Artists
Robin Bartholick
As a child, my parents took me to silent films such as Charlie Chaplin, Laurel & Hardy, Marx Brothers and Buster Keaton because I could not hear and the movies were visual. I think many of these films sort of subconsciously embedded into my head. These films were masters at communicating visually. I have always wanted to be a fine artist, but couldn’t make a living and my commercial work was my way of surviving. During my career I’ve always experimented with fine art and it seems the more creative I became, the less money I made, and the more commercial I became, the more money I made. After 20 years of experimenting, I seem to have found a balance with my black and white vintage images that could sell both in the commercial and fine art field. I spend hours on concepts, sketching and then use photography and digital imaging to create my images. I worked on them like a painter, dealing with the proper perspective, getting the right lighting, which sometimes requires several days to complete. One of the hardest things is keeping the light even for all the various elements. The response I get from the public is the most rewarding of all.
James Canning
As the artworks imply, I was living at a low point in my life, isolated and depressed. The paintings serve to illustrate this in images rather than words. Working on the paintings, I insisted that each part of the overall, each figure or scene etc, must relate to all the rest in some way. This was an emotional style of painting rather than a thought-out verbal description. Difficult to describe but it was the source of my artworks. It ended when I started RIT/NTID and had people all around me.
Nicolle Cure
Nicolle Cure is a Colombian-American artist based in Miami, Florida.
Her signature series, The Colors of Sound, is a collection of fluid abstract paintings she created while exploring the relationship between sound and life – inspired by her Sudden Unilateral Hearing Loss (SSHL) experience. Nicolle has partnered with the Hearing Health Foundation and Vestibular Disorders Organization (VeDA) for several years where she donates her time and art to benefit their fundraising initiatives. As a result of her work raising awareness about hearing loss and invisible disabilities, she was awarded the Leadership Scholarship by Americans for the Arts in 2018. Nicolle’s art has been showcased at Art Basel Miami, and other art fairs in South Korea, China, and Colombia. She has been featured in numerous magazines, blogs, and other fine art and hearing health publications. In 2016, several of her surrealist paintings were featured in the “IMAGEN y PALABRA” Art Book. Her work is available at West Elm, Showfields, PxP Contemporary, and other galleries and online art platforms. Nicolle earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Advertising from the University of Florida and an Associate in Arts in Computer Arts Animation. She also holds academic certificates from the Sotheby's Institute of Art.
Marissa DiDonna
DiDonna is a creative photographer and artist who resides in Washington D.C. Marissa strives to create a unique vision that reflects the beauty and diversity that exists in our society. Her artistic creations promote an awareness of the realities in our communities and elevate an appreciation of our surroundings. Her artwork ranges from simplicity to layered complexity with the use of contrast and bold colors. She enjoys sharing her appreciation of art and would encourage everyone to let a little color into their life!
Randy Dunham
Dunham’s art is a form of focus employing REFLECTION, REFRACTION, and TRANSPARENCY, which transform randomly selected inanimate and industrial shape into a spectacle of wonder and vision. These transformed objects come to life through the mastery of created illusions of transparency and levitation. A dazzling array of color shifts and vibrant accents are incorporated on the surface of these dreamlike art forms. The laws of nature seem reversed, yet are portrayed stunningly in a realistic style that takes the viewer beyond the limits of reality, into vast new dimensions of the fantastically impossible. A new life for the beholder is born via his inspirational message – from a world where time is eternal and space is infinite- leaving a pleasing on the soul, the artist’s true mark.
Susan Dupor
My art is a reflection of the visual world with mystical dream-like quality.
My eyes are constantly observing to capture the meaning of the immediate moment of time. I mentally absorb these delicate visual motions and express my heightened visual world as a Deaf artist. As my life’s quest is to seek its distinctive beauty as they are soothing, amusing and inspiring.The nuances of light, shadows and colors are important qualities of the paintings. The beauty of the natural world gracefully intertwines with the miracle of communicating through facial expressions, gestures and sign languages to portray the beauty of the moment. Painting movement on the picture plane is another element yet they are frozen in time. My paintings are often fantastical imageries merging with my present visual contemporary experiences. The use of flora and fauna also mystical creatures sometimes serve as subjects within the paintings. With these storybook-like images I am interested in illustrating them as a visionary story allowing the viewers to create their own interpretation.
Lori Dunsmore
Dunsmore is a self-taught artist specializing in collage, acrylics and oil pastels on canvas. Her expressed work is largely a reflective of her ability to look at scenarios with depth such as exposing the rawness of the bare soul, emotions and milestones. Like every human, Lori’s life went through evolved moments, travels and emotions which allowed her to express her interpretations through visual mediums, as it continues to be a human challenge. Time is devoted with her continuation to learn varieties of interpreted creativity and originality by making it meaningful as a Deaf female artist with the understanding that everyone is their own story and her stories are defined through the visual creations. The creativity aspect of being a visual artist has allowed me to push boundaries and respond to the realities by putting my own emotions through its rawness. The unpredictability of found pictures to create collage pieces have allowed me to thrive on the inventiveness necessary to transform them into a visual story. Every moment is different and based on the current vibe of the unpredictability though visual mediums. My personal techniques have evolved through the years of experimentations and experiences.
