USUGROW

(Japan)

Usugrow began his own artistic activity by creating flyers in underground punk and hard core music scene in early 90's. Since then, he has been involved in various album cover designs for bands and musicians regardless of genre, art directions and merchandises, and also collaborating with lots of skateboarding brands and fashion brands.

Usugrow expanded the range of his activity and done several solo exhibition at art galleries in Japan and overseas since 2005, and published his first monograph. In addition to his solo exhibition, he has been curating the group exhibition and book projects with Japanese artists since 2009.

He currently works on mainly illustration, painting and calligraphy as well as live painting, collaboration project with other artists and three-dimensional artwork.

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TODD KURNAT

(1973, Great Lakes State)
 

Todd Kurnat grew up tracing Iron Maiden album covers and drawing Jim Phillips graphics on his bedroom wall. Fast forward to the current day and you’ll find that Todd’s visual work is predominantly done using ink and paint on re-purposed materials. Often finding inspiration in nature, wildlife, typography, fantasy and sound.

Todd is a self-taught artist who briefly attended the Rocky Mountain College of Art & Design in the late 90s where he pursued courses in illustration and graphic design. Upon his move to San Francisco in the early 2000s, his art took a back seat to his graphic design successes.

In 2012, wanting more out of life than a paycheck, he began to pursue his art again. Reborn and with intent, Todd’s recent work has been featured in solo and group exhibitions throughout San Francisco.

STEVEN VASQUEZ LOPEZ

(California, US)

Steven Vasquez Lopez was born in Upland, California and currently lives in San Francisco. Raised in Southern California in a Mexican-American household, Lopez's early obsession with architecture, manual labor and bold fashion continues through his hard-edge graphic acrylic painting and ink drawings. 

Lopez received his BA in Studio Art from UC Santa Barbara in 2000. He was a recipient of the William Dole Memorial Scholarship (1999, 2000), Abrams Prize (2000), Murphy and Cadogan Fellowship (2006), ArtSlant Prize (2012). Since completing his MFA in Painting from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2007, Lopez has exhibited at CES Contemporary, Aqua Art Miami, ArtsPadSF, the San Francisco Art Commission Gallery, Riverside Art Museum, Diego Rivera Gallery, Parklife Gallery, Roll Up Gallery & Root Division Gallery.

NATE VAN DYKE

Nate (N8) VanDyke is a prolific artist and illustrator who began drawing at the age of two. His medium of choice ranges from: pencil, ink, marker, watercolor, gauche, acrylic and oils. Regardless of what medium he picks up, his signature style can be seen in the contrast of his thin and thick lines in his pen and ink work and the high sheen contrast in his mixed media pieces.

Nate's heavily detailed illustrations feature his heavy metal humans and his well-known future primitive apes with dark menacing personalities. His color work features studies of animals (apes, elephants, giraffes) against lustrous backdrops.

He recently took a job as a senior concept artist at NCsoft working on City of Heroes/City of Villains. Just prior, he finished creating concept art and storyboards for the Sega video game, Iron Man. His work has also been featured in several magazines such as JUXTAPOZ, XBox, PlayStation and Heavy Metal. Over the years N8 has attracted clients such as Converse, Levi Strauss, Scion, EMI Records, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Burton Snowboards, Slayer and Wired. N8’s work has been commissioned and showcased internationally.

Watch N8 in his studio: