WILL BARRAS

(UK)

Will Barras is an artist, illustrator, and animation director who lives and creates in London.

Barras grew up in Birmingham and moved to Bristol to study graphic design. He became one of a new crop of young artists working in Bristol's renowned street-art scene. He was a founding member of the Scrawl collective, alongside Steff Plaetz and Mr. Jago, thanks to his representations of fluid movement, unique narrative-driven composition, and line work. Scrawl published a seminal book in 1999 to document the new movement. 

As such, Barras traveled extensively, live-painting and exhibiting pieces throughout Europe, the U.S., and Asia. Though Scrawl slowed down, he continued to paint and furthered his technique, collaborating with Stolen Space and the Brussels-based HLP. He currently takes on commercial projects of interest and directs animation at Th1ng studio in central London.

Watch this video of Will in Oslo:

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:

LISEL ASHLOCK

(Northern California, US)

After graduating with a BFA from California College of the Arts in 2002, Lisel Jane Ashlock exchanged West for East, moving to Brooklyn, New York where she currently lives and works as an illustrator & designer. 

Painting on birch panel, drawing with pencil and watercolor or working digitally, each project is executed with a sensitivity and celebration of the natural world. When she's not busy on an illustration project, Lisel can be found designing, photographing, styling, hand-crafting and creative directing for Moomah the Magazine. 

Lisel has received several illustration awards and accolades and her work can be seen in various national publications, books & advertising projects. She received her MFA from School of Visual Arts in 2009.

CHARLES GLAUBITZ

(Tijuana, Mexico)

Glaubitz's work could be described as mythical, pictorial, illustrative, cosmological, and relating to sequential art and comics. It combines elements of myth, religion, and spirituality with comics, hermetic ideas, alchemy and science. He works in painting, drawing, watercolor, sculpture, installations, animation and comics.

"There have been two very important changes in my work. In the beginning of 2001 the work was influenced by the surrounding environment of Tijuana and characters from Tijuana and Mexican folklore, myth and pop culture. I call this work the “old world”— El Viejo Mundo— which is about our relationships to the exterior, whether it be relationships that are more indicative of a clashing against ideas of the border, or are more parallel to what the physical border means in real life.

In 2007 a change occurred in my work when “the old world” ceased to exist and I created two archetypes to confront each other in a final battle, the Capitalist King and the Gardener. In battle they ended up being more complementary and less oppositional and together they created a small big bang, and this big bang gave birth to the new world. This new world in my work is a realm of the “starseed” children and illuminati secret society.

My newer work addresses the idea of borders/limits within oneself, one’s own limits internally. I’m interested now less in physical borders and more in the borders that exist between imagination, abstraction, myth and fantasy; the internal conflicts as opposed to the external."

Watch this video by Creative Mornings:

AKO CASTUERA

(Claremont, US)

This painter, sculptor, and textile artist, Ako Castuera, is based in Los Angeles where she works as a writer/storyboard artist on the animated television show, Adventure Time. Ako has turned her focus to work on paper with a variety of media, primarily using watercolor and gouache. The works continue her ongoing interest in land, the life within it, and the life it sustains.

Her work is colorful and she likes to have the freedom to improvise and change. The materials she uses are an important part of that. Castuera tries to go for tools and paints that seem to have their own life and finds materials that she gets along with. Ako lets their characteristics influence her choices while she is working.The themes are often about the relationship between humans and our home planet.

"Suburban tracts sprawl over hills and are at once picturesque, parasitic, and fragile. They coexist with dinosaur like animal forms that suggest prehistoric life," she says. "Dinosaurs have always inspired awe and fed fantasies of the past. Their extinction forces contemplation of the future, of what's in store for the land, animals, and humans all."

Watch this interview by Giant Robot: