View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Emily Powell (@emilypowellstudio)

Powell has been painting since she was seven years old when her father passed away. Using bright colors was her way of bringing joy back into the lives of her and her family. She was very young when she learned that art can bring beauty and happiness to people.

Powell has been selling her work through Instagram and her sales increased during the lockdown. People find her art to be just the thing their homes are missing during these harsh times.

The artist spends her days and creates magic in a four-story fisherman’s cottage in Brixham, England. Her studio is set on the top floor and gives her a great view of the sea and the boats, which can be noticed in her art.

Scroll down to see some of her works and follow her on Instagram for more!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Emily Powell (@emilypowellstudio)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Emily Powell (@emilypowellstudio)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Emily Powell (@emilypowellstudio)

The post Emily Powell’s Vivid Paintings Are Exactly What We Need In Life appeared first on PlayJunkie.

After seeing how much fun his older sister was having while painting, he started showing interest and asked his parents if he could also paint. At the time, his parents didn’t know how to respond as he has trouble with fine motor skills, which is a symptom of the diagnosis.

But, instead of giving up and letting their child down, they decided to get creative and find a different way for their son to paint. Just a day after Tristan asked his parents to paint, they purchased him his first acrylic color set and he instantly started “splashing, dripping, and spraying the pictures, he was discovering his own painting style,” his parents shared with PlayJunkie.

It wasn’t long before his parents realized that his creations were unique and special artworks and that they deserved to be shared with the world to reach as many people as possible. His Dad created an Instagram profile to showcase his artwork. The profile reads, “Tristan is a 5-year-old boy with Autism and talent to express himself through painting. As any proud dad, I started posting the paintings..,”

While Tristan paints, his parents record him and when he’s finished, he watches and analyzes his work with a big smile on his face!

As an autistic child, these paintings have not only allowed Tristan to create amazing works of art, but they’ve also been therapeutic for him. The way he expresses himself through his movements and actions and this thought process while painting is quite a magical experience.

Check out more amazing painting from this little artist who proves that anyone, no matter their limitations, can create amazing works of art and have so much fun while doing it!

The post 5-Year-Old Artist With Autism Creates Amazing Paintings appeared first on PlayJunkie.

In her latest project, The Outline Series, Grochulska paints a recognizable bold outline where she highlights her painted character.

“The outline acts as a metaphor here… It also represents the contemporary aspect of the painting in its bold and vibrant expressive character,” the artist told Colossal. “My hope is that the abstract form of the outline adds an emotional weight and highlights the human subject by drawing attention to the portrayed face they frame.”

Her works have been exhibited in galleries all around the world. She documents her work on Instagram where her photos regularly get thousands of likes.

Scroll down and check out some of her greatest paintings below. She also owns an online shop where you can purchase some of her paintings.

The post Artist Uses Bold Colors to Highlight The Emotions of Her Characters appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Embedded in her compositions is Latin American culture: its intricate folk arts, tropical flora, and warm hues; while graffiti tags, bold mark making, and images of conquest interrupt this patchwork of shape and color. Patterns, both traditional and commercial, are fragmented and pieced together. Colors infused with Latin flavor are diluted by a ubiquitous white. Organic, blooming forms are contrasted by flat or rigid fields.

“Together, the fragmented, visual tapestries in my work are woven together to recreate historical narratives that better represent the hybrid Latino identity caused by colonization and upheld by westernization,” she writes on her website. According to Latimer, without taking a political stance, she aims to draw attention to the visual tapestries and unknown histories of Latin America.

Her work also includes reinterpretations of important historical paintings, with the aim to better understand culture and history. With thousands of fans on Instagram, Latimer’s artwork is celebrated both online and offline, having shown extensively in solo and group exhibitions. Below you’ll find a selection of her paintings:

The post This Painter Explores the Hybridity of Western and Latin American Identity appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I started painting this way out of a need to learn the basics of painting so that I could one day work in a looser style,” she adds. “So it became a means to an end so to speak and a challenge to see if I could master the techniques of the old masters.” It all culminated when she moved to New York, where she felt that all those conditions she had put on herself became impossible. At the same time, she explains, there was this persistent underlying nagging voice for change. “It just seemed to become the right time to break out of the self-imposed mold and start experimenting to make those changes I needed to feel more authentic in what I was doing,” she says.

