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SOMETHING WICKED 2026 Virtual Gallery

Abby Mungai King

The Message

$100

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Adam “Beatnik” Grewenig

Fishboy

$700

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Adrian Amiro

Shattered Star

$100

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Alisa Duda

Meditation

$300

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My name is Amanda Morgado, and my piece is titled "Ghost Swing." My work has to do with the exploration of liminal spaces, which I define as places where memory and reality overlap. The first time I really started thinking of space in this way was after the death of my grandmother, when I was in her house for the first time after she passed. I had all of these memories of her there that were no longer part of my reality. I think memories could also be defined as ghosts. They are what is left after someone or something is gone, and a memory in a space could also be called a haunting. With this in mind, my piece "Ghost Swing" depicts a playful ghost revisiting a swing it probably used in life. The ghost is a classic bedsheet ghost sitting on a swing hanging from a tree branch at night. It is made from cast aluminum, so it is all one silver color, with carvings that create the image of my ghost. I carved the image into a block and then poured molten aluminum into the carving. Once it hardened, I was able to remove my casting. The piece itself is small: only 6 by 4 inches, and oval shaped.

Amanda Morgado

Ghost Swing

NFS

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Ami Schneider

Grow a Spine

NFS

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Anne LoCascio

Blood Moon Poppies

$200

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Ashley Hanna-Quade

Dead Tired

$350

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BD Mead

The Sewer Swine of the South Branch

$666

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My name is Becca Howe, and my piece is titled "Bone Cabinet." The piece is rectangular, approximately 6 inches wide by 8 inches tall by 1.5 inches deep. It's made of birch and painted dark gray. It resembles a small cabinet and is inspired by traditional cabinets of curiosities. The space within the cabinet is divided widthwise into a top compartment and a bottom compartment. The top compartment is further subdivided into three equal spaces, each holding one object. On the left is a small glass bottle with a cork stopper, filled with small pieces of clear amber, blue, and green glass. In the middle compartment is a geode, and on the right are two small animal bones. Below these objects, in the lower compartment, is a hand-drawn illustration, something two-dimensional to complement the three-dimensional objects above. The main illustration is an old, weathered deer jawbone that appears to be suspended from the shelf of the cabinet by red ribbons. There are other ribbons in the space, two of which, on the left, suspend golden trinkets like pendants set with emeralds and sapphires. The overall effect of "Bone Cabinet" is to make the viewer feel like they've stumbled upon a cabinet from a wizard's workshop.

Becca Howe

Bone Cabinet

$275

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Bert kelly

Reapers light

$600

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Bobby Rowland

Thinking Ahead

$667

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My name is Brian Ingersoll Jr., and my piece is titled "Vampires Will Never Hurt You," loosely based on and named after a song from My Chemical Romance's debut studio album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love. The piece is oil on canvas, 22 by 28 inches, primarily in greens and reds. It depicts a vampire falling into the sunlight, half his face cast in shadow, half blinding in the sunlight. A single tear falls from his eye as we learn, or imagine, what will happen to him next. He stands in front of a field of cactus paddles and wears a Southwestern-style shirt and bolo tie, an homage to my hometown of Phoenix, Arizona. Even though I'm local to Chicago now, that's where I was born and raised, and it still has a large influence on my work.

Brian Ingersoll Jr

Vampires Will Never Hurt You

$400

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Brittany Bender

The Gods I Believe In: The Son

$300

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My name is Chris Block, and my piece is called "Honestly, I Have Felt Better!" It is an 11-by-14-inch photo print in choppy, earthy tones that began life as a basic selfie and ended up revealing a much darker reality. (Or perhaps it's all just a lark?) Either way, the final result was not planned, though it was certainly not unwelcome. Such is the nature of image processing and artistic improvisation in general, a process I am very familiar with from several of my other aesthetic pursuits, most notably music. The initial shot, which had previously undergone a course of digital manipulation (Affinity), was ghostly and wispy, and quite adequately conveyed a sense of otherworldliness, as suggested by the title of the exhibition. However, as I was preparing it for print, a final tweak turned the merely spectral into something much more ominous and seemingly even closer to the theme of Something Wicked.

Chris Block

Honestly, I Have Felt Better!

$39.26

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My name is Chris Palm, and my contribution to Something Wicked is a piece titled "Mr. MacCheese." This is an 8-by-10 drawing done in my favorite mediums: pen and ink with Prismacolor pencils. The piece is a portrait of a dapper figure with a head of macaroni and cheese. The colors are mainly earthy tones, browns and terracotta, aside from the head, which is yellows and oranges: mac and cheese colors. I started this with the intention of creating a whimsical figure with a head of pasta and cheese sauce, but the end result turned out darker than I expected, which is why I submitted it to this show. I wish I could tell you there was some deep, obscure existential meaning behind this drawing, but I really just wanted to draw a guy with a head of macaroni and cheese, and I enjoyed drawing all those noodles. This is just me having fun, which is the main reason I make art in the first place.

Chris Palm

Mr. MacCheese

$150

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My name is Dan Meinhart, and my piece is titled "Shadowings." It is a combination of multiple abstract portraits. One is an ink wash and acrylic painting on canvas, while the other is a monotype print, which is a totally different process from painting. The doubling effect that happens when these two portraits are put in relation to each other was really interesting to me, as was the way the work is fragmented into smaller, separate pieces that act as standalone works in their own right but are also fragments of the larger piece I framed. When I'm looking at it, my eyes move back and forth between the print and the painting. I notice the difference in textures, between the warm blacks of the ink wash and the cooler, glossier print, as well as the varying depths between the pieces. There's an oscillation that happens, a kind of destabilizing effect, from having these pieces presented in a single frame the way they are. Those are a few of the things I find interesting about it.

Dan Meinhart

Shadowings

$670

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EKGS

Persecution of the Witch

$230

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My name is Eric Shofe, and my piece is titled "Unbinding." "Unbinding" explores memory, pain, community, and the unseen world. At its heart, it's about the act of release: breaking the chains of trauma, confronting our shadow selves, and finding comfort in vulnerability and connection. The piece depicts a sisterhood of women gathered around a bonfire nestled in the mountains. They stand in a circle, holding hands, united in a communal ritual of release. Together, they confront the pain and suffering they have endured through abuse throughout their lives. Their pain manifests in the smoke rising from the flames. Tormented faces emerge from the swirling charcoal, blending into the surrounding landscape before fading into the darkness. The artwork is rendered primarily in charcoal, with subtle hints of airbrush around its edges. Strong contrasts of light and dark create a dramatic, almost otherworldly atmosphere. The women gather near the bottom of the composition, illuminated by the fire, while the smoke and its haunting imagery rise above them. The movement of the charcoal strokes ties these elements together, creating a sense of energy and transformation. For me, charcoal is a very primal medium. I work with my hands, I get dirty, and I feel deeply connected to the art as I'm creating it. There's something raw and instinctive about the process that allows me to express emotions I might not otherwise be able to put into words. Creating "Unbinding" was in itself a cathartic experience; it became my own act of release. Ultimately, this piece is about the burdens we carry, the courage it takes to confront them, and the healing that can come from finding comfort and community and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. I hope that when you experience "Unbinding," you find your own meaning within it.

Eric Shofe

Unbinding

NFS

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Erin McNamara

Sn-Heart

$175

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My name is Gabe Garcia, and my piece is titled "Tree of Life." It's a small 12-by-12-inch painting on canvas, framed in a semi-gloss black frame. The subject of this painting is a single black feather with blue and purple iridescence. It is depicted inside a kind of frame, or box, with a rough gray border. The feather is nestled within an organic, smokelike gray form that surrounds it. It is painted in a style I consider realism, but in a thin layer that lets the underpainting show through. The title "Tree of Life" comes from this piece being part of a larger series. My grand idea is to enlarge the feather and have it floating in a desert landscape. I would like to depict this as a night scene, with the feather backlit only by moonlight, so that you might only be able to make out its contour. I envision it as a tree growing out in the desert, symbolizing eternal life. While working on this piece as a study for that bigger painting, I thought and read a lot about the history of the displacement of Indigenous people in the Americas, so at its root, this work has to do with displacement and isolation. Of course, not everything can be conveyed in one piece. I hope you enjoy hearing about this work. Thank you.

Gabe Garcia

Tree of Life

$375

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Gabrielle Thompson

Hotel California

$230

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Harrison Linden (Diasporium)

You will lose. Again, and Again, and Again.

$125

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My name is Heidi Carpenter, and my piece is titled "Revelation I." It's a giclée print depicting a full-spectrum image of the Tree of Life in Olympic National Park, Washington, printed on archival-quality cotton rag paper and framed behind UV-resistant acrylic; the overall size is 11 by 14 inches. In creating this image, I used layers of in-camera distortion with custom and combined filters, an old lens, and a converted camera to channel the soft visuals of dreams. The tree itself is a Sitka spruce with exposed roots bridging a cliffside crevice on Kalaloch Beach in Olympic National Park, Washington. Although the image is full spectrum, it looks like a sepia-toned infrared image due to one of the lens filters used. Segments of my surroundings are reflected in the image, including an overcast sky, the sun, and the winding roots of the tree, giving the image an ethereal and almost Lovecraftian appearance.

