Taurus Burns + Alana Carlson + Katherine Marty + Catya Plate + Sarah Rayburn + Emily Vastbinder + Colin Wilson
Taurus Burns (instagram)
A passion for painting and artistic growth led Taurus Burns to Detroit in 1998 to study Fine Arts at the College for Creative Studies. Since graduating, Taurus has repeatedly been listed as one of Detroit’s “Best Artists”. Taurus has painted several murals in Metro Detroit, illustrated children’s books, given painting demonstrations and artist talks, and showcased the work of other talented artists in several popular exhibits, while continually developing his unique blend of narrative urban realism.
Alana Carlson
Alana Carlson grew up in Oakland Township, MI on 8 acres of beautiful, forested mosquito farm. There were horses next door to feed apples to, and a gaggle of geese to chase out of the yard most days. She now resides and makes artwork in Ferndale, MI across the street from the curling club.
Alana earned her BFA (2003; Concentration – Painting) from Kendall College of Art & Design in Grand Rapids.
Katherine Marty
I have been working with collage since 2011. I am largely self-taught. I don’t have a website, but you can always wave at me from across the street.
Catya Plate (website)
Catya Plate, born in Barcelona, Spain, and raised in Germany, is a Brooklyn based award winning multidisciplinary artist and filmmaker. Her sculptures, paintings, drawings, installations and animated films, explore the ephemeral nature of existence by creating an alternative universe, which exposes, among other things, humanity’s impact on the environment. Catya is a Fulbright Alumna and has been exhibiting internationally since the mid-1980’s. Her work is in public and private collections worldwide, like the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of Modern Art Library in New York City. Articles and reviews about her films and projects have appeared in Film Threat, BOOM!Film Reviews, The New York Times, The Independent, and others. In 2009, she created Clothespin Freak Productions to bring her “Clothespin Freaks” characters to life through stop-motion animation short films. In 2012, her first film “The Reading”, was awarded Best Animated Film at the Seattle True Independent Film Festival. Her second film “Hanging By A Thread”, screened at over 22 film festivals in the US and abroad, like the Academy Award-qualifying St. Louis International Film Festival and won 9 awards. “Meeting MacGuffin”, the sequel of “Hanging By A Thread” and second in a trilogy of shorts was completed in February 2017 and is currently making its rounds in the international film festival circuit with over 30 festival screenings so far. “Meeting MacGuffin” has won several awards, among them the Grand Prize for Best Animated Short at the Academy-Award qualifying Rhode Island International Film Festival-Vortex in October 2017.
Sarah Rayburn
Sarah Rayburn is a collage artist and art framer based in Hamtramck, Michigan. Her work primarily focuses on action and color, and she is a maximalist in both regards.
Emily Vastbinder (website) | (instagram)
Emily G. Vastbinder grew up in Ferndale, Michigan, and has had an interest in the arts as far back as she can remember. In Jr. High School she took classes from Detroit’s Young Artists and Company. During High School she attended three years at Oak Park’s Center for Advanced Studies and the Arts (C.A.S.A.), studying Multi-Media Art, Sculpture, Dance, and Japanese language. Also during High School, she studied one year of Fashion Design at the Oakland Technical Center. The summer before her senior year of High School, she attended a two-week long Image Transfer Workshop at the University of Michigan. During those two weeks, she took a trip to Detroit’s Heidelberg Project, where Tyree Guyton himself allowed her to paint a big blue polka dot in the middle of Heidelberg Street!
She graduated Ferndale High School a National Honors Society member and was awarded a CCS AOE Scholarship. In 2002, she received her BFA from Detroit’s College for Creative Studies. Since then, she continues to live and work in the Detroit area. She had a solo show in 2011. She featured in a duo show in 2013. She has also participated in a number of group shows.
Vastbinder is primarily a painter but often explores other media. In her recent work, the traditions of both landscape and still life painting are in contrast with the unconventional elements she includes in each piece. Further, the rough subjects contradict their refined surfaces. For her, among other things, art making has revealed a playfulness with dichotomies.
Colin Wilson (facebook) | (instagram)
Art Apocrypha is an ongoing project by artist Colin Wilson to resurrect forgotten and mistreated works of art found in thrift stores, garage sales, even the trash–anywhere it’s clear they’re no longer wanted. When he works on a new piece, the goal is to add to, rather than distract or detract from the existing material. This means matching the original medium, style, color palette, and lighting to create a piece that feels more collaborative than dismissive of the original work. This often leads to subtle scenes you have to look at twice before you spot any alterations. His work often features blended themes of horror, the occult, myth, nature, fantasy and humor. This project began in 2012, and to date it has produced over 75 pieces of art that were once on the edge of oblivion, which now find new purpose as Art Apocrypha.
Jerry White Jr. (website) VTFF2018 Poster Art
I loved the VTFF poster artwork by Millie Ho last year, which was her “creepify” take on a poster/imagery I’d made years earlier for a V&T art show. I decided to stick with the approach of remixing those flyers this year, but with a different style. I love retro graphics and the constraints they impose (as well as breaking those constraints). My inspiration was old computer games—specifically those on early Macs—where everything was monochrome, though you could represent gray with patterns. I started with that, then added the vidlings blue here and there—because it looks cool!