And so, a surreal, loose, and experimental style was born. “I decided that now everything was fair game, photographic source material, appropriation of imagery, using whichever materials, working from the computer screen and so on,” she relays. “So I turned around and did the opposite of what I used to do. Anyway, to make a long story short, this has turned into my ‘style’ as it is now.” She described this style as “realism tumbles with cubism.”

Now based in Berlin, her work has been featured in various publications, including Juxtapoz Magazine and Beautiful/Decay Magazine. In her latest body of work, a series of paintings titled “Glorious Rejects”, she continues to draw on the strategies and manipulations of fashion and media, mashed up with art history, exploring identity and connections. Appropriating imagery from magazines and advertising as a visual reference, she conjoins these images with art historical elements, from renaissance paintings to modernists in collage-like paintings.

But the finished products are open for interpretation. “I think art should be ambiguous enough to allow for different interpretations,” Reiner Hansen stresses. “What I  hope for, is for people to create their own narratives… that they hopefully look at the work for more than a glance.”

Take a closer look:

The post Realism Meets Cubism In Kirstine Reiner Hansen’s Paintings appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Born in South London in 1994, Yearwood-Dan completed her BA in Fine Art Painting at the University of Brighton, before residing back in London. According to her website, being highly expressive and tied to her identity as a young British artist, her work is in continuous metamorphosis.

“I think that over time my artwork has become a bit more confident and refined via the imagery I use,” she added in an interview with Dateagle Art. “Regardless as to whether I’m creating abstract or figurative work, I think I approach each piece with a sense of confidence that steams from the knowing that I’m still learning and growing and if something doesn’t work out that it’s all part of the process towards me making something I’m truly happy with,” she adds.

Her paintings are often based on references to both the origins of traditional fine art and pop culture, including images of late-night food spots, overtly feminine stereotypes, and botanical influences within personalized visual narrative. As a contemporary artist working in a historically renowned art form, Yearwood-Dan’s work heavily focuses on method and technique, often borrowing and adapting traits from western, Japanese, and Chinese historical painting and craft. 

“I think I do sometimes think of that work when I’m feeling moments of self-doubt,” says Yearwood-Dan, “conscious that interchanging between figurative and abstract may make it hard for people to establish my work as my own, however, I realize that the way I use paint there is a clear signifier that they share the same artist.”

The post Michaela Yearwood-Dan’s Art Is In Continuous Metamorphosis appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Acrodgin to Broom, her landscapes represent fantastical, re-imagined places, which in some sense provide a rose-tinted view of the natural world. The surface joyousness is tempered by an uneasy sense of abandonment, a place untouched and timeless but a paradise that would ultimately ensnare. With her abstract paintings, there is more improvisation.

The process itself involves no intervention with tools or brushes, just the flow and manipulation of the medium on the canvas. According to Broom, there is an immediacy and freshness born out of this way of working which is complementary to the layered aspect of her landscape paintings.

“My landscapes are very densely layered and a built up through lengthy over-painting and using a lot of different application techniques,” she added in an interview with Jung Katz. “My abstract paintings are made without any tools or brushes so I have less control over the medium and this is quite a freeing way of working.”

“I hope to make paintings that are beautiful but that also offer a narrative that can be interpreted in different ways,” reflected Broom, “whether it’s personal, or more broadly connected to, for example, environmental concerns.” “I try to exploit beauty and color in my work,” she added, explaining “it’s my hook to bring people in and engage further. Generally, I’ve found people respond really well and have some personal connection, idea or memory sparked by it.”

Explore her colorful worlds below:

The post Orlanda Broom’s Paintings Are Colorful to the Max appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Bowditch lives in Richmond, Virginia, where she creates moody and breathtaking landscape paintings that depict different phases of the sky throughout the day. She is experimenting with various painting techniques and tools in order to show how the sky and light change the atmosphere of the landscape.

“I am interested in the physicality of paint and the infinite ways in which it can be applied to a surface,” the artist explained. “Of great fascination to me is the sky—both its subtle, transitory qualities and its ability to alter the landscape. Much of my work is focused on the atmospheric relationship between the sky and the attendant land and sea.”

Aside from painting, Bowditch is also teaching courses in drawing and painting at John Tyler Community College in Virginia.

Take a look at her mesmerizing painting in the photos below.