Heidi Carpenter

Revelation I

$225

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My name is Ivette De Santiago, and my piece is titled "so trashy." This is a framed photograph of a pile of trash I found in an alley. I thought this could be a perfect submission for Something Wicked, because what is more wicked than polluting our beautiful planet? We were placed on this Earth, either by divine intervention or pure coincidence, with everything we could possibly need, and, being the humans that we are, we have turned it into a place where trash on the streets is seen as normal. With this photograph, I aim to highlight our daily wicked actions that are seen as minute, yet are deeply impacting the state of our home planet.

Ivette De Santiago

so trashy

$120

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Hello. My name is Jasper Rizvi, and my piece is titled "Top 10 Things to Never Look Up." This is an acrylic painting of a woman in front of a computer. On the computer screen, there are references to popular internet shock media. One video I referenced is "Blank Room Soup," a classic unsettling video. All the things I painted on the screen are pieces of media that actually scared me as a kid. My generation is the first to grow up on the internet, and one consequence of this is coming across things you aren't supposed to see at such a young age. I tried to capture fear in the young woman's eyes as she watches the screen, because I personally felt so much fear while watching the same video she's watching. I really enjoyed making this painting because it brought back feelings of nostalgia. Emotion plays a big part in this piece, and I want people who can relate to feel the fear I felt as a kid.

Jasper Rizvi

Top 10 Things to Never Look Up

$130

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Jeremy Kepp

Monster squad

$500

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Jess Rocha

Death Interrupted

$250

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My name is John Bell, and my piece is titled "Gloomcoast Mermaid." The piece is rendered in sepia tones and off-white on an aged brown background. In it, the moon hangs low in the sky over a darkened bay. To the left, a large castle stands silhouetted atop a cliff, its crumbling towers revealing its ruined state. To the right, a shipwreck juts from the water in front of more cliffs, framing the entrance to the bay. In the foreground, a mermaid perches atop a rock in the water, back arched, her long-finned tail wrapping around the rocks for stability as a wave crashes behind her. She grips the stone with both webbed hands, lionfish spines protruding from the deeply etched carapace of her forearms and back. The mermaid's head is that of an anglerfish, one bulging pale eye visible and staring forward over a mouth full of too-long, needlelike teeth. The anglerfish lure dangling in front of her face illuminates her body as she waits for the light to draw in victims.

John Bell

Gloomcoast Mermaid

$175

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John French

Practice

$400

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Jon Billman

Ralph

$300

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Jovy Skol

The Lady Holiday Special

$400

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My name is Julia Kemerer, and my piece is titled "The Collector." High up on the wall is a circle that looks as if it were a hole going straight through the wall. Coming through that hole, so big that it just squeezes through, is a large bird. He has a big white belly with black and gray markings on his head, wings, and back. He has a thick black beak with sharp points underneath. Peeking out of the bottom of the hole are sharp black talons to match. His big dark eyes are staring at you. He is a loggerhead shrike, a bird known not only for its hunting skills but for its habit of saving its kills for later by impaling them on a thorn or a barbed-wire fence. Normally, they are very small birds that don't pose any threat to larger creatures, but this one is big enough to be intimidating. Though loggerhead shrikes are very real, this one, of course, isn't. This is a sculpture. It is part of a series of sculptures of oversized birds in circles that I call portals. They are made from plaster, gauze, spackle, and acrylic paint, with plastic spoon eyes and frames made from the rings of ceiling light fixtures. I've been making them for about three years now. Some of them are cute. Some of them, like this one, are a bit creepy, but hopefully all of them make you pause for a moment and wonder what it would be like to come face to face with a large creature suddenly bursting into your human space.

Julia Kemerer

The Collector

$750

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My name is Karina Chavez, and my piece is titled "Spooky Catrina," a 24-by-24-inch artwork inspired by my Mexican culture and my love for Día de los Muertos and Halloween. The Catrina represents strength, femininity, transformation, and the beauty that can exist even in darker moments. Through bold black and orange tones, skeletal details, flowers, and Halloween elements, I wanted to create a piece that feels both spooky and beautiful. For me, the Catrina is more than an image of death; she is a reminder to embrace life, honor where we come from, and continue blooming through every season.

