Model, entrepreneur, author and chef.

Chris Ballantyne’s work focuses on vernacular architecture and observation of the American landscape.  Banal features of suburban and industrial zones are sources for paintings that highlight the quirky and absurd.  Ballantyne states that, “Growing up in a military family and moving to different parts of the country, there was a certain familiarity to the kinds of houses and neighborhoods. They were a series of suburban developments built in separate regions of the country, always on the outskirts of larger cities, at the exit ramps of interstate highways, and all very similar in age and design.  My own notions of space developed out of this cultural landscape which was striving for an indidvidual sense of personal space,  consciously economic, and somewhere between urban and rural.” Dysfunctional structures are flawless in their strangeness, made beautiful through symmetry, simplified lines and flat, subdued colors. Ballantyne eliminates detail to emphasize the subtleties of the way we experience space and our attempts at containment. He extends these concepts further by expanding the imagery of his paintings beyond the picture plane and onto the surrounding walls. “Most of my works involve combinations of various places, drawn from memory. As well, my own interests in skateboarding and surfing altered how I saw  the use of these structures ranging from empty pools, sidewalk curbs, to ocean jetties in a way that tied in to my sense of this larger push and pull between culture and nature.” With shrewd restraint, Ballantyne accentuates the antisocial effects of our built environment with a hint of humor and plenty of ambiguity. A curious emptiness permeates the work of Chris Ballantyne. Graphically rendered buildings, pools, parking lots, and fences take on new meanings and amplified significance, isolated on flat fields of color.

Italian illustrator who moved to New York because of love. Since then she has been working as a freelance illustrator with: The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Planadviser, Plansponsor, Jamie Magazine, Skelton Design, The Center For Urban Pedagogy, Now What, Maxus, Weber Shandwick, Accurat and S'well bottle as surface and pattern designer.

Laura Pérez is an illustrator and comic artist working from Valencia, Spain. Some of the clients are The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, Elle, Penguin Ramdon House, Walmart, Wacom, American Airlines and more. Recently published The Graphic Novel Náufragos.

Ben Thomas is a photographer and visual artist born in Adelaide, based in Victoria, Australia. Ben's work has centered around the cities and urban spaces that we live in. His "Cityshrinker" series (2007) was internationally acclaimed and considered to be one of the pioneering projects exploring the now popular tilt-shift technique. Ben's study of urban spaces continued with "Accession" (2012) utilising mirror and kaleidoscopic techniques to highlight how repeating patterns and objects act as the basis of our our urban surroundings. Most recently Ben has developed his latest series "Chroma" (2015) and "Chroma II (2016), a further deconstruction of cities and urban areas with a primary focus of the use of colour and flatness that poses questions of how society defines the places in which we live. Ben is a Hasselblad Master 2018 and has recently completed campaigns/assignments for The New Yorker Magazine, Sony, Cake, Singapore Airlines, Penguin Books and Chronicle Books.