Kent Rogowski is an artist/photographer living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Kent’s works are often provocative and whimsical manipulations of objects and images that surround us in our daily lives. From teddy bears to jigsaw puzzles and self-help books, he uses and alters mass-produced consumer products as a vehicle for self-expression. By transforming the generic into something personal, Kent questions what these products communicate, and also what role they play in our culture. His first monograph, Bears, was published by powerHouse books in 2007. He has shown his work both nationally and internationally with solo shows in New York at the Jen Bekman Gallery and the Foley Gallery and the In Focus Gallery in Cologne, Germany. In 2000, Kent received his MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, where he is now a Senior Critic. He has also taught at The Pratt Institute and The School of Visual Arts in New York.

Paige Mehrer is an illustrator based in Brooklyn, NY. She's worked with clients such as The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, Lucky Peach, PLANSPONSOR, Broadly, The Portland Mercury, Food52, Curbed, Narrative.ly, Trans.cafe, and Dear Kate and would love to work with you too! She also makes handmade zines, pins, shirts, and prints. @paigemehrer

Jessica Walsh is a NYC based designer, art director and illustrator. She worked as an art director at Print Magazine, and at design studios such as Pentagram Design and Sagmeister, Inc. Her work has won numerous awards from design magazines and competitions, including ADC's "Young Gun" award and Print's "New Visual Artist" award. She lives and works in Chelsea with her dog momo and a fridge filled with avocados.

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.

ella 23 brooklyn