Karina Chavez

Spooky Catrina

$600

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Karl Jahnke

Fredrick

$250

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My name is Ken Simonsen, and my piece for this year's Something Wicked is titled "Unearthed." This painting is part of an ongoing series called Surreal in Nature that portrays animals in unique ways and settings. The painting is done in a realistic style, using airbrushed acrylics on a 16-by-20-inch canvas. The image can be considered quite disturbing to onlookers, which is sort of the goal for Something Wicked. It features a half-buried skull on a mound of dirt. The top of the skull is broken, with a few broken pieces lying next to it. Within the exposed skull cavity is a tightly packed pile of large, slimy earthworms. The catch is that the earthworms are gathered together in the shape of a human brain.

Ken Simonsen

Unearthed

$1,200

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Hi, my name is Kim Fuller, and my piece is titled "The Longest Night's Promise." She is the winter solstice, staring back at you: the dark that is ahead, the shadow work and isolation. She has roots grounding her inner strength. She holds the sun in her chest for warmth as her third eye is opening, and she is now clearly hearing her intuition's whisper. Her hair is becoming the brisk night sky, entangled in the empty branches of the old oaks. A crow is coming in for a landing, symbolizing the death of the earth, with new promises of tomorrow's life.

Kim Fuller

The Longest Night's Promise

$900

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Kimberly Stourton (Dream in Color)

Belle of the Midnight Ball

$95

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Lance DOC Boucher

The Cat and The Canary

$200

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Lilith Myers

Only A Lad

NFS

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Lily Ostrovsky

salus numero

NFS

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Macy Zaringlee

Untitled

$150

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My name is Mallory Maybe, and my piece is titled "Wednesday Portrait v1." This piece is an 18-by-24-inch portrait created entirely by hand using duct tape and an X-Acto knife. The image features Wednesday Addams standing centered on the canvas, facing forward with her arms crossed and her signature long black braids falling over her shoulders. The portrait has a limited color palette of black, white, and a soft skin tone, which gives it a bold, graphic appearance. Wednesday wears a black dress covered with dozens of tiny white star-like details, along with a crisp white pointed collar and cuffs. Behind her is a large white arch surrounded by a deep black background, helping her figure stand out dramatically from the canvas. What makes this piece especially important to me is that nothing you see is painted. Every line, shape, facial feature, strand of hair, and tiny detail in her dress is made from duct tape. I create my work by layering different colors of tape and carefully cutting the shapes by hand with an X-Acto knife. Up close, you can see subtle seams and textures from the individual pieces of tape, which reveal how the portrait was constructed. I chose Wednesday because her dark, distinctive style works perfectly with the bold contrast I love to create in my artwork. I also enjoy taking an ordinary material like duct tape and transforming it into something detailed and unexpected.

Mallory Maybe

Wednesday Portrait v1

$290

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Manon Servage

A Portrait of My Love on Her Knees

NFS

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Hello. My name is Maribel Hambric, and the title of my piece is "Strange Reunion." My abstract painting is done in acrylic with a photo transfer on an 8-by-8-inch canvas with a depth of 1.5 inches. The black-and-white photo transfer is a 3-by-4-inch rectangle, centered on the canvas and washed in red. It features four females posed in the entrance of an old house. Clockwise from top left, the figures are my mother and my great-grandmother standing, my grandmother sitting on the steps, and myself at the age of three, standing next to her. Because the original photo was out of focus, the blurred facial features did not transfer, which produced ghostlike appearances. In the top left and lower right corners of the canvas are gothic scrolling patterns painted in bronze on orange and yellow hues. In the upper right corner, the light of the moon shines through a cemetery fence with dark tree branches hanging above it. The lower left corner is dark and eerie, suggesting the inside of the cemetery. The orange and reddish-brown hues, with touches of yellow and bronze, surround the red photo image, creating a strangeness in my family reunion.

Maribel Hambric

Strange Reunion

$150

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Marilyn Hrymak

Justice for Epstein Victims!!

$300

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My name is Maureen Swiertz and my piece is titled The Beautiful End. The medium is acrylic on wood panel. It's approximately seven inches high and five inches wide. It's done in the style of a memento mori. It is a painting of a skull and an oval shape with a flourish frame done in tones of blues and beiges. I wanted to have a serene but not necessarily a negative vibe, as memento mori are not about death, but about focusing on life and what truly matters. The skull is looking off to the side at a future loved one, or remembrance of a past moment. The frame of the piece is painted in a gilded paint that I purchased this past April in London at a wonderful, tiny little art supply shop, El Corneliussen and Son, which has been around since eighteen fifty five. It's truly a magical spot and thought that this piece deserved a little magic that was brought home with me from that shop. Using the gilding on the frame with the hint of a cross on the top lends a suggestion of something sacred, precious and preserved, even as the image itself speaks of inevitable decay. I hope you appreciate this piece as much as I enjoyed making it. I do love the macabre, so collecting and painting skulls are my happy place.

