Fancy

Animals are Fancy !

“Fancy” Artist Bios

Isabel Samaras
Isabel Samaras is a painter and chocoholic living in California whilst obsessing about everything from monsters and fairy tales to succulents and how to score more high grade chocolate. Her favorite color is orange. (You thought it was going to be Chocolate Brown, didn’t you?)

Jason Houchen
After graduating with a BFA from the University of Missouri, Jason Houchen relocated to Los Angeles where he discovered highly influential classical folk art, street, and a burgeoning pop surrealism art scene. Through his wood burnings, sculptures, mixed media and paintings he has developed a style that coalesce his Midwest influences with these newly found worlds. Described as being full of life and death, spirits and spirituality, history, as well as memories, his work provokes more questions than answers. Jason Houchen is 30 and is finishing the last year of his M.F.A. at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He lives in Chicago.

Michelle Pedone
Growing up in a military family and being the new kid in a classroom at least 16 times has given Michelle a unique perspective on the world. Experiencing the subculture evident in each new place nourished the love of pop culture, so evident in her work today. Michelle enjoys shooting all ages and walks of life bringing her sparkle and zest. Her recent portraiture project, “All Eyes On U!” was awarded in American Photography 24. Michelle received her BFA from The Corcoran School of Art, in Washington, DC. She lives in New York City with her husband James, Affenpinscher Pepito, and kitty Baby Olive.

Jamie Campbell
Jamie Campbell makes jokes only he finds funny, but he convinces you to laugh all the same.

He was born in the shadow of Niagara Falls, then he grew up and wiped the mist off his face and crossed the bulge of Lake Ontario to Toronto and Ryerson University and a BFA in Photography. Jamie Campbell has his MFA in Fine Arts- Photography at Concordia University in Montreal . He works with the themes of insecurity, burden, vulnerability and desperation, but does it with self-deprecation and humour and profound honesty, leaving you unsure of whether you want to hit him or hug him.


Bradley Hoffer
Bradley Hoffer likes making things. He wants to be loved.

Adam Wallacavage
Inspired by an obsession with the ocean and a fascination with extravagant interiors of old churches, Adam Wallacavage transformed the dining room of his South Philadelphia Victorian Brownstone into something from the pages of a Jules Verne novel. Teaching himself the ancient art of ornamental plastering, Adam evolved his new found skills into making plaster cast octopus shaped chandeliers as the final touch to his underwater themed room. Not content with leaving the chandeliers to his own home, Adam continued his experimentation by making more and more. Beyond making chandeliers, Adam Wallacavage is also an accomplished photographer, documenting artists, musicians, daredevils and all things weird and wonderful. His first book, Monster Size Monsters, was released in August of 2006 through Gingko Press and spans fifteen years of his photography.


Ross Bonfanti
Ross Bonfanti combines the disturbing, humorous and beautiful. Producing thought-provoking works that are at once both sculpture and canvas, he brings out beauty in the humble and the unexpected. Many of his pieces incorporate a sculptural element stemming from his use of a variety of found materials, including, wood, metal, cloth, plastic and glass. The Concreatures, his most recent series, are cast inner forms of once loved and cherished toys. These stuff animals are frozen in a petrified state that solidify their importance and recorded memory through past physical manipulation and emotional associations.

Matt Cipov
Outgoing boy with hermit intentions and laffy regretions. I make things and do things and say things and play things… and if I do not, I will die. But if I die, I will be a fun (funny) ghost.

Joe Ryckebosch
This current work is comprised largely of found materials gleaned from myriad thrift stores, scrap yards, re-use centers, and yard sales of Portland, OR. My goal with the nature/wildlife pieces is to collect as many as I can and begin re-mixing/re-envisioning the original subjects. I want the viewer to see these familiar and not so familiar images in a different manner. I try to leave the focal point of the image intact, while adding colors and patterns that could have always been there, but just never seen until now.

