lowercase focus: November 19, 2020

5. Antonella Arismendi

She is a multidisciplinary visual artist and astrologist who works mainly with video, photography, and motion graphics. Multiple hidden symbols can be found in her work.

Arismendi's creative process is intuitive and experimental, using cutting-edge visual techniques; she explores enigmatic worlds in constant transformation. Her main objective is not only to create from an aesthetic perspective but also to be an observer of beauty and create it with the hope that her message can transcend the artwork. Her worldview questions the experience of the human being, reality, and the evolution of consciousness. Her works, therefore, strive to deconstruct reality by appealing to the perceptive senses, from her photographs to her immersive installations that allow her to connect with the viewer on different levels.

Influenced by Nostradamus' predictions, the artist's visual universe is based on the poles of the sun and the moon, light, and darkness. Her main source of inspiration is what she calls "the galactic source". This means that she does not look for aesthetic references but aims to transmute ideas from the ethereal plane to the plane of the tangible as pure magic. In her words, her art "explores different states of consciousness through innovation to break molds".

You can find her: http://www.antonellaarismendi.com/

4. Mária 'Varbová

Archaeologist turned photographer, Mária 'Varbová's name started to became recognizable in the art scene with her series "Swimming Pool", with which she has been working since 2014. It consists of 13 photographs of public swimming pools in Slovakia built during the Soviet era. Her style is characterized by cold environments, and her obsession with symmetry. Minimalism is taken to the extreme: the artist indiscriminately eliminates any expressive trait that reveals the individuality of the subjects, who are enveloped in a world of absolute calm.

Varbová moves away from the traditional portrait and focuses on experimentation with space, color, and atmosphere. The contrasting primary colors with almost white and translucent tones, which evoke the communist spirit, are influenced by the aesthetics of Russian constructivism and the De Stijl movement. On the other hand, through coordinated movements, the subjects create a collectivity that protects and unites in the face of "authority", represented by the signs on the walls of the pool: "No jumping, no splashing, no running".

Her style is clean and orderly as if it were a Wes Anderson film. It also stands on the threshold of the retro and the gloomy of a dystopian future. But the truth is that Varbová's particular aesthetic represents a great challenge. In her photographs, she achieves poses that are as symmetrical as possible as well as the multiplication of bodies until they become uniform groups as if they were waves of a swimming pool. It is a meticulous and committed work that has earned her important recognition and great popularity on Instagram.

You can find her:  https://www.instagram.com/maria.svarbova/?hl=es-la

3. Przemek Pyszczek

Pyszczek's work is permeated by his interest in the forms and materials he discovers in different environments. His first steps in art date from specializing in environmental design while studying architecture in Winnipeg. However, his interest began much earlier, or rather, from his birth. Born in Poland and raised in Canada, the artist lives and works in Berlin. Those places he has gone through have influenced his art. The modern housing projects in Canada or his favorite places in his hometown have awakened his interest in architecture or rather, in the shapes of objects.

This can be seen in his drawings and structures from the Playground Structure series based on the facades of buildings in Poland during the communist era.  Also in his installations that can be seen in the streets of Berlin. Therefore, each work traces Pyszczek's transition from his native country to the different cities that received him, his art allows him to constantly rediscover his own past.

The aesthetics of his robust pieces reflect vibrant colors that adapt to indoor or outdoor spaces and do not fade over time. His latest forms are made with HDPE (high-density polyethylene), a recyclable material that is replacing the old structures of buildings in the communist era in Poland, which Pyszczek referred to in the previously mentioned series.

You can find him: http://przemekpyszczek.com/

2. Gina Arizpe

The artist, who lives and works in Mexico, focuses on questioning and making peripheral contexts visible from a socio-political perspective. Until 2010 she was part of the Mexican collective "marcelaygina" in which she outlined the main artistic strategies that continue to define her work, which is translated into artistic actions. The most curious thing that happens with Arizpe is that throughout her career, she has focused since 2014 on a single theme in both her technique and her discourse: cotton.

From her experience and contact with the cotton zone of the Mexican city of Juarez, the artist has symbolically captured the impact of industrialization.  As Arizpe represents it with unique beauty, she also does it more threateningly and forcefully. We could say that her work during those years was an inversion of urban dynamics to make manifest what tends to be invisible. In "En la Calle/ Cuerpo cubierto" (2013), the artist imitated the bodies of people who sleep on the street with only a blanket on cold nights.

The interest in Gina's work is political, although it is not necessarily a political message.  She does not make statements; she carries out actions that problematize reality by denouncing the scarce functioning of the social system from installations and performances. Gina's projects have received several recognitions. Among them, the ZONA MACO prize, a stimulus for emerging artists.

You can find her: https://www.artsy.net/artist/gina-arizpe

1. Jonathan Gardner

The Chicago-based artist is distinguished by his stylized work featuring pastel colors and soft edges reminiscent of 3D digital models. His paintings usually depict still lifes or portraits but his personal imprint is present in all of them: printed environments, geometric abstraction, and motifs linked to everyday life. The flat brushstroke, the pop colors, or his kitsch scenes make these works an interesting option for interior decoration.

You can find him: https://www.instagram.com/jonathanwgardner/