Flavio Coppola

Flavio Coppola, painter, muralist and street artist, lives and works in Florence, Italy. Born in Venezuela in 1962, he  qualified in Artistic Liceum  in 1980 and received a Diploma in Advanced Studies in painting at the Fine Art Academy of Rome in 1984. He worked as a restorer of frescos, stucchi and wall decorations, in various churches in the Liguria region and for private clients.  He has participated at numerous art-shows, performances and installations, both group and individually, in the Florence and Romans scene. Active as a street-artist since early 1990, he introduced a new spirit to the well known ‘Madonnaro’ discipline in Florence and many locations in Italy and Europe and all over the south of Italy and was invited to participate at the following street-art festivals: Mercantia  Certaldo nelle edizioni  from 1998 to 2005; Antica Fiera delle Grazie nelle edizioni from 1990 to 2001 e from 2009 to 2014, Linzer Pflasterspektakel  (Austria) in 2007, The Colours of Valkenburg (Olanda) in 2008 and the Sarasota Chalk Festival (US) in 2011.

Francesca Arsi

Francesca Arsì, painter, musician, street artist, lives and works in Assisi, Italy. Born in Genova in 1984, she is qualified in restoration and wall-painting in 2005. She worked as restorer of frescos, stucchi and wall decorations,  in various churches in the Liguria region and for private clients. She has a Batchelor’s degree in painting at the Academy of Genova in 2009 and graduated in superior studies in painting at the Academy of Torino in 2012.  She has participated at numerous art-shows, both group and single in the genovese and torinese scene. Her work selected for Athens Art 2010 and she has had shows in the gallery Marena Project, Torino and at “The Others” (Torino 2013).  Francesca performs musical decomposition along with Hairi Vogel. (2013 -) Active as a street-artist since early 2014, she introduced a new spirit to the well known ‘Madonnara’ discipline in Florence, Assisi, Siena and all over the south of Italy and was invited to participate at street-art festivals in Toulon, Almere and Scheveningen. At the yearly ‘Antichissima Fiera delle Grazie’ in Curtatone , Italy, (the world’s biggest reunion of traditional ‘Madonnari’) her work was awarded by the Rotary Club.

Matteo Appignani

Matteo Appignani, born in Pescara in 1977 has been a madonnaro (street painter) since 2006. He lives and works in Florence. He received a degree from the Academy of Fine Arts of Florence in 2001. He has participated in many different art shows and festivals of madonnari in Italy in  Nocera and in Mantova. While his work as a  madonnaro is his livelihood, he has exhibited in many diverse art exhibitions, both individually and in group shows in Italy and internationally.

Michael Kirby

Michael Kirby is considered to be one if not the top street painter in the world. Mr. Kirby has been creating and developing the art form for over 15 years. He has competed and won the majority of the street painting festivals in the world including festivals in Italy, Germany, Holland, USA and others.  The majority of the work created by Mr. Kirby for the streets and pavements of the world uses one point forced perspective. This technique is more commonly called 3D art. Mr. Kirby and his studio, Murals of Baltimore, are leaders in this new development in the art form. He is able to create work that seems to lye below ground or set like a pop up book. The themes are generally conceived by the client and the studio. Michael Kirby enjoys creating work that deals with social and local issues. His goal is to use the visual arts to help solve these issues. Street painting is a unique way to be able to achieve these goals due to the “in your face” aspect of the art form. The streets are a daily necessity of people and a street painting utilizes this space to show its ideas.

Anthony Cappetto

An internationally recognized 3D street painting artist working in chalk and paint who shares his art form throughout the USA and internationally including India, UAE, Japan, Uruguay, Germany, Mexico, and Italy.  Cappetto over the years has been a guest of the US State Department in South America, lecturing, mentoring University students in Montevideo, Uruguay, South Carolina, and Georgia.  An early adopter/pioneer in the use of 4D emerging technologies since 2007 such as augmented and virtual reality (see animated computer model butterflies in Cappetto’s hands – picture) as an integrated part of his 3D anamorphic illusions having done public 3D/4D installations in Sarasota, Florida, Mumbai, India, and other locations internationally.  Cappetto was recently invited and participated as part of a select group of world class 3D street painters for the Dubai Canvas Festival earlier in 2015.  Team member of two Sistine Chapel re-creations in California and Mexico.  It is very important to me as a 3D street painter to design and create 3D interactive art where the public can pose and be in (and sometimes within) the art when the sizes allow.  I look forward to sharing my 3D art with everyone at the Festival.   anthonycappetto.com