Maureen Swiertz

The beautiful end.

$180

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I'm Megan Stodola, and my piece is titled "The End Is Where We Begin Again." It shows an apocalyptic-looking scene of a field of tree trunks that look like they've been burned. The leaves and branches are mostly gone, and only the trunks remain. The sky is a dark orange, lit from just below the horizon, as if a raging fire has already burned everything in this location to the ground and moved beyond. On the right side of the image, a woman sits on the ground with her knees pulled up to her chest, arms crossed, looking down at her feet. Her face is obscured, but at her feet you can see a small green sprout lighting up an interconnected geometric pattern. You can see the green beginning to branch out and flow through the pattern, seeking to connect with the energy of the burned-out trees in the field. To me, this piece is about hope and rebuilding after a dark time. One of the most ungrounding feelings in this world is when it feels like something in life has been burned to the ground. Maybe it was a relationship, a job, or a dream you had for yourself. It feels like everything has been stripped away and there's nothing familiar left to turn to. But in those times, if you can find the tiniest green shoot to focus on and tend to, you might be able to create a lush green landscape once again.

Megan Stodola

The End is Where We Begin Again

$170

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My name is Melissa Routzahn, and my piece is titled "Thistle." This piece is a framed photograph of thistle stems, approximately 11 by 13 inches. The thistles are backlit and appear as silhouettes against a gray-blue, foggy background. The focus is on a section of a long thistle stem on the right side of the picture. The thorns are various sizes, point in different directions, and are sharply in focus. To the left, in the background, are the silhouettes of several other stems and one dried thistle flower, layered in varying degrees of clarity. The photo is behind glass in a dark wood frame with a ribbed border. The overall effect is dramatic and a bit ghostly.

Melissa Routzahn

Thistle

$71

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My name is Michelle Ecke, and my piece is titled "Moon Rooted Portals." I created this 16-by-16-inch painting using mixed media, including fabric, acrylic, and marker. Using different forms of media allows me to create a variety of textures, from collage elements to layers of poured paint. I'm inspired by vintage storybook imagery, childhood memories, and movie imagery, as well as visionary and outsider art. My hope is that my pieces invite viewers into a magical place where they can create their own story. This work conjures thoughts of the haunted outer limits and spaces where magic really does exist.

Michelle Ecke

Moon Rooted Portals

$300

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Minerva Fox

The Fox and his Wife

$200

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My name is Nicole Marie, and my piece is titled "The Nocturnal Mother of the Grove, She of the Gnarled Woods." The piece is a 25-by-35-inch ink drawing rendered on smooth white Strathmore Bristol vellum and housed in a large black beveled frame. The entire image is created using a stippling technique with a fine-point 005 Micron black ink pen. By varying the density of these countless individual dots, deep shading and a rich illusion of texture are brought to life. Emerging from a dense forest of bare, knotted trees, a weathered witch walks assertively toward the viewer. She moves with a purposeful stride, clad in tattered woven garments, balancing a tall staff in her right hand. Around her neck, a twig pendant rests against her chest, bearing the runic initials N, M, and G. The varying densities of the stippling define the piece, capturing the rough, tactile weave of her clothing, the coarse bark of the bare trees, the deeply worn grooves of her skin, and her wild, unkempt hair. The slow, repetitive action of placing each individual dot over countless hours directly mirrors the gradual, decade-by-decade aging of the witch herself. Her body appears weathered and knotted like ancient timber, yet her unyielding gaze strikes a powerful balance between time and wisdom. The narrative behind the image follows a simple woman who, out of desperation, cried out to the elemental spirits of the forest for protection. They intervened to save her, but that desperate pact eternally bound her to the woods, leaving her entirely unable to leave. This supernatural intervention slowly transformed her into the powerful character before us, now a fierce, solitary protector of the grove. Tonight carries immense gravity. After a lifetime of forced devotion, she is approaching the boundary to try one last time to step out into the open field and return to a normal human life. But as she nears the edge, the sight of the fading sun setting across the field stops her short. A profound realization washes over her: she does not need to step into the sunlit fields of the past, because she is the forest. Ultimately, this story reflects my own personal mythos and psyche, balancing the physical vulnerabilities of aging with a fierce, protective, and unbreakable inner strength. She is no longer just a woman lost to the woods. She is the Twilight Guardian, the Nocturnal Mother of the Grove, She of the Gnarled Woods.

