16-art

COVER IMAGE: 
“Haley and Celeste” by Cameron Shipley

Matthew Fertel is an abstract photographer who seeks out beauty in the mundane. Passing by the same locations over days, months and years allows him to photograph his subjects under different lighting and weather conditions, and to observe the changes in these objects as the environment interacts with them over time. Small details get framed in ways that draw attention away from the actual object and focus on the shapes, textures, and colors, transforming them into landscapes, figures, and faces. His goal is to use these out-of-context images to create compositions that encourage an implied narrative that is easily influenced by the viewer and is open to multiple interpretations. More of Matthew’s work can be seen on his website and Instagram.

Olude Peter Sunday is a Writer, an Artist and Poet from Ogun State, Nigeria. His work is featured in Hayden’s Ferry Review, The Prose Poem, Non Binary Review, Lighthouse Magazine, Shallow Tales Review, Paper Lantern, Typehouse lit mag, Blue Marble, Flash Frog,  Last Girls Club, Native Skin literary magazine and others. When he isn’t writing, he is painting in the Corner of his room or permutating Rubik’s cube. He tweets @peterolude.

“San Diego” “Influence” and “Patch” by Emily Rankin

“These pieces, from the series Verstehen, seek to capture the ways in which synesthesia works in the mind. They were created in front of a live audience with incorporated sound and electronics. Emily Rankin attended university in Texas, where she received a BFA in 2011. Her body of work deals with intuitive messages of dreaming and subconscious exploration, and has appeared in publications such as Gasher, Metonym, Alien Magazine, and Rattle. She’s currently based in New Mexico.”

Sharon Reeber

“My practice moves between painting, printmaking, and mixed media sculpture. I am interested in circles as organizing principle, metaphor, and visual structure, which has led me to study the use of this form in spiritual art of many cultures, including mandalas. This work is from the Cosmic/Meditations series which explores the metaphor of outer space conveying inner space through images suggesting skies and galaxies, and hinting at the flexible perception experienced in meditative states. Nature imagery, especially birds and plants, commonly appear in my work, arranged to express an ideal harmony. I am also intrigued by implying temporal progression in a static image by juxtaposing haziness with solidity, letting the wind blow through the clouds of thought and feeling.”

Sharon Reeber is an artist, poet, and educator living near Kansas City, Missouri. She teaches at Kansas City Art Institute. More information is available at her website: sharonreeber.com

Muhammad Ashraf

“MALLEABILITY is a thematic extension of the subjects that cultivate my creative practice: sublime and melancholy. The subject of this project about two flowers “Sumbal – red flower” a tree that matches its name in beauty, and “Amaltas – yellow flower”, which is also called “umeed ka phool”: flower of hope. Lahore, the city of gardens, appears mind-blowing at the time of bloom of these trees and the project attempts to articulate awe and admiration for this bloom. I have nostalgic relation with Lahore’s landscape painting. My initial training in art – drawing – ensued with Khalid Iqbal, who is a Pakistani maestro of landscape painting and painted Lahore’s landscape throughout his life.I paint mundane objects and the happenings in everyday life, from the pleasure that natural beauty yields to an effrontery of socio-political systems.”

Muhammad Ashraf lives and works in Lahore, Pakistan. He is currently the Chairperson and Associate Professor of the Department of Art and Design at COMSATS University Islamabad, Lahore Campus. More information is available on his website: https://studioashraf.pk/