurture—are you surrounded by those that are desperate to share house, to uplift, to interrupt bread with you? Or are you lingering in locations the place your presence just isn’t even acknowledged.
Mycha Bueche – Due to Your Hair
Bio: Mycha is a Texas-born, Brooklyn-based artist whose work is anchored in a definite exploration of shade. The novel vocabulary of her palettes ask viewers to rethink the assumptions they bring about to completely different hues—how reminiscence, tradition, and private expertise form the way in which we interpret narrative.
This stress between floor and which means mirrors the way in which Mycha constructs a up to date folklore by means of kind and composition. Drawing from Artwork Deco graphic design, the folks artwork of her Latine heritage, and Catholic iconography, she creates visible altars that enshrine reminiscence and fantasy as inseparable elements of our histories.
Artist Assertion: Influenced by Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair and the transformative hair slicing second in Mulan, this self-portrait pays homage to queer transformation. It speaks to the methods we reshape ourselves—bodily, emotionally, and spiritually—within the pursuit of id, group and intimacy.
John De La O – 12 months in Overview
Bio: I used to be born and raised in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I attended Fort Hamilton Excessive Faculty, Kingsborough Group Faculty as a Tremendous Arts Undergraduate, and went on to obtain my Bachelor’s diploma in Illustration on the Faculty of Visible Arts.
My exhibition expertise spans over twenty years, together with ten plus years with the Con Artist Collective, and 5 years plus with Solas Studios, each situated in Manhattan. Earlier than, throughout, and after these tenures, I alternately confirmed my work at varied galleries, festivals, and group reveals, together with the Armory Artwork Far, Artwork Basel Miami, Bushwick Artists and Fleas, and Artwork Revolution Taipei. All through this time, I additionally participated in a number of smaller exhibitions, in and round each Manhattan and Brooklyn. I’ve a devoted shopper base who each steadily buy and fee work. Publications embody varied unbiased magazines, in addition to the alumni catalog for the Faculty of Visible Arts.
Artist Assertion: My work replicate the skin world and popular culture, but additionally my inside world, in addition to my cultural id and private experiences. I implement painterly and expressionist components to spotlight the human hand at play, and my love of portray and drawing. My objective is to attract the person into my distinctive visible language, utilizing a wide range of inspiration. As an artist from Brooklyn, and whereas finding out artwork in New York Metropolis, pop artwork, collage, conventional drawing and portray, and summary expressionism all grew to become a pure visible language for me to speak by means of.
Arthi Sundar – Masks Off
Bio: Arthi Sundar is an Indian American artist, artwork historian, designer and engineer who goes by the alias @123arthi. Her artworks mix classical portraiture with surreal components, utilizing graphite and charcoal to discover emotion, distortion, and the human psyche.
Artist Assertion: Sundar’s work delves into the complexities of the human psyche by means of practical portraiture in graphite and charcoal on bristol. Influenced by Renaissance, Rococo, and Surrealist artwork actions, she infuses her portraits with components of romanticism, abstraction and distortion,evoking emotion past the literal. Her artwork bridges classical strategies with trendy themes, usually drawing inspiration from science fiction and video video games to reimagine id and expression.
Masks Off, 2021: A post-pandemic self-portrait, Masks Off, captures a second of emergence. The artist portrays herself as each fragmented and entire, shedding the remnants of isolation and stepping right into a renewed sense of self.
Svetlana Dubkova – I like me. My spouse likes me
Bio: Raised in NYC as a first-generation Belarusian-American immigrant, Svetlana Dubkova discovered escapism in fantasy and creativeness rising up. This manifests in her dreamlike photographic portfolio, which fuses female surrealism, vivid color-play, natural formations, and repetitive kind. Her work is futuristic but nostalgic suddenly.
Artist Assertion: You wanna harm me? Go proper forward if it makes you’re feeling any higher. I am a simple goal. Yeah, you are proper, I speak an excessive amount of. I additionally hear an excessive amount of. I may very well be a cold-hearted cynic such as you… however I do not like to harm folks’s emotions. Nicely, you assume what you need about me; I am not altering. I like… I like me. My spouse likes me. My clients like me. ‘Trigger I am the actual article. What you see is what you get.
Juan Reyes Jr. – “Untitled”
Bio: 33 yr previous easily-startled portrait artist.
Artist Assertion: I’m following the unrelenting impulse to depict issues by means of drawing, with no clue the place it comes from and even much less of an thought the place it leads– however I definitely received’t cease chasing it. This relationship is likely one of the most outstanding & unchanging sides of the way in which I see myself, so when depicting myself I selected the supplies I really feel most drawn to: canary yellow Canson paper, and a Nataraj Ruby HB pencil. The benefit of chasing this impulse is that each time I’m capable of seize one thing, it frees us each.
See the Artwork in Particular person
This showcase is a chance to witness the range of self-expression by means of the lens of gifted freelance artists in our group. Don’t miss the possibility to interact with the artists, discover their work, and replicate by yourself sense of self!
Be a part of us on the opening reception: RSVP Right here
We are able to’t wait to see you there!