Nicole Marie

The Nocturnal Mother of the Grove, She of the Gnarled Woods

$1,600

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My name is Patrick Carroll, and I will be telling you about my mixed media artwork titled "Phantom Toe." It measures 19 inches tall by 12 inches wide. The image is derived from several printmaking processes on heavy paper, then mounted to a board. "Phantom Toe" shares the emotional impact of an automobile accident I suffered, which resulted in the amputation of the second toe on my left foot. The viewer first sees a line drawing of a jovial court jester on a field of yellow, before noticing more striking text and images beneath the surface. Hospital records are partially legible, with phrases like "general anesthesia" and "amputation of the second toe." Abstract shapes at the bottom of the artwork come into focus as gruesome Polaroid images of my bloody foot, taken for my medical record. The juxtaposition of the smiling jester with the horrific medical imagery reflects my emotions at the time: fear, pain, and loss, layered with extreme relief that I was losing just a toe. The bottom few inches of the board and print were laser cut into a floral motif, and the empty space is quite literally missing. Amputees often describe phantom pain emanating from the location of their lost body part. This pain is real and can be alarming. My phantom pain returns out of the clear blue from time to time. It brings me straight back to the time of my loss and to those mixed, layered emotions: elation at having survived the accident, yet mourning for the loss of a body part.

Patrick Carroll

Phantom Toe

$265

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My name is Rebekah Taylor, and my piece is titled "Cutie Patootie." This piece features a tarantula, a real tarantula, one that was once alive, has since passed naturally, and is now preserved in this beautiful art piece. The tarantula has its legs splayed. It's about the size of my palm, maybe a bit bigger. It has a cute little bow on its back and is adorned with lace. This art piece shows that spiders don't have to be feared. They can be cute. They can be comforting. They can be art. I think all nature is art, and I love to showcase my bugs, especially spiders, in a way that makes them a little less intimidating.

Rebekah Taylor

Cutie Patootie

$105

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My name is Rick Kowal, and my piece is titled "Cría cuervos y te sacarán los ojos," which means "Raise crows, and they'll pick out your eyes." It is a 12-by-12 round image with a bright, saturated red background and a black crow holding a severed eyeball in its beak. The optic nerve, still attached to the eye, swings away from the crow. The piece was done in acrylic, mostly with an airbrush, and the detail work was finished with a synthetic brush. I chose this imagery because the saying has multiple meanings. It can be interpreted as "Don't bite the hand that feeds you," or even "Live by the sword, die by the sword." I initially wanted the background to be a solar eclipse with the crow in the shadow of the eclipse, but then I thought of an eye staring back from the round panel. While searching for reference photos of crows, I came across a picture of a crow eating an eye, and a further search led me to the idiom. The idiom made me reflect on things inside of me and on events that have happened in my life, and it all came together to inspire this piece. Thank you.

Rick Kowal

Cría cuervos y te sacarán los ojos

$500

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Hey, my name is Rose One, and I'm here to talk to you about my painting "Mutation." It is a spray paint, Posca marker, and acrylic brush painting on a 24-by-48-inch canvas. It is mostly red and purple with hints of yellow. This painting is my take on a much darker human origin story. I really wanted to portray an extraterrestrial species that has abducted Earth's primates and injected them with alien DNA to create human life. In this painting, the primate closest to the viewer, on the left, is just now waking up from the simulation and realizing it has been in a deep stasis sleep. It is also realizing that it is harboring a human life inside of it. As you look deeper into the canvas, into the background, you see a row of other primates who are still in the stasis simulation, completely unaware that they, too, are mothering human life inside of them.

Rose One

Mutation

$2,500

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Ryan Klopfenstein

And the king of Vlalik said "I will crush you into the ground back to the vats of Hell from whence you came."

$200

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Ryan Schubert

Nakedness

$500

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SamTheJam

Mistress of Darkness

$250

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My name is Shannon Carlson and my piece is called Two Headed Calf. It was created September of twenty twenty six. Although I've wanted to make this piece for years. It is inspired by the poem Two Headed Calf by Laura Gilpin, which reads, to morrow when the farm boy finds this freak of nature, they will wrap his body in newspaper and carry him to the museum. But tonight he is alive and in the north field with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening, the moon rising over the orchard, the wind in the grass. And as he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual. The piece is a faux taxidermy style, two headed Holstein cow calf that hangs on the wall. Holstein cows are the classic dairy cow with black and white markings. It has two heads and shows them from their shoulders on, and also includes two small, vestigial legs on the bottom of the chest dangling over the side of the frame. The piece has a maroon wooden background and a dark brown wooden frame. The left head, who I've named Marshmello, is slightly tilted left and is farther up and further back than the right head, which is tilted right and slightly forward. The right head is named cream, and she has black markings around her eyes that go all the way down her face and her nose is black. Marshmallow also has spots around her eyes, but they are smaller and she has a white and pink nose. They both have brown eyes, long eyelashes, and fluffy ears. They also have a lot of intentional wrinkles around their necks and some loose skin. It was built by layering cardboard to form a basic shape. Then spray foam was applied and carved for the general shape. The details on the nose and eyes were sculpted with clay, then painted and sealed with resin and silicone, and the entire body is tightly wrapped, wrapped in a soft fabric. They are cute and curious looking, and the piece gives a more whimsical than scary vibe.

