Artist statement and bio - Andrew Diaz (updated)

Artist Bio

Andrew Diaz was born in New Jersey, raised in Union City until he moved to North Bergen back in 2022. Born to Colombian immigrant parents. Andrew’s passion for art was all due to growing up watching many classic animated shows which would lead him to drawing and sketching all of his favorite animated characters. Currently attending NJCU in his fourth semester while majoring in Illustration for a BFA, Andrew has grown an affinity for design simplicity in his personal art themes. Exaggeration, mood tones and storytelling are often presented in his art and always trying to improve his style every day, especially studying specific movement of characters that feel genuine and real when it comes to creating his own stories. Through all the years of hard work and constant practicing, Andrew was able to work with many talented social media artists on certain projects based on their favorite franchises like working in a fan comic or doing trades, as well as bouncing off ideas with one another.

Artist statement

My art has been influenced by many simplicity and unique style elements I’ve always put in my artwork. Many others and myself have often viewed my art style as a flat/minimalistic kind of artistic style that have been based on many shows that used this specific drawing design to create character designs and not to mention that is it a little more easier and comfortable to animate on any type of drawing medium, especially if it’s on paper or on a digital IPad. I’ve always been a fan of exaggerated movement and poses when I draw a character whether it's meant to be humorous or serious. Only I know when to weight in the balance of how realistic or silly the theme I pick is supposed to go, it would tend to a bit of a mix theme. The main medium I do my drawings is on a digital tablet while using an art app called Procreate which provides many items and tools to make my drawings more lively and colorful, as well as louder to catch my the audience attention.

There have been many artists I still look up to that inspired my own sense of art style, Vivianne Medrano comes to mind as she’s a core inspiration in my life of creating your own fictional worlds you can get sucked into. It’s not just the drawings she or any other artist created but the themes of incredible story telling and how much you put yourself into these works of art. Creating story arcs have been an important part in the animation field, artists knowing exactly how it will start and end while envisioning the process of the animation and parts that represent the subtle dramatic tension that a scene would embody and I can’t help but admire all of that, Implementing stories or messages of my own in my artwork that resonate with me and to the audience who can understand where I’m coming from especially when I make my own digital storyboards that demonstrates the steps and the amount of emotion a scene of mine will deeply convey. My personal messages would involve certain. Subjects of redemption, supporting groups that are creating a good cause for our broken society, other artists that deserve the attention they need or making art for people that need emotional support online. 

The process on how I make my artwork is through basic steps which are sketching out shapes putting it together which then represents body proportions and poses while getting the idea on how the person is supposed to look like. Then I would trace over the completed sketch with an ink brush on another layer on top and eventually coloring in the character while adding in shading effects that would make the drawing stand out more than make it ordinary or boring. I would contribute my art to specific and more emotional things that my audience would deeply appreciate, especially when it involves the LGBTQ community or supporting Palestine and protests which include artwork that represents the whole idea of acceptance and emotional positivity against a world that’s been failing humans for years now and people having to deal with that on a daily basis with feelings of no hope. But there is still hope in this world, My goal is to resonate with my audience and build bigger and better connections with them through my art by making them feel comfortable and inspired.

Updated Bio and Artist Statement - Diana Saintilme

Bio:


    Born and raised in Irvington, New Jersey, where she currently resides, Diana Saintilme is a first generation American to Haitian immigrant parents. She is a current BFA Graphic Design major at New Jersey City University. She discovered her love for design during her sophomore year of high school while taking a Digital Publishing class. After taking the class, she fell in love with graphic design and decided to make being a graphic designer her future career goal. As a graphic designer, she mainly does her work on Adobe applications, mainly Adobe Illustrator.

    Through her work, she likes to dive into topics relating to the struggles of finding your own identity in a society that wants you to act like something else. While this struggle may not be clear, it is something that many people go through internally. Her works explore the psychological effect that this struggle may have on someone. To show what someone would go through internally that they may not want others to see. Her goal is to not only to express her own identity through design but also allow others to be seen and understood.


Artist Statement:


    As a graphic designer, I mainly work digitally to get my thoughts and ideas across. My work mainly revolves around psychological aspects of trying to find your own identity and trying to find balance with who you are vs. who society expects you to be. When originally starting my design career, I found myself creating a variety of work such as promotional posters and logos for fun. However, as I continued designing and got more serious about my career, I found myself focusing on themes surrounding the struggles to find harmony and balance. I struggled with trying to find the balance between being feminine and masculine. The way I present myself comes off as being masculine and with the way I grew up, I was taught to learn to be a woman and how to be feminine.