Pablo Machioli

I am from Uruguay, born December 30th, 1976. I immigrated to the United States in 2003 and started making art in 2012. I am a self-taught artist. Art for me is an opportunity to create my own language to express myself: to learn about everything, connect, communicate, and give back to the world. At this point, I don’t make art in one style or about one topic, I am learning and exploring, having fun being wild, passionate, real, unreal, and sensitive. My desire is to absorb as much as I can and materialize my vision of the world to share with the people who make me who I am.

Katie Better

Katie is a native of Maryland and has been chalking since 2012. She has been inspired by animation, community and public art since her college days. Her first community arts project was “Traum Baum” an interactive sculpture collaboration exhibited at the BMA in Baltimore. She’s been working in video games for 5 years and currently lives in New York as a mocap animator for Rockstar Games. She lives by the saying “Take chances, make mistakes, and GET MESSY!” Check out Katie’s work at www.katiebetter.com!

Erik Greenawalt

Erik aka “The Chalking Dad” takes most of his character-drawing orders from his two daughters (who he also tries to capture in all his pictures), but has ventured out into original pieces as well as several anamorphic driveway sketches. A Pittsburgh native who is also a member of the Florida Chalk Artists Association, Erik participates in chalk festivals from New York to the Sunshine State. You can see more of his work and follow him at instagram.com/TheChalkingDad & facebook.com/TheChalkingDad.

Docta Toonz

Docta Toonz was born Donald A Tyson El in Baltimore, MD. As a child, while watching his father draw and paint, he picked it up naturally, as early as the age of 2. By the time he was old enough to go to school, his mother placed him in art classes and competitions to enhance his skill. As a teenager, art would be a way of expression or communication to his peers. He and his peers were particulary into the culture of hip hop. He quoted a statement as a teen, “This is not how I draw, this is How I write,… I draw from the creator within.”

Will Shanklin

Maxine Taylor

A native of California, Maxine moved to Maryland more than 40 years ago when she began to paint seriously, first in watercolor and subsequently acrylic and mixed media. Active in the DC art scene as a member of Studio Gallery from 1991-1997, She is now a resident here in Baltimore, where she was represented by Montage Gallery from 2003-2010.  She has work in private collections in California, Florida, New York, D.C., Virginia and Maryland, including 18 paintings in the George Meany Center for Labor Studies formerly in Silver Spring, MD.  She continues to exhibit in both California and Maryland. She was instrumental in the creation of Passageways Artist Studios in Riverdale, MD and a participant in the formalization of the Artists’ Gallery in Columbia, MD before moving to her current studio in Baltimore.  In 2013, Maxine first participated in Baltimore’s Artscape Gallery Network as a gallerist, exhibiting other artists’ work along with her own. This was the beginning of MAXgallery, a new exhibition venue for Baltimore artists. 126 N. Madeira Street, with its new identity, continues to be her primary living/working space. In the upcoming 2015 exhibition, “Cross This Line”, she will be presenting  emerging artists partnering with established artists.

​Jean E. Razulis

Tanya Ziniewicz

Tanya Ziniewicz investigates subtleties of human interaction, imagination, and transience through a network of organic linear forms that are continually emerging, growing, reaching, and intertwining.  Her images build and traverse paths between observation and invention, logic and emotion, similar to a mind filled with thoughts that sprout and extend, curl and unfurl, tangled like a mass of unwound string or a clustered mound of roots. The forms are invented, stemming from things such as rhizomes, ribbons, neurons, or strands of muscle tissue.  Tanya earned a BFA in Drawing from Cleveland Institute of Art in 2003 and an MFA in Printmaking from Rhode Island School of Design in 2006. She currently resides in Baltimore, MD and has been teaching at Towson University since 2008.