Shannon Carlson

Two-Headed Calf

$600

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My name is Theo Miller, and my piece is titled Guardian and Child. This photo was taken with a Canon EOS Rebel T7 camera at Graceland Cemetery. This photograph captures a close-up detail of a weathered stone memorial: an adult figure, the Guardian, cradles its child in its arms. The photo is shot from a low angle and centers on the child's bare foot resting in the crook of the guardian's arm, drawing the eye to the intimacy of the gesture before you even register the faces. The stone is heavily pitted and speckled with age, and its texture is as much the subject as the figures themselves. Deep folds of carved drapery fall in long lines through the lower frame, contrasting with the smoother curves of the limbs. Behind the figures, a dense screen of oak leaves dissolves into soft, bokeh-heavy light, isolating the sculpture from its surroundings, and gives the photo a sense of being tucked into a quiet part of the cemetery. Shooting in Black and White was a deliberate choice to emphasize the texture and the sculptural form, which wouldn’t have looked as striking if it were in color. The goal was to let the sculpture read as a quiet, intimate moment between two figures, rather than having it just appear as a static monument most visitors of the cemetery would walk past without a second glance.

Theo Miller

Guardian and Child

$100

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Thomas Dewis

Triptphish

$300

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WARNING. Contains found footage depicting possible animal distress or death, along with graphic audio descriptions of an injured animal and discussion of euthanasia.

Thomas Pickarski

Battlements of Refuse

NFS

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Tia Aagesen

Matilda

$150

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Trai Orthal (Sweet Strange Heart)

Mars Attacks!

$200

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My name is Tricia Marcella Cimera, and my piece is titled HOLCOMB. I’m a Poet. And so the poem is the main part of my artwork. It was inspired by Truman Capote's In Cold Blood, which famously tells the story of the murdered, cluttered family, the two murderers, and the town of Holcomb, Kansas, in nineteen fifty nine, and later on as well. I focus on the aftermath of the murder. Initially, I thought I would present my poem in a collage fashion with historical photos and headlines surrounding the poem, but I went another way when I decided to just concentrate on three primary colors light blue, red, and yellow. I've also used two different sheets of vellum on a twelve by sixteen blue canvas. Because Herb Clutter, the patriarch of the family, was a wheat farmer. I've incorporated wheat in the four corners. I decided to use a paperback cover of In Cold Blood to mount my poem, as well as my blood on it to pay homage to my inspiration. And I've also used simple tack pins to hold things in place on the canvas. And this is my poem called Holcomb. Tonight, after the men leave, this white farmhouse is like a poem about quiet, softly ticking clocks. Faucet dripping, dripping photographs on the piano. Smiling at no one. Polished floors on creaking telephone on ringing. Purse gaping on the floor. Open throated outside. Fields stretch out below the moon. Animals move in their stalls. Farmhouses in the country mind their own business, keep their mouths shut. In the morning Sunday before church, two girls will walk up the staircase. This silent house called Nancy approach her bedroom, the door standing open, inviting them in to see. Thank you very much.

Tricia Marcella Cimera

HOLCOMB

$25

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My name is Vivek and my piece is titled Always a Bridesmaid Never a Bride. This ten by thirteen shadow character was created using thin black micron pens on a white background to focus on the darkness of the character through eMDR therapy and processing my own thoughts as if I'm wandering the halls of an old Victorian home, I created her sadness wearing a jester like crown. Her face has been stripped down to nothing but a skull. Her right eye is completely blacked out, while her fractured left socket paws with black, as though she has cried so excessively that even her grief has become physical. Long black bangs obscure her face, and although she bows her head in defeat when you gaze at her, it is if you can see her sorrows. She wears a white wedding dress and clutches a bouquet of black dead flowers. Flowers that once represented life. Always a bridesmaid, never a bride. Represents pressure that society puts on women to get married, and that marriage ties you to a timeline. When you can't meet that expectation, you wallow in the feelings of dread, shame and unworthiness and let it eat at you until you deteriorate, withering away in the arms of the Grim Reaper instead of your Prince Charming as you so desire.