    I often struggled to find the balance with being who I am while trying to act the way I was told. I came across the idea of utopia, the perfect society, a place that is impossible to get to. I related this idea to my own experience with struggling to find balance and harmony within my own life. I realize that finding harmony and balance is something that is widely strived for but can’t always be achieved. Through my work, I want to create visuals that reflect the ongoing struggle to find balance, both within and around us. My goal is to create a space where others can feel like they are understood in their own struggles through the language of art and design.

Updated Artist Bio and Statement- Jordan C.

 

Artist Statement 

My work as a photographer is rooted in capturing energy, emotion, and the unspoken moments within sports culture. Having played sports my entire life and spent the last three years behind the camera, I approach photography not just as an observer, but as someone who understands the rhythm, intensity, and meaning behind every play. My goal is to freeze moments that often go unnoticed and the tension before a shot, the reaction after a win, or the quiet focus in between.

I focus on storytelling through motion and detail. Whether I’m shooting fast-paced game action or sideline interactions, I aim to create images that feel alive and immersive. Lighting, composition, and timing all play a role, but instinct is what drives my work. I rely on my background in sports to anticipate moments before they happen, allowing me to capture authenticity rather than staged emotion.

Beyond documenting games, my work also reflects community, identity, and passion. Sports bring people together, and I strive to highlight that connection through my images. Each photograph is meant to not only showcase athletic performance, but also preserve memories and emotions that resonate beyond the game itself.

Ultimately, my photography is about more than visuals, it’s about feeling. I want viewers to experience the moment as if they were there.

BIO

Jordan Chapman is a sports photographer born and raised in Jersey City, New Jersey, with a deep passion for capturing the intensity and emotion of athletic culture. With a lifelong background in sports and over three years of photography experience, his work blends technical skill with an insider’s perspective on the game. Jordan specializes in action shots, storytelling, and visually dynamic compositions that highlight both performance and personality.

His photography focuses on more than just the play; it captures the moments in between, the energy of the crowd, and the emotions that define the sport. Through his lens, Jordan aims to create powerful, immersive images that resonate with athletes and audiences alike.

Updated Artist Statement and Bio - Ishmael Adams - 4/2/2026

 

    Ishmael Adams 

    Professor Doris Cacoilo 

    Studio Research 1 

    4/2/2026 

    Bio 

 21 year old BFA Illustration undergrad Ishmael S. Adams was raised in Union County, New Jersey. His love for art was clear at a young age being particularly engrossed in the stories of comics while he doodled in pieces of HW and notebook paper to pass the time. Throughout most of his high school education Ishmael was mainly self taught, using comics and manga as a guide for his art skills and education. That has however changed as Ishmael Adams currently attends New Jersey City University or NJCU as a Junior Illustration major. A great deal of his work involves traditional uses of charcoal and graphite and digital uses of Krita and Indesign respectively, using color in moderation to create works that show the cost of conflict and aftermath left in it's wake. 

    Artist Statement 

    My work tends to gravitate towards charcoal or greyscale work with hints of vibrancy throughout my collective work both digitally and traditionally with pen and pencil. Originally this was derived from always having pencil or pen around and not much else. Now, though I tend to put more color into my work, I find that the moderation of color leads to said color feeling even more vibrant than if it was just there in totality. In terms of stylistic direction my pieces tend to focus on mixing the mundanity of life with fantastical absurdity that stretches the bounds of the imagination. In those bounds of imagination my influences tend to present themselves in abundance, the work of painters like Neo Rauch, Jennifer Packer, Egon Mutter and comic illustrators like Gigi Cavenago, Mike Del Mundo and PePe Larraz have each fundamentally formed the basis of how I work. 

    My love for stories of all kinds is at the core of my work and my life, I've dedicated years to showing and making stories in my work, it's why in fact I became an illustrator. As a student of history that has both a love and frustration for these stories I want to show what happens to people after these big moments in history are done, that these cycles of destruction our society has wrought aren't over as soon as the cameras go away there are ripple effects that take hold into our lives. People have full lives beyond the big moments and it's those small moments that I believe allow us as people to understand one another.

 

Christopher McVicar-Updated Artist Statement & Bio

 Artist Statement

My work starts with picturing an image. Quick photos of friends, family, people I know, people I don’t, moments that feel worth holding onto. Nothing staged, nothing precious. Just everyday life as it unfolds. From these moments, I take those images apart. layering, distorting, rebuilding them until they feel less like a record and more like something lived in.