The post Artist Captures Dreamy Skies In Her Atmospheric Paintings appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Born in 1963, Patterson grew up in Ogdensburg, NY, the daughter of a Presbyterian Minister and public school teacher whom she credits for her humanitarianism. An excruciatingly shy child, Patterson spent much of her time alone, thinking, dreaming, and making art. After High School, she attended the State University Of New York At Potsdam, where she earned degrees in Art and Education, after which she became an art teacher while spending most of her other time painting.

“I believe that most of my ideas come through me, not from me,” she writes on her website, explaining her sources of inspiration. “Sometimes, ideas simply pop into my head seemingly from nowhere. Other times, some political or social situations will appear in my conversations, in the news, in a movie or in many other ways — repeatedly, beckoning me to paint them.”

“Once I realized the tremendous power that images can have to make people comfortable or uncomfortable, happy or sad, settled or unsettled, I knew I had a voice,” she adds. “I decided to use my voice to encourage people to see, think and feel – something not always valued in our culture. Awareness replaces ignorance and opens up the possibility of change. If you can’t ignore it, then you may feel compelled to change it.”

Step inside her unsettling worlds:

The post These Watercolor Paintings Explore the Human Condition appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“My mission is to explore the emotional symbolism of something like a broken egg in a nest,” she writes poetically on her website. “This for me represents the tension between birth and death, the purity of simple form in contrast with nature’s complex structures and designs. The fragility of the shell which can beak and shatter versus its strength to encompass life and growth. For me, this echoes our own psyche and emotional being; vulnerable – strong, fragile – enduring, brittle – tenacious.”

A common thread throughout her work is her interest in the dynamics between diametrical opposing energy, structures fabrics, and feelings. Shearing admits that she is particularly fascinated by the movement of the ocean waves expressing the rhythm of life and the force and strength of nature. Indeed, most of her work seems fluid – an exploration of water and movement. “I am interested in exploring the fluidity of water against the firm resistance of hard rock,” she explains.

Much like water, Shearing’s creative process is fluid, working slowly and thoroughly, and mixing minute amounts of paint to get the tone and intensity of colors she wants exactly. “I work very carefully, thoughtfully considering composition and juxtaposition of tones and colors,” she writes. “I spend time choosing my palette very carefully as this is the platform from which I build the timbre and mood of the piece.”

The result is very much striking.

The post Andrea Shearing’s Art Is Almost Fluid appeared first on PlayJunkie.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Emily Powell (@emilypowellstudio)

Powell has been painting since she was seven years old when her father passed away. Using bright colors was her way of bringing joy back into the lives of her and her family. She was very young when she learned that art can bring beauty and happiness to people.

Powell has been selling her work through Instagram and her sales increased during the lockdown. People find her art to be just the thing their homes are missing during these harsh times.

The artist spends her days and creates magic in a four-story fisherman’s cottage in Brixham, England. Her studio is set on the top floor and gives her a great view of the sea and the boats, which can be noticed in her art.

Scroll down to see some of her works and follow her on Instagram for more!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Emily Powell (@emilypowellstudio)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Emily Powell (@emilypowellstudio)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Emily Powell (@emilypowellstudio)

The post Emily Powell’s Vivid Paintings Are Exactly What We Need In Life appeared first on PlayJunkie.

After seeing how much fun his older sister was having while painting, he started showing interest and asked his parents if he could also paint. At the time, his parents didn’t know how to respond as he has trouble with fine motor skills, which is a symptom of the diagnosis.

But, instead of giving up and letting their child down, they decided to get creative and find a different way for their son to paint. Just a day after Tristan asked his parents to paint, they purchased him his first acrylic color set and he instantly started “splashing, dripping, and spraying the pictures, he was discovering his own painting style,” his parents shared with PlayJunkie.

It wasn’t long before his parents realized that his creations were unique and special artworks and that they deserved to be shared with the world to reach as many people as possible. His Dad created an Instagram profile to showcase his artwork. The profile reads, “Tristan is a 5-year-old boy with Autism and talent to express himself through painting. As any proud dad, I started posting the paintings..,”

While Tristan paints, his parents record him and when he’s finished, he watches and analyzes his work with a big smile on his face!

As an autistic child, these paintings have not only allowed Tristan to create amazing works of art, but they’ve also been therapeutic for him. The way he expresses himself through his movements and actions and this thought process while painting is quite a magical experience.

Check out more amazing painting from this little artist who proves that anyone, no matter their limitations, can create amazing works of art and have so much fun while doing it!

The post 5-Year-Old Artist With Autism Creates Amazing Paintings appeared first on PlayJunkie.