V. Witch

Always a bridesmaid, never a bride

$150

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Victoria Marchio "What Remains Hidden" What Is Hidden Inside, 100% Human We all hide, we all conceal, we all have chatter in our minds. What is it saying? Who are you? How do you feel today? What if it were all exposed? What do we show people? We are all 100% human, but we seem to forget that. The boundaries we set up. How do we personally protect ourselves? What happens when we are exposed? What would happen if someone did an x-ray of your true thoughts and feelings? "What Remains Hidden" is an example of the chains we create for ourselves: the beads of each day, each thought, each feeling. The words that are in our heads, constantly telling our story. Identity, vulnerability, secrets, memories, layers, silence, fear, shame, desire, loss, love, pain, hope, fragility, mortality, decay, connection, isolation, belonging, unseen, unknown, buried. Revealed, no longer invisible.

Victoria A. Marchio

What Remains Hidden

NFS

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ENGLISH: Hi, my name is Virginia Morales and my painting is titled Después de Leonardo or After the Weeping. It is an eleven by fourteen inch acrylic on canvas piece. This work was born from a deeply personal journey of surviving unexpected hardship. It reimagines a Mexican folklore of La Llorona with an empowering twist. Instead of wandering in eternal, helpless sorrow, this dark haired figure stands at a moonlit crossroad. She is looking out over the stark, heavy shadows of a monochrome graveyard, caught between the pain of her past and the soft light of her future. The vibrant, emerald green weeping willow tree on the right side of the path provides a canvas s only source of color, symbolizing that life, resilience, and growth can bloom in the darkest of places. Ultimately, this painting is a gentle reminder that the graveyard of our past is a place we can safely revisit on our own terms. We always hold the sacred power to choose our own healing. - SPANISH: Hola, mi nombre es Virginia Morales y mi pintura se titula Después del llanto. Es una pieza en acrílico sobre lienzo de once x catorce pulgadas. Esta obra nació de un viaje profundamente personal al sobrevivir a una dificultad inesperada. Reimagina la leyenda mexicana de La Llorona con un giro de empoderamiento en lugar de vagar en un dolor eterno o en descenso. Esta figura de cabello oscuro se encuentra en la encrucijada bajo la luz de la luna. Contempla las sombras densas y crudas de un cementerio monocromático. Atrapada entre el dolor de su pasado y la suave luz de su futuro, el vibrante sauce llorón en color verde esmeralda es la única fuente de color en el lienzo, simbolizando que la vida, la resiliencia y el crecimiento pueden florecer incluso en los lugares más oscuros. En última instancia, esta pintura es un tierno recordatorio de que el cementerio de nuestro pasado es un lugar que podemos volver a visitar de manera segura y bajo nuestros propios términos. Siempre conservamos el poder sagrado de elegir nuestra propia sanación.

Virginia Morales

Después del Llanto (After the Weeping)

$150

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My name is Wendy Flores and my piece is titled Decay. The artwork is a mixed media piece of scratchboard paper, marker, and acrylic. The artwork is symmetrical with the right and left halves looking identical. At the center of the piece is the top view of a paper crow with its wings and tail spread out. The tips of the wings curl slightly upward, making the crow pop a bit from the board. Below it are three crow skulls. The center skull faces towards the viewer with its beak pointing downward. The left and right skulls are looking away, giving us a view of their profiles. Their beaks are open wide and their neck bones go down and toward the center skull. These skulls were made by carving into the scratchboard. The whiteness of their bones. Contrast with the black of the board and crow within the crevices of the bones. Some red painted cartilage and flesh can be seen. This same red tint is also present within the shadows of the paper. Crows feathers, along with some tinges of blue and orange. Surrounding the crows are three dimensional paper flowers of desaturated colors such as white, yellow, red, and blue with a few green leaves. Some of the flowers have small dew drops of water and thin, delicate, spider like threads on them. The top flowers lay beside the paper crow's head. They look colorful and alive. The next set of flowers are below the crow's wings and above the skulls. Heads. One of the flowers is wilting. Some of its petals have already fallen off. At the bottom, below the right and left, crow skulls are wilting. Flowers. More petals are falling and the flower is a very pale pink color. Looking from the top to the bottom, the process of decay is showcased as the once vibrant flowers wilt away. The flowers symbolize life and contrast with the crow, a symbol of death. The skulls foreshadow the living crows fate once it too succumbs to the natural cycle of life. But despite the dark nature of the piece, beauty can also be found and solace as the flowers accompany the crow to its end.

Wendy Flores

Decay

$1,700

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