Samm Blake (present)

Samm Blake is an amazing wedding photographer. I was drawn to his work because of the beautiful and ethereal atmosphere he creates through his editing. He has a unique way of capturing his subjects with a lot of emotion, which was another aspect that I really loved about Blake's work.

Dain (present)

Dain is a Brooklyn-based graffiti artist, who mixes street art references with graffiti and drawing. He takes the photos of "classical beauties" and modernizes them by adding an urban twist. Dain starts with a black and white photo, then he makes it into a type of collage. His first solo exhibition, titled "Born Again," was at the Lenenson Gallery in Paris.

Peter Callesen (1967-present)

Peter Callesen, born in 1967 in Denmark, is a renowned paper sculptor. Callesen has the unique ability to create small sculptures using one sheet of paper (as shown above). He also does much larger works, some paper sculptures being of impressive size. Callesen attended Goldsmiths College, Arhus Art School, and Arhus School of Architecture. His work has been exhibited all over Denmark and London.

Raquel Aparicio (present)

Raquel Aparicio, born in Avila, is an illustrator for magazines, books, as well as advertising. Aparicio spent several years in Edinburgh before moving back to Spain to study illustration. She attended the Illustration Academy in Florida for one year. Aparicio's work can be seen in The New York Times, Elle, and Nylon.

Benjamin Tour (present)

Benjamin Tour, a Vancouver-based painter and illustrator, is most well known for translating human behavior into beautifully crafted portraits. In 1999, he received a degree in illustration at Sheridan College. Tour begins his works of art with a ballpoint pen, sketching out each figure. He then goes back over it with paints, inks, and "spray bombs" to finalize his pieces. Tour's work can be seen all over New York, California, and many other places. He has also won the Western Magazine Award's Illustration of the Year award.

Scott Wade (present)

Scott Wade is an artist who uses dirty cars as his canvas. Ironically enough, though, he cleans the car thoroughly before creating his masterpieces. He then covers the entire window in dirt, then uses a paintbrush to create his "paintings."

William Hundley (present)

William Hundley, born in St. Paul, Minnesota, is a very unique and quirky photographer. He is currently based in Austen, Texas. He has a series titled "Entoptic Phenomena" that is a collection of photographs of different fabrics floating midway in the air. He also has another series of random everyday objects sitting on top of cheeseburgers. I was drawn to Hundley's work because of his quirky yet oddly intriguing photographs.

J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851)

Joseph Mallord William Turner, born in 1775, was an English romantic landscape painter, watercolorist, and printmaker. While he was widely known for his oil paintings, he was also considered to be a master of watercolor landscape paintings. Turner is commonly known as the "painter of light" because of his unique ability to capture darkness and lightness in a realistic way within his paintings. Some of his most famous pieces include "The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons" and "The Battle of Trafalgar."

Sally Mann (1951-present)

Sally Mann, born in Lexington, Virginia in 1951, is an American photographer who is most well known for her large black and white photographs. Her main subjects consist of young children and of landscapes that suggest decay and death. Mann took up photography at The Putney School, and then went on to receive her B.A. and a M.F.A. in creative writing at Hollins University. Mann has been awarded the National Endowment for the Arts award as well as many others.

Richard Sweeney (1984-present)

Richard Sweeney, born in Huddersfield, England in 1984, is a renowned sculptor who is often associated with his intricate paper creations. He discovered his love and talent for sculpture while studying at Batley School of Art and Design, then later went on to attend Manchester Metropolitan University. Sweeney's art combines design, photography, craft, and sculpture. His art has been exhibited in London, Italy, and many places around the U.S., including New Orleans.

Max Wanger (present)

Max Wanger is a freelance photographer who specializes in weddings, fashion, and advertising. Wanger creates a certain ethereal and romantic atmosphere through his editing and use of colors within his photographs. He also produces very and unique photographs by using some very unexpected compositions.

Diana Cooper (present)

Diana Cooper combines drawing, painting, sculpture, and installation to create enormous and dynamic pieces of artwork. Some of her mediums include foam core, felt, corrugated plastic sheeting, numbered map pins, acetate, Velcro, neoprene, and pom poms. With all of these materials, Cooper has the ability to construct a wonderful and engaging piece that provokes many emotions. I was drawn to Cooper's work not only because of her unique compositions but of the fact that no matter where your eyes take you, there is always something interesting and new to look at.

Zena Holloway (present)

Zena Holloway is unlike any other fashion photographer I have stumbled upon. She takes her specialized area of photography to a whole new level by shooting all her photos under water. Holloway began her career as a scuba diving instructor when she was just eighteen years old. She soon began to experiment with cameras and began her career as a photographer from that. One of her most well known series is titled "Waterbabies," a collection of photographs of young children and infants. Holloway's clients include Nike, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Herbal Essences.

Maggie Ayres (present)

Maggie Ayres is a mixed media artist who creates unique pieces, using a wide variety of materials like hand painted silks, applied fibers, photographs, dyed velvets, stitched and found objects such as driftwood and sea-glass. Her art explores the vast range of overlapping emotions through layers of color, texture, light, and contrast. Ayres' work caught my eye because of her ability to create interesting compositions and convey certain emotions through the media that she chooses to use.

Aiko Machida (present)

Aiko Machida is an artist who specializes in leather. While most of her pieces are fashion accessories, such as bags, purses, and jewelry, Machida also creates interior accessories like boxes and decorations. She also transforms furniture and instruments into works of art. Each one of her pieces is individually made from folded leather or moulded leather. Machida says she enjoys using leather rather than wood to create her art simply because it looks similar yet it performs differently. Her work has been exhibited in Crafts Magazine, Financial Times, and Blueprint Magazine.

"I deceive your eyes, your expectations of materials, and your 'common sense' - and in this way challenges preconceptions and cultural norms."

- Aiko Machida on her art

Ellen Gallagher (1965-present)

Ellen Gallagher, born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1965, is a mixed media artist. She attended Oberlin College and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. Some of her most famous pieces are "eXelento" and "DeLuxe," which are grid-like collages of magazines specific to a certain subject. From far away, Gallagher's work simply looks abstract, but as you get closer, you see the painted detail on each frame of her pieces.