Top 10 Artists to Watch: VIVID Edition

Meghan Elizabeth has been making art in South Austin for the past five years. It is here where she’s found her passion for creating.

“My art is inspired by people, actions, emotions, dreams, and music. Acrylic is my medium when I paint, and the camera on my phone is used to capture moments. I also use tools in photoshop to enhance, transcend, and manipulate an image in aid of expressing my vision. My art is my therapy, and I hope it can transport you to a place, or a feeling.”

@colorinhappy | Website

After a long career in higher education, Indira Govindan has now taken the plunge into the career of an artist, teaching herself along the way.

“I left India a long time ago but India has not not left me yet. My work is greatly influenced by the colors, motifs and themes of historical Indian artistic traditions. I am a painter and a collagist. I paint in several mediums using diverse techniques. These pieces are a combination of pyrography and watercolor painting. Drawing and shading were burnt first on a wood substrate and the wood-burned image was painted with watercolors.”

@indiragovi

Kristine Paiz uses aggressive motions, similar to Jackson Pollack and Willem De Kooning, in order to appropriate the style in a way that empowers womxn, queer, and non-binary individuals. Their abstract paintings, which sometimes appear to be in process, are meant to engage the viewer.

“Humans are animals, with violent and basic impulses pertaining to one’s survival, raging evermore. The comprehension of our corporeal and sentient forms allows us to be ever-evolving in both spirit and mind, making the human condition an unending transformation. My work explores the introspection that is intrinsic to mortal consciousness. Bodies of work are created out of my own physical need to purge and process an emotional existence.”

@daddymakesart | Website

For the last 15 years, Lisa Zinna has been inspired by Austin. Her work is a mixture of photography and digital media.

“I’m a casual photographer of nature, cityscapes, and whatnot. Now, passionate about digital post processing to turn an image into something unexpected. Layers and layers of photos in one piece. Sometimes photos of paper collages. Lots of circles. And leaves. And crazy colors. Oh, and did I mention lots of pinks?”

@thepurplelime | Website

Juca Maximo creates vivid portraits with the purpose of invoking emotions from viewers.

“My expressionist works of female iconography symbolize the feminine artistic essence of life and explore the spontaneity and drama of women in the world. I seek to bring a visual intensity and superb psychological drama and I try to reveal a timeless romantic perspective that passionately captures the excitement and visceral mystique. My works seek to encapsulate with passion and creativity a sensual and unique artistic vision with poignancy when radiating a poetic artistic point of view.

“I try to value the essence of the woman with her eternal visual symbolism that incorporates a timeless message while offering a powerful and sensitive narrative. I constantly seek to transmit the invisible within the visible of the female persona and take advantage of the essence of the emotional and physical experience of women with a deep sensitivity.”

@jucamaximoart | Website

Former ART contributor Lindsay Laser created a series of gestural paintings involving vivid colors and sharp contrast.

“My art is a release and realization that is necessary for my self-identity in an over stimulating, yet monotonous world. There is an aesthetic that is both my home and inspiration which continues to delve deeper and develop alongside my observations both internally and externally. I am an ever-evolving human who seeks movement and change, and whose art compliments the complications of emotion and trial throughout my life.”

@my_art_beats4u | Website

Austin-based fabric artist Abi Mallick uses the traditional crafting technique of bead embroidery to analyze modern life.

Let’s Take a Walk

“I did this bead embroidery as a meditation on recovery from assault and abuse. The two subjects have been vivisected, exposed, damaged, but they are on a journey together, guiding and helping each other. I wanted the beadwork itself to be disorganized, messy, and wild.”

Adam in the Garden/The Modern Man

“The legend goes that god created the first people, Adam and Lilith, from the Earth. They were equal, and had equal say in naming all the plants and animals. But Adam told god that he didn’t like having an equal, so god cast Lilith out of The Garden and created Eve from Adam’s rib to be his subordinate. Some say Lilith then became the first vampire. 

This little fabric sculpture is Adam cowering in The Garden, terrified by the idea of sharing the job of naming the plants and animals with a woman who is his equal. But it’s also the modern man, terrified by the ‘new’ social rules of having to treat women like human beings. He’s cowering in his office muttering ‘Am I even allowed to flirt with women anymore? Am I even allowed to talk to women anymore??’ And since he had to ask, the answer is no.”

@abiwonderbread

8Mara Magyarosi-Laytner

Mara Magyarosi-Laytner is an artist, educator, and self-described alternative process enthusiast. Her process is an exploration into photography and bright colors that delve into deeper subject matter.

“My work typically pairs double exposure photography with inkjet transfer processes to explore the impact that anxiety disorders have on the human condition. My current work, “Hyperstimulation,” uses wild, bright colors and complex, overlapping imagery to bring to light the different visual impairments that can happen with these disorders.”

@maramagyarosi | Website

9Gerry Niemierowko

Gerry Niemierowko is a multi-media artist from Plainville, CT. He’s currently majoring in illustration at Central Connecticut State University while interning at the New Britain Museum of American Art collections department.

“I work in a variety of mediums including acrylic and digital. I have a very bright palette across many of my pieces. These two pieces were painted in photoshop.”

@fatassmuchacho | Website

10Nicci Sevier-Vuyk

Former ART contributor Nicci Sevier-Vuyk is a painter living in Katy, Texas. Formerly a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner, Nicci now pursues art to explore our relationships with cultural ideals and the realities of these constructs. 

“These pieces are from my series titled Efflorescence: The Beauty of Imperfection. This is a series of chrysanthemum portraits that explore the ‘ideals’ surrounding stereotypical beauty through examination of the diverse variants of the natural, uncultivated flower. I use vivid color and unusual form within this series to emphasize these concepts.  My purpose in creating this series is to cause the viewer to experience a deeper appreciation for concepts beyond stereotypical ideals, both in the form of the flower and in life itself.”

@nicciseviervuyk | Website

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