The image moves into drawing and then painting, where I loosen up. Through saturated color, loose washes, and instinctive mark-making, the figure starts to slip between clarity and abstraction. I’m after something more honest than just likeness. A sense of presence. A feeling. The parts of someone that doesn’t sit still long enough to be photographed. 

    I paint the human figure because it keeps me grounded. Most of the time, I’m painting people close to me, but not always. Either way, the work becomes a way of staying connected; through processing relationships, memory, and the weird, fleeting nature of it all. 

At the end of the day, I just want to make paintings that feel real. Something that holds onto a moment a little longer. Something that says, simply: 

I was here. 

Bio

Christopher McVicar is a painter and graduating BFA recipient at New Jersey City University, originally from Toms River, New Jersey. Now based in Hudson County, he works primarily in oil painting and portraiture, creating figurative work that explores identity, relationships, and experience. His work is being featured in the group exhibition Intertwined at the NJCU Visual Arts Building Gallery, and he is a recipient of the NJCU Transfer Presidential Scholarship. 

McVicar’s path to art began after initially pursuing construction and earning a welding certificate before a knee injury led him back to school. He currently works as a part-time painting instructor at One River School of Art and Design in Montclair. 

Arizabeth B- Updated Artist Statement and BIO

 Artists Statement

One of the many passions found is being able to tell stories and share them so everyone can see and feel them. My work explores reality and emotional abstraction, focusing on memory and place. Through digital photography, she utilizes techniques such as intentional camera movement (ICM) and long exposure. She emphasizes monochrome photos so the viewer focuses more on texture, line, shadow, and composition. She creates images meant to evoke emotion and expression. It is a mix of documentary, lifestyle, and environmental portraiture. Her images are authentic, raw, and emotional in all senses. In addition to the photographs, for some of her work, she provides an audio experience. Arizabeth bases her best influences on Cindy Sherman, Franchesca Woodman, and Peter Joel-Witkin. These influences have a sense of intimate and detail-focused work. The size of the images can vary from 8x10, 11x15, and 10x12. As for the auditory part, headphones, a tablet, and a chair will be provided to tie up this experience. This allows them to be able to visualize these emotions. Her concept is to express and document what many in this world have felt throughout life. Thus, the title for this project becomes Ethereal Dissolution. Her goal is for this fusion of sight and sound, inviting you to move beyond mere observation and truly visualize the weight of a human heart.

BIO

Arizabeth Baez Flores was born and raised in NJ. Her work is deeply rooted in her strong belief in being open to all emotions. In 2018, she was part of the AANJ Art Merit at the Emerging Artists Exhibition. So far, her past work has earned her an official Proclamation from the Town of West New York. On the other hand, she also uses her platform to support the need for emotional freedom, believing everyone should feel free to express their feelings. Her work is a continuous reminder that we all share the capacity to feel and connect. 

Sky Hopinka_Margie Tabora 3.30

 Sky Hopinka Artist Talk

"If it makes sense to me, then that's good enough" - Sky Hopinka

We, as artists, will always encounter an audience that won't understand our work and will undermine our intentions. I think it's important to remember that our art is for ourselves and for others who can make the same conclusion as we can. 

"How do we negotiate these technologies and how do we make them a part of our daily lives in a way that is meaningful to the past, but at the same time relevant for the future?"- Sky Hopinka

Everyone uses technology in more ways than one. It's gotten to a point where technology is losing its purpose and turning into a corporate weapon of consumerism and capitalism. 

How does Sky Hopinka use his medium of choice? 

Hopinka's medium of choice is video, in which he primarily films in his homeplace of Portland, Oregon. During the making of " Mnemonics of  Shape and Reason", he filmed his scenes in the Columbia River Basin. His film style consists of filming in pieces and then placing them together, post-production, incorporating audio recordings, overlaying edits, adding text, and landscape.

What inspired him to use video?

Hopinka explains in his artist talk that he would always have a camera with him. He explicitly mentions he doesn't just use memory in his camera simply beacuse his has it. He would capture whatever takes his interest. 

What material/medium/process do you use and how? 

I begin my work by tapping into my emotions and how I've been feeling, whether long-term or short-term. This is the main focus of my art. Then I would find inspiration in my surroundings or on Pinterest. In a program called Clip Studio Paint, bouncing between that and Adobe Fresco. Using the different paints and colors provided, I would create an apathetic and raw artwork, or something more hopeful and ethereal. Realistically, it depends on my emotions. 

What inspired you to make your work that way?

I try to tap into my emotions and find ways to convey them through artworks rather than words. My surroundings and my past experiences, both pleasant and traumatic, have helped me advance my art style and what I would want to create at that time.