Juan Estrella
I began drawing at the age of four and portraits were particularly inspired by my country’s people and it’s animals.
Tony Fowler
A surrealistic digital fine artist, Tony M Fowler, is known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images that falls under the umbrella of surrealism and symbolism.
Raymond Fuyana
Fuyana was born in 1995 in Zimbabwe. He moved to South Africa, Johannesburg in 2009. He attended St Vincent School the Deaf in Rosebank. He then joined the Saturday Youth Portfolio Development at Artist Proof Studio in 2015 and enrolled for the full time programme in 2016. In 2018, Fuyana aims to complete his third year at Artist Proof Studio. He plans to enroll for the 4th year internship programme in 2019 to further his studies at APS. My work is influenced by the surrealism, I create a world of different perspectives. As a deaf person, my experience of the world and the hearing community can be seen in the work I make. I create dreamlike landscape to express my feelings and mood. The spaces I creates can be viewed upside down and right-side up. In this body of work I have used elements of the classical architecture with African landscapes. The emotions add a contemporary element of how we communicate feelings using technology. I focused on capturing the confusion and communication breakdown I experience daily. The crow plays an important role in my work because it represent me in these spaces. I am able to interpreter noise and emotions by creating busy and strange spaces.
Angie Goto
Goto is an Australian Deaf artist who loves to express herself through vivid paintings of images that live in her mind. Her love of reading and painting have joined to create endless ‘stories’ on canvas that strive to recreate the scenery she has silently witnessed and participated in her life. Being deaf has allowed her to experience a different take on life that has both ups and downs, but if you ask her, the ups have far outweighed the downs! She embraces the differences she sees in the human spirit and constantly strives to bring awareness to all about our similarities rather than our differences. Working as a full-time artist and part time Art Educator at the Museum of Contemporary Arts Sydney enables her to be involved with the community in a meaningful and rewarding manner. Angie studied Fine Art and Graphic Design in Newcastle and Sydney.
Rick Hurst
My purpose is to awaken curiosity and prompt introspection in those who view my art, to feed their inner being, to have my images resonate with them through my creativity.
Jon Kastrup
I was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1965. I'm 55 years old. I grew up in Miami, Florida, and graduated from the Florida School for the Deaf and Blind in 1983. I went to college at RIT/NTID—SVP ’83—and graduated in 1991. Then I took off to Brigham Young University and graduated in 1996 with an advanced degree. After that, I worked in both the engineering and legal fields, but I didn't feel any passion about my work. I got lost. That's what led me to become a full-time artist. Right now, my four artworks related to LGBTQ+ themes combine to depict the turning of the seasons: Summer, fall, winter, and spring. They all show LGBTQ+ couples. Starting with the fall piece, which is in flat acrylic, the year builds up in meaning and texture. “Summer Wedding” is heavily symbolic and carries a strong sense of meaning. “Spring Lilac” shows a clearly deaf person with a hearing aid and emphasized eyes. Then the winter piece is more developed than the others as a mixed-media piece and which combines elements of collage. So the four artworks show a full season of LGBTQ+ unity. I created these pieces several years ago. My work is now mostly known as symbolic expressionism in mixed media.
Zeinab Sadeghi Kaji
Zeinab Sadeghi kaji was born in 1985 in Iran and she is graduate of the Iranian College of art of Tehran; she also gained a master’s degree at Science and Research branch university in Tehran. Hearing is one of the best senses of a man. Being deprived of the sense of hearing does not simply mean that the impaired person does not hear but also it results in missing the opportunity to experience too many useful and inspiring experiences of individual and social life. However it is possible to create impressive artworks despite hearing problems. The hearing-impaired look for a language to express their feelings and words. Finally, the five senses are not considered as criteria to evaluate art, but it is the artist's creativity which determines the value of art.
Pamela Witcher
Interpreter, translator, cultural mediator, museum curatorship and multidisclipinary artist, Pamela finds it necessary to overlap old and new discoveries that have the power to change views and ideas. When the Deaf communities create information through art and documentation, our existence become concrete, known and valued. Pamela’s works have been featured in Deaf Culture Centre, deaf-art.org, Edinburgh International Book Festival, Ecomusée du fier monde, Quebec on the Move!, À Bâbord and Signed Music: A Symphonious Odyssey. Her most recent signed music performances were portrayed at Phenomena Festival 2019; VIBE Symposium 2018: Challenging ableism and audism through the arts; Celebration of Sign Language 2015: Revisiting Language, Literacy, and Performing Arts symposium at Towson University, and Les Drags te font signe at Chez Mado cabaret. Parallelly, Pamela works as a Community Relations Manager with Canada’s Video Relay Service.
Harry Williams