Barbara Epstein Gruber

Make Studio, Artists Louis Middleton, Kareem Samuels, Jerry Williams, Erika Clark, Alex Albert

Make Studio is a 501(c)3 community-based arts organization located in Baltimore, MD. Founded in 2010 with the mission of providing multi-modal arts programming to individuals with disabilities, Make Studio aims to put art and abilities to work throughout Baltimore and beyond to create more inclusive communities for all.  Make Studio is motivated by a consideration of quality of life for and a celebration of the whole person, and the understanding that art does not exist in a vacuum. We believe that providing avenues for communication, connection, and empowerment to artists with disabilities equally benefits individuals and their communities.  Via ongoing exhibitions, public programs, and studio services for visual artists with disabilities, we celebrate the aesthetics and concerns of artists commonly typed as “outsiders”, making visible their observations and points-of-view to increase the vibrancy of our cultural sector. .make-studio.org

Ned Epps

Ned Epps came to Baltimore from Manhattan, KS.  His art spans different mediums and subjects but is focused in drawing and painting en plein air.  The Baltimore area provides a wonderful diversity of subjects- from dense rowhouses and abandoned buildings, ships and bridges, woods and streams, fields and trees- and Ned tries to soak it all in and express its beauty in art.  Ned’s work can be seen at the Hamilton Gallery and on his website,nedepps.com.

Abby Cheney

Abby Cheney is a native of Baltimore City, and has been making art all her life. She is a recent graduate of Kenyon College, where she received a BA in Studio Art. Over the past year she has been living abroad and teaching art at a high school in Madrid, Spain. She is currently living in Baltimore, pursuing an MFA in Fine Arts and practicing art in the city. She has always been influenced by nature, and her work explores the relationship between people and the natural world, and how the organic can be found in unexpected places.

John Gingrich

John Gingrich is a Chicago born artist who creates art based off the practice of meditation. John was a part of the first graduating class of the Chicago High school For The Arts, Chicago’s first public arts high school. He is currently a junior painting major at MICA, with a concentration in Sustainability. John has done several murals throughout Baltimore and Chicago. In the fall of 2015, John was the winner of the Emerging Technology Center’s ‘Ride the Wave’ competition, a mural design and painting competition open to all MICA students. He shows in group exhibitions in Chicago regularly with fellow graduates from the Chicago High School for the Arts. In the Spring of 2016, John plans to study abroad for the semester in Florence, Italy, immersing himself in the murals of the Renaissance. John’s murals and paintings can be seen at behance.net/johngingrich

Heejun Ahn

I have been studying at Maryland Institute College of Art since 2013. Influenced by daily human interactions, nature, emotions, voices and flow of energy in the world. I was born in Korea and moved to Canada where I was able to fully commit myself to visual arts. Still experimenting with various styles, mediums and topics.

Daniel Heifetz

Daniel Heifetz has studied art over the years at the California College of the Arts (1960’s), the University of California, Berkeley (1970’s), and the Art Students League, NYC (also 1970’s). His interests are in figurative works and the abstract, two extremes, one essentially grounded in reality, the other in its absence.  He had exhibited in numerous shows in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and had works in private collections here and abroad.  Recent works can be viewed at http://www.saatchiart.com/dbheifetz

The Baltimore Academy of Illustration

The Baltimore Academy of Illustration offers students of all economic levels the opportunity to receive high-quality, college-level instruction in illustration. BAI welcomes adult continuing education students, high school students who want to sample college-level illustration courses, and traditional college-age students.  BAI instructors are working illustrators and experienced educators with a variety of complementary experiences and teaching philosophies.  A main tenet of BAI instruction is preparation for professional illustration work—challenging assignments and critiques along with practical knowledge to forge a career in illustration.

Chaya Schapiro

As a painter living in Columbia, MD for 25 years, my art reflects personal journeys and sensibilities. I am interested in exploring art not only as painting for its sake but also as a communication tool to listen to an inner feeling or sensation. The social, historical and cultural context is important to today’s individual both in introspection, reflection and how the individual tries to access one’s motivation to make choices and responses. As the artist, I have explored and considered my own reactions and choices and how I can relate the abstract thoughts to the body of work. The influences to my work have been varied and considered for a long time. My work in the beginning of my painting journey was a derivative of past painting styles, content and philosophies. The more recent work in the past three years is a description from my lifestyle, personal experiences, philosophy, nature and culture. Our culture’s inner voice is often silenced either in our everyday busyness; work environments or general malaise and is ready to be found. The inner voice directs one to make decisions and choices based on ones evolvement as a person. The painting is a way of awakening and provoking the thought in order to listen to our inner voice. I hope to achieve a way to be enlightened, connected and fulfill individuals through the lens of my art.

Paul Mericle

Paul Mericle is a sculptor, painter, and installation artist who lives and works in Baltimore City. His work often builds upon found objects, creating relief sculptures from materials salvaged from construction sites, vacant homes, and other discarded items. As an art teacher for Baltimore City Schools, he created the One Piece Project alongside his students.

Joshua S. Hawkins is a visual artist residing in Shepherdstown, WV. Born and raised in West Virginia he frequently spent his childhood on his own or with his sister building forts, exploring the woods, creating games and stories. He is a graduate of Shepherd University and currently works as a freelance artist.

Daniel Stuelpnagel

Daniel Stuelpnagel has participated in more than 100 exhibitions from coast to coast, primarily involving geometric abstractions and spectacular portrayals of the Aquasphere.

WORTHY

TOVEN

TOVEN is a Baltimore native who began writing graffiti at age 15. He moved to New York City to attend NYU where he discovered the wider world of street art of downtown Manhattan. He has brought the influences of graffiti, street art, and illustration back to Baltimore where he divides his time between art on the streets and street inspired art in galleries.

Marshall Adams is a freelance mural artist living in Baltimore, MD. While still earning his Bachelors of Arts degree in 2005, he painted his first commissioned mural for a children’s bookstore, which sparked a pursuit of large-scale murals and public art. He has completed over 500 murals as a freelance professional for both residential and commercial clients, and has been selected to complete several state commissioned works of public art. Many of his murals have required the use of scaffolding or lifts, and each year his commissions get larger. Several of his most recent mural commissions in the Baltimore area have been over 100’ long.​

Melody Often

J. Carlton French

A Cooper School of Art graduate, J. Carlton French works in various sculpture and painting media. His most notable sculpture is Moon Glory, a 65 Ib. bronze of Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, cast from life, publicly unveiled with Aldrin at The Newseum in Washington, D.C. in 1999. French is currently Artist-in-Residence at Sanctuary, an artist retreat in the Maryland countryside.

Jon J. Steelmns

As a young artist growing up on the River De Coulo in the south of the Gembino province of St. George, Jon J. Steelmns developed his chalking skills for many years on his own before being admitted to the Southern Province Chalkers Association. Under the instruction of Master Chalker Carlos Abaya, Steelmns quickly became the star pupil in his weight-class of chalkletes. After graduating with honors and armed with a knack for design and a fearless attitude towards innovation, Steelmns chartered a boat to take his artwork to America. During this journey, his ship suffered a technical malfunction that rendered the steering column useless. Thus a 3 week journey turned into a 7 month horror at sea. Drifting and using the engine only when facing the correct way, the days went by at a painful pace as the crew slowly lost their minds. When the ship ran ashore 3000 miles from its original destination, the 40 man crew had diminished to 17, including our man Steelmns. Using his skills as a chalk artist, he made his way through the United States, stopping in every state before settling in Baltimore, MD. Over the past 10 years he has spent his time working, chalking, arting, and educating the public on the dangers of sea travel.

Chloe Elswick

Chloe Elswick was raised in the DC area and moved to Baltimore in 2000 to attend MICA, where she mainly studied drawing and photography. Since graduating, she has done architectural model building, sign painting, CAD drafting, laser cutting, chalkboard art, and some unplanned woodworking. Her art is influenced by astronomy, architecture, planetary science, and shiny things.

Bartosz Tararuj

Additional Participating Visual Artists coming soon.