In her latest project, The Outline Series, Grochulska paints a recognizable bold outline where she highlights her painted character.

“The outline acts as a metaphor here… It also represents the contemporary aspect of the painting in its bold and vibrant expressive character,” the artist told Colossal. “My hope is that the abstract form of the outline adds an emotional weight and highlights the human subject by drawing attention to the portrayed face they frame.”

Her works have been exhibited in galleries all around the world. She documents her work on Instagram where her photos regularly get thousands of likes.

Scroll down and check out some of her greatest paintings below. She also owns an online shop where you can purchase some of her paintings.

The post Artist Uses Bold Colors to Highlight The Emotions of Her Characters appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Embedded in her compositions is Latin American culture: its intricate folk arts, tropical flora, and warm hues; while graffiti tags, bold mark making, and images of conquest interrupt this patchwork of shape and color. Patterns, both traditional and commercial, are fragmented and pieced together. Colors infused with Latin flavor are diluted by a ubiquitous white. Organic, blooming forms are contrasted by flat or rigid fields.

“Together, the fragmented, visual tapestries in my work are woven together to recreate historical narratives that better represent the hybrid Latino identity caused by colonization and upheld by westernization,” she writes on her website. According to Latimer, without taking a political stance, she aims to draw attention to the visual tapestries and unknown histories of Latin America.

Her work also includes reinterpretations of important historical paintings, with the aim to better understand culture and history. With thousands of fans on Instagram, Latimer’s artwork is celebrated both online and offline, having shown extensively in solo and group exhibitions. Below you’ll find a selection of her paintings:

The post This Painter Explores the Hybridity of Western and Latin American Identity appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I started painting this way out of a need to learn the basics of painting so that I could one day work in a looser style,” she adds. “So it became a means to an end so to speak and a challenge to see if I could master the techniques of the old masters.” It all culminated when she moved to New York, where she felt that all those conditions she had put on herself became impossible. At the same time, she explains, there was this persistent underlying nagging voice for change. “It just seemed to become the right time to break out of the self-imposed mold and start experimenting to make those changes I needed to feel more authentic in what I was doing,” she says.

And so, a surreal, loose, and experimental style was born. “I decided that now everything was fair game, photographic source material, appropriation of imagery, using whichever materials, working from the computer screen and so on,” she relays. “So I turned around and did the opposite of what I used to do. Anyway, to make a long story short, this has turned into my ‘style’ as it is now.” She described this style as “realism tumbles with cubism.”

Now based in Berlin, her work has been featured in various publications, including Juxtapoz Magazine and Beautiful/Decay Magazine. In her latest body of work, a series of paintings titled “Glorious Rejects”, she continues to draw on the strategies and manipulations of fashion and media, mashed up with art history, exploring identity and connections. Appropriating imagery from magazines and advertising as a visual reference, she conjoins these images with art historical elements, from renaissance paintings to modernists in collage-like paintings.

But the finished products are open for interpretation. “I think art should be ambiguous enough to allow for different interpretations,” Reiner Hansen stresses. “What I  hope for, is for people to create their own narratives… that they hopefully look at the work for more than a glance.”

Take a closer look:

The post Realism Meets Cubism In Kirstine Reiner Hansen’s Paintings appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Born in South London in 1994, Yearwood-Dan completed her BA in Fine Art Painting at the University of Brighton, before residing back in London. According to her website, being highly expressive and tied to her identity as a young British artist, her work is in continuous metamorphosis.

“I think that over time my artwork has become a bit more confident and refined via the imagery I use,” she added in an interview with Dateagle Art. “Regardless as to whether I’m creating abstract or figurative work, I think I approach each piece with a sense of confidence that steams from the knowing that I’m still learning and growing and if something doesn’t work out that it’s all part of the process towards me making something I’m truly happy with,” she adds.

Her paintings are often based on references to both the origins of traditional fine art and pop culture, including images of late-night food spots, overtly feminine stereotypes, and botanical influences within personalized visual narrative. As a contemporary artist working in a historically renowned art form, Yearwood-Dan’s work heavily focuses on method and technique, often borrowing and adapting traits from western, Japanese, and Chinese historical painting and craft. 

“I think I do sometimes think of that work when I’m feeling moments of self-doubt,” says Yearwood-Dan, “conscious that interchanging between figurative and abstract may make it hard for people to establish my work as my own, however, I realize that the way I use paint there is a clear signifier that they share the same artist.”

