Producing on the Faultlines: From Live Performance to XR
Wayne Ashley is a producer and entrepreneur with over two decades of experience shaping the XR ecosystem across virtual reality, mixed reality, video gaming, live performance, installation, and immersive design. As Founder and Executive Producer of FuturePerfect Studio, he has worked at the cutting edge of culture and technology, developing projects that bring together art and innovation.
Nothing Is Ever Ordinary: Xinyu Yu on Still Life
Xinyu Yu is an award-winning artist and designer whose practice bridges the lyricism of Eastern traditions with the innovation of contemporary Western art. Born and raised in China, she trained rigorously in ink, watercolor, and oil painting before expanding her perspective through studies at Pratt Institute in Interior Design and at the University of Pennsylvania in Sustainable Design. Now based in Phoenix, Arizona, she draws inspiration from the region’s diverse landscapes and cultures, blending her cross-cultural background into a body of work that is both grounded in history and open to transformation.
“A Nostalgic Filter to Comment on the Present”: Pixel Art with Jude Buffum
Jude Buffum is a Philadelphia-based pixel artist and illustrator whose work reimagines 8-bit aesthetics for the present day. With over two decades of experience, he has collaborated with major brands like Disney, Marvel, Sony, Hasbro, ESPN, WWE, Taco Bell, and Target. A graduate of Temple University’s Graphic Arts and Design program, Jude began his career in book design before founding his own studio in 2007, where he has since become known for vibrant, retro-styled illustrations and conceptual storytelling through pixels.
BorrowedTime and the Poetics of Code: Cubist Heart Laboratories
Cubist Heart Laboratories is a global collective of scientists, artists, and shamans “found wherever electrons move,” founded by Creative Director John See Landry. Based in Boston, Landry is a visual artist with a BFA in Painting from Rhode Island School of Design, whose work explores the intersections of art, technology, and time. With projects like BorrowedTime — a daily clock built with React that remixes found internet imagery — the collective creates experimental works that blur the boundaries between design, computation, and poetic expression.
Cansu Waldron on Digital Arts Blog, Curatorial Vision, and the Future of Art
Cansu Waldron is a writer and curator exploring the intersection of art and technology. Originally from Istanbul, Türkiye, and now based in New York, she earned her MA from NYU Tisch School of the Arts as a Wasserman Scholar. Through curatorial work, writing, and public speaking, she has shaped conversations around digital art and creative technologies. In 2023, she founded Digital Arts Blog, a platform dedicated to supporting digital artists, promoting inclusivity, and fostering public understanding of digital practices.
Surreal, Punk, Big-Eyed: Shannon Bulrice on AI as a Tool, Not a Threat
Shannon Bulrice is a multidisciplinary artist who blends punk aesthetics, emotional storytelling, and emerging technologies. Her work is known for surreal, character-driven imagery that explores identity, softness, and defiance, using both traditional tools and AI-enhanced design. Shannon creates worlds where rebellion and tenderness coexist, inviting viewers into spaces that feel both strange and deeply human.
Painting Life’s Mysteries: Nacho Frades on Art, Writing, and NFTs
Nacho Frades is a digital painter whose luminous, minimalist works blend the spirit of classical painting with contemporary technology. He began drawing as a child, inspired by El Greco and endless museum visits, and went on to study with realist master Antonio López, who instilled in him the discipline to follow his own path. After years working in animated films, Frades shifted fully to digital painting in 2005, developing a body of work that feels both introspective and futuristic. His art has been exhibited internationally, from museums to billboards in Times Square, and is held in collections around the world.
A Surreal Theater: The Baroque Intensity of Ada Crow
Ada Crow is a multidisciplinary artist and art historian from Asturias, Spain. With a background that bridges traditional art history and contemporary practice, her work reinterprets iconic imagery through photography, oil painting, drawing, AI, and stop motion. Influenced by Surrealism, Flemish painting, and the Baroque, she seeks a balance between visual beauty and conceptual depth, always circling back to the question of what it means to be human.
Drawing the Personal, Finding the Universal: Wenqing Gu
Wenqing Gu is a Las Vegas–based freelance illustrator and visual storyteller whose digital artwork spans children’s books, 2D animation, and editorial projects. Drawing inspiration from both her Chinese heritage and American experiences, she brings warmth, humor, and a touch of wonder to her illustrations, inviting audiences of all ages into imaginative worlds.
