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.

Sebastian Chen Speier is a Creative Director and Product Designer in New York. He is currently a Design Lead at Instagram. Before that he was the Global Design Director on Nike SNKRS.

I’m Verena Michelitsch, an independent designer and art director from Austria by way of New York City. I specialize in conceptualizing and creating unique visual expressions, spanning graphic design, art direction, illustration, pattern, editorial, and digital design. I’ve had the pleasure to work with an array of international studios and clients, including Apple, Nasa/JPL, Facebook, Red Bull, The Smithsonian and Opening Ceremony. I work from my studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

Jordan Sullivan is an artist living and working in New York City.

Hilary Greenbaum is a New York-based graphic designer and design writer. Currently a staff designer and columnist at The New York Times Magazine, she studied design at the California Institute of the Arts (MFA 2006) and Carnegie Mellon University (BFA 2001). Her work has been recognized by the Society of Publication Designers, the Type Directors Club, the Art Directors Club, the AIGA, the Society for News Design and the Output Foundation.