The post Michaela Yearwood-Dan’s Art Is In Continuous Metamorphosis appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Acrodgin to Broom, her landscapes represent fantastical, re-imagined places, which in some sense provide a rose-tinted view of the natural world. The surface joyousness is tempered by an uneasy sense of abandonment, a place untouched and timeless but a paradise that would ultimately ensnare. With her abstract paintings, there is more improvisation.

The process itself involves no intervention with tools or brushes, just the flow and manipulation of the medium on the canvas. According to Broom, there is an immediacy and freshness born out of this way of working which is complementary to the layered aspect of her landscape paintings.

“My landscapes are very densely layered and a built up through lengthy over-painting and using a lot of different application techniques,” she added in an interview with Jung Katz. “My abstract paintings are made without any tools or brushes so I have less control over the medium and this is quite a freeing way of working.”

“I hope to make paintings that are beautiful but that also offer a narrative that can be interpreted in different ways,” reflected Broom, “whether it’s personal, or more broadly connected to, for example, environmental concerns.” “I try to exploit beauty and color in my work,” she added, explaining “it’s my hook to bring people in and engage further. Generally, I’ve found people respond really well and have some personal connection, idea or memory sparked by it.”

Explore her colorful worlds below:

The post Orlanda Broom’s Paintings Are Colorful to the Max appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Bowditch lives in Richmond, Virginia, where she creates moody and breathtaking landscape paintings that depict different phases of the sky throughout the day. She is experimenting with various painting techniques and tools in order to show how the sky and light change the atmosphere of the landscape.

“I am interested in the physicality of paint and the infinite ways in which it can be applied to a surface,” the artist explained. “Of great fascination to me is the sky—both its subtle, transitory qualities and its ability to alter the landscape. Much of my work is focused on the atmospheric relationship between the sky and the attendant land and sea.”

Aside from painting, Bowditch is also teaching courses in drawing and painting at John Tyler Community College in Virginia.

Take a look at her mesmerizing painting in the photos below.

The post Artist Captures Dreamy Skies In Her Atmospheric Paintings appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Born in 1963, Patterson grew up in Ogdensburg, NY, the daughter of a Presbyterian Minister and public school teacher whom she credits for her humanitarianism. An excruciatingly shy child, Patterson spent much of her time alone, thinking, dreaming, and making art. After High School, she attended the State University Of New York At Potsdam, where she earned degrees in Art and Education, after which she became an art teacher while spending most of her other time painting.

“I believe that most of my ideas come through me, not from me,” she writes on her website, explaining her sources of inspiration. “Sometimes, ideas simply pop into my head seemingly from nowhere. Other times, some political or social situations will appear in my conversations, in the news, in a movie or in many other ways — repeatedly, beckoning me to paint them.”

“Once I realized the tremendous power that images can have to make people comfortable or uncomfortable, happy or sad, settled or unsettled, I knew I had a voice,” she adds. “I decided to use my voice to encourage people to see, think and feel – something not always valued in our culture. Awareness replaces ignorance and opens up the possibility of change. If you can’t ignore it, then you may feel compelled to change it.”

Step inside her unsettling worlds:

The post These Watercolor Paintings Explore the Human Condition appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“My mission is to explore the emotional symbolism of something like a broken egg in a nest,” she writes poetically on her website. “This for me represents the tension between birth and death, the purity of simple form in contrast with nature’s complex structures and designs. The fragility of the shell which can beak and shatter versus its strength to encompass life and growth. For me, this echoes our own psyche and emotional being; vulnerable – strong, fragile – enduring, brittle – tenacious.”

A common thread throughout her work is her interest in the dynamics between diametrical opposing energy, structures fabrics, and feelings. Shearing admits that she is particularly fascinated by the movement of the ocean waves expressing the rhythm of life and the force and strength of nature. Indeed, most of her work seems fluid – an exploration of water and movement. “I am interested in exploring the fluidity of water against the firm resistance of hard rock,” she explains.

Much like water, Shearing’s creative process is fluid, working slowly and thoroughly, and mixing minute amounts of paint to get the tone and intensity of colors she wants exactly. “I work very carefully, thoughtfully considering composition and juxtaposition of tones and colors,” she writes. “I spend time choosing my palette very carefully as this is the platform from which I build the timbre and mood of the piece.”

The result is very much striking.

The post Andrea Shearing’s Art Is Almost Fluid appeared first on PlayJunkie.