Masaki Koike

Masaki earned a Bachelor’s in Fine Arts from Cal State University in Fullerton, CA. He has worked at various design agencies in the corporate and entertainment field until starting his own studio called Phyx Design. While his studio clientele is diverse, his packaging work in the music industry has earned him two Grammy Awards (and several nominations), with work published in various design publications.

Masaki is a ‘nisei’ and a native Angeleno that grew up in Glassell Park. He currently resides in Pasadena with his wife, son and two dogs. He is a committed yogi and self proclaimed cinephile that loves watching movies at the Laemmle theater!

Visit his website at www.phyxdesign.com and follow him on instagram: @phyxdesign

See the artwork here.

Simonette David Jackson

Simonette David Jackson likes to make her mark in pen and ink. After some urging from her family, she took a few of drawing courses some years back and has not stopped drawing since. She began taking drawing commissions by accident when she gave a friend a drawing of his cat. But her favorite models are her two boys and her ninety-five-year-old grandmother. Most of her nature drawings are of local flora and fauna – usually from her walks around her neighborhood or the many parks and nature preserves in the San Fernando Valley. Not liking to waste any drawings, she has devised a way of reusing them by creating paper assemblage pieces from high-res scans of her work.

See the artwork here.

“All art is propaganda…,” George Orwell wrote in a series of essays about other writers, actors, and artists. But propaganda has such a negative shade to it – it brings to mind manipulation, sometimes inciting, or worst, reaffirming our fears and anxieties. To me, art has always been a language, translating something ineffable, and hopefully beginning a conversation, not necessarily a conversion. My body of work has mostly been about my family and nature right outside my door. While not a deliberate message, I feel my personal propaganda keeps returning to, “Look with fresh eyes and treasure what you see.” Having “Nanay,” my ninety-six-year-old grandmother’s portrait, be my language for the “Art of Belonging,” is an honor. I would like her image to have us remember the foods our grandmothers would make, retell childhood stories of visiting grandma’s house, and hopefully, have us rethink about how we care for our elders. I would like her image to begin a conversation about our family, our neighbors, and our community, looking at them with fresh eyes and treasuring what we see.

Eliseo Art Silva

Eliseo Art Silva is an artist known for the Gintong Kasaysayan mural of Los Angeles, recognized as the "most significant Filipino mural in the country" by the LA Times and as "one of the 20 iconic murals of Los Angeles" by LA Weekly.

Silva immigrated to the United States at 17 and obtained a BFA at Otis College of Art and Design. He received his MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art, attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, and was recognized with a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant.

Though he made his name in street art and murals, Silva also works in other mediums such as (oil, acrylic and mixed media) paintings, incorporating theater drama with youth, bringing a deep disciplinary sense of marginalized history, creating giant puppets, organizing festivals, branding cultural enclaves with markers, pocket parks and gateways (thus serving as a de facto city planner), published author and illustrator of books, designed award-winning floats for the Rose Parade, and customized tattoo designs.

See the artwork here.

"I have a longstanding interest in art, painting and community-based and participatory approaches to public art. In my work as a muralist, I always find pedagogical ways for youth and community members to bring in their cultural perspectives, knowledge, and imagination into the creative process.

I believe in the philosophy of building off from the cultural wealth in communities. 

It is through art that people can elevate their own stories as a major player and even a protagonist or a main event of the American cultural landscape. By doing so, artists bestow their own communities a sense of belonging by providing that equal seat at the table of power and influence by offering their unique stories and manifold contributions through their own works of art. In the final analysis, why be recognized and honored with a seat at the table if we deny the world our own unique narratives and legacies through our own art?"

Phung Huynh

Phung Huynh is a Los Angeles-based artist and educator whose practice is primarily in drawing, painting, and public art. Her work explores cultural perception and representation. Huynh challenges beauty standards by constructing images of the Asian female body vis-à-vis plastic surgery to unpack how contemporary cosmetic surgery can create obscurity in cultural and racial identity. Her current work of drawings on pink donut boxes explores the complexities of the refugee experience in Southeast Asian communities. Phung Huynh has had solo exhibitions at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills and the Sweeney Art Gallery at the University of California, Riverside. Her paintings and drawings have been exhibited nationally and internationally. She has also completed public art commissions for the Metro Orange Line, Metro Silver Line, and the Los Angeles Zoo. Phung Huynh is Professor of Art at Los Angeles Valley College where her focus is on serving disproportionately impacted students. She is Chair of the Public Art Commission for the city of South Pasadena and has served as Chair of the Community-Based Art/ Prison Arts Collective Advisory Council, which advises a vital program that provides art courses and workshops to underserved communities and prisons. She completed undergraduate coursework at the University of Southern California, received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with distinction from the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, and received her Master of Fine Arts degree from New York University.

See the artwork here.

Chie Yamayoshi

Chie Yamayoshi, a Los Angeles/Budapest/Stockholm-based photographer and video artist, was raised in Japan where she was a TV director and newscaster. After leaving commercial industry and starting avant-garde art-making practice, Yamayoshi moved to the US under the Japanese Government Overseas Programme for Artists and received a MFA in Film and Video from CalArts and a MFA in Studio Art from UC, Irvine. She has shown her work prolifically and internationally including, Laguna Art Museum, UCLA Hammer Museum of Art, REDCAT Theater, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Art Chicago, Collectif Jeune Cinéma in Paris, "Kino Pavasaris" at Vilnius in Lithuania, A Street in Poznan, Poland, and Gallery Suzuki at Kyoto, Japan.

See the artwork here.