From Literature to Design: Jun Lin on Research-Driven Creativity
Jun Lin is a Los Angeles–based graphic designer and illustrator with a background in Literature. Her work spans branding, print, digital, packaging, and illustration, brought together by a methodical, research-driven, and empathetic design sensibility.
In Mexico, Inspiration Comes from Anywhere: Guillermo Flores's Digital Collages
Guillermo Flores is Mexican designer and illustrator based in Guadalajara, specialized in advertising illustration, retouching, post production and digital collage. He created unique images for advertising campaigns, as well as collaborating in the publishing world, developing illustrations for magazine covers, editorial articles and books.
Designing Systems that Feel: UI/UX & Graphic Design by Yanming Chen
Yanming Chen is a graphic and UX/UI designer from Chengdu, China, with a Master’s degree in Communication Design from Pratt Institute in New York. Her practice bridges print, branding, and digital design, evolving from early projects in posters and typography to a strong focus on UI/UX and communication systems.
A Gift to the Ocean: The Art of Lhean Storm
Lhean Storm is a Filipino visual artist based in Manila whose work is deeply influenced by underground music culture. Lhean’s art often carries a trippy, psychedelic energy while remaining rooted in nature and the realities of life. Her imagery serves as a mirror for viewers, drawing them into vivid, dreamlike worlds that invite personal reflection and discovery.
A Visual Mixtape: The Collages of Ed Wolk
Ed Wolk is a Canadian artist who has been creating digital collages for over 25 years. With a professional background in radio production, Ed has long been drawn to the art of assembling fragments — whether through sound or image. His interest in collage began in Vancouver, when a large-scale work by the artist Famous Empty Sky inspired him to experiment with paper scraps. What started as a personal exploration eventually evolved into a digital practice that he continues to develop and share on his website today.
Screen to Skin: Digital Illustration and Tattooing with Haiwei Tai
Haiwei Tai is a tattoo artist and digital illustrator whose work bridges the traditions of American traditional tattooing with contemporary digital media. While his foundation lies in bold lines, iconic imagery, and narrative-driven compositions, Haiwei has embraced digital tools as an essential part of his creative voice. The iPad, for him, is more than a sketching device — it’s a space to refine ideas, experiment with composition and color, and expand tattoo aesthetics into new forms.
When Failure Becomes Freedom: Meet Artist Jin Liu
Jin Liu is an award-winning visual artist and illustrator from China. Drawn to image-making from an early age by the illustrated books of her childhood, she developed a strong visual sense that later guided her studies in Fine Arts at the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Her work spans a variety of media and approaches, always marked by rich color palettes, symbolic compositions, and emotional depth. Influenced by Maxfield Parrish, Jin brings both expressive feeling and formal clarity to every piece she creates.
Familiar Yet Strange Figures: Doğan Özdemir’s Art
Doğan Özdemir (aka Miskin Kukla) is an interdisciplinary visual artist and designer based in Türkiye. Working across photography, digital collage, illustration, and text, he explores themes of identity, transformation, memory, and displacement. His part human, part creature hybrid figures inhabit surreal narratives where the instinctual meets the social and the grotesque meets compassion.
A Life Between the Physical and the Digital: Vanessa Nawka on the Evolution of AR, VR, and the Greek Mati
Vanessa Nawka is a mixed media artist whose work bridges spirituality and technology. Rooted in both painting and sculpture, her practice focuses on reinterpreting sacred symbols—most notably the Aegean Glyphs, inspired by the Greek Mati—and creating sculptural visions of the Divine. Her pieces exist both physically and digitally, often expanded through AR and VR into immersive environments that invite viewers to step into a living, breathing artwork.
Golden Cracks and Self-Love: The Art of Shane Seivewright
Shane Seivewright is a visual artist from Ontario whose work centers on anthropomorphic characters — animal people that become vessels for self-expression, identity, and belonging. Growing up feeling like the black sheep, often called “weird,” “awkward,” or “nerdy,” Shane embraced those traits and translated them into art that gives voice to people who feel unseen.
“Beauty in What Others Call Decay”: Monorthern on Drawing What We Turn Away From
As a professional illustrator with seven years of experience, Monorthern specializes in creating captivating artwork for music albums, book covers, t-shirts, and custom product illustrations. His work is shaped by a love for black-and-white drawing, especially using stippling techniques, and often explores themes of death, myth, nature, loneliness, and sadness. Though he began with ink on paper, in 2023 he started experimenting with digital art, drawn in by curiosity and a desire for a more efficient workflow. Digital tools offered new possibilities without compromising the soul of his process.