David Wallace
David Wallace is a collage artist, painter, graphic designer, illustrator, musician and amateur gardener living in Pittsburgh. His work has been shown in galleries and museums in Pittsburgh, Nashville, St. Louis, Bethesda, Columbus and Brooklyn. David has done graphic and web design for independent filmmakers, psychedelic rock bands, experimental theater companies, puppet festivals and plumbers. His illustration work was recently featured in the Communication Arts Illustration Annual, a prestigious honor that made his mother very proud. As guitarist and contributing visual artist with performance troupe Squonk Opera, he tours across the U.S. and internationally.


Neil Verni
Neil Verni’s untold story dwells within compositions of intriguing figures and spiritual symbolism. The secret to unlocking this artists subconscious is found in deciphering the dreamlike reality created within the meticulous precision of his surreal landscapes. At the tender age of 18 Neil moved to Laguna Beach, California to begin studying at the prestigious Laguna College of Art and Design. While pursuing formal training in Illustration his style evolved as he explored classical techniques.fter graduating he began to work in Southern California creating his niche in the competitive art market as a promising new talent. Fresh out of school he worked on murals in some of the area’s most exclusive real estate. Upon completion of those endeavors he chose to return to the studio and work as a fine artist without restrictions. Since then Neil has successfully exhibited in numerous galleries throughout California and across the country.

Squindo
Born in New Jersey in September of 69 and his lowbrow work’s have graced gallery walls from Gasoline Gallery and Gallery 1988 in LA to east coast galleries including Crybaby, Kustom Kulture and East Atlanta Gallery and Spacejunk Gallery in Grenoble, France with a growing popularity of his use of wood stains, auto body filler and acrylics.
Recently Squindo continues to design merchandise for bands, skis for Rossignol project Seven Artistic Sins, leather jackets for Schott Brothers and a clothing line and online comic for Bully Dog Technologies. He has also designed skateboards for several skaters including legend and brother-in-law Tom Groholski with Pocket Pistols and other skate industry companies such as Danger Skateboards, Ghosttown and Juice Magazine. At the same time, painting, sculpting, playing with the dogs, tattooing and working on the hot rods that have begun to fill his driveway.

James Vance
James Vance is a multimedia artist who resides in Asbury Park, New Jersey. His latest work deals with various social and psychological issues. He performs as DJmeatnmore and plays experimental music with the post-psychedelic, christian-rap trio, TAINT.

James Walker
“It all starts with photographs. I make pictures of everything. All the time. Snapping photos and drawing pictures and painting and collaging and collecting and gathering information is my way of being enveloped in every second of every day. I try to take as little for granted as possible. There are no projects. It’s just my life. It’s all one big documentary.”

Hollis Skaling
Hollis Skaling grew up all over Europe and the US but hails from Tennessee. This former vagrant has taken everything that broke in her and rebulit & vomited it onto a bird house. Each one is made especially for you. Take good care of them. They house your secrets and possibly your stash.

Nicolas Lampert
Nicolas Lampert is an interdisciplinary artist and author based out of Milwaukee and Chicago. Primarily, he is best known for his collage art – the “machine-animal” series, the “meatscape” series and numerous images thataddress political and environmental issues. Over the past 15 years, his collages have been presented in various formats including digital prints (from framed images to fourteen-foot tall images), 16mm animated films, outdoor murals, stencils, silk screens, posters, and gallery installations. Nicolas Lampert received his B.F.A. from the University of Michigan – School of Art (Ann Arbor) in 1992 where he majored in painting and printmaking. For his graduate studies, he received his M.F.A. in 1995 from the California College of the Arts (formerly C.C.A.C.), majoring in sculpture and drawing. He teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts.


Brooke Weston
Her vast collection of oddities began to accumulate then morph into art pieces and dioramas. Brooke’s pieces encompass the complexity of a fantasy world, while integrating the details of nature, resulting in meticulous and compulsive dioramas – both playful and dark. Each piece is unique and endless in its layers of detail. An element of mystery or an untold story seems to be thematic among all of her work. It is an endless journey discovering the hidden objects and designs in each of her sculptures.
Most of her work is unplanned and is purely driven by the moment, her process dictated by impulse and flow, doing what she can with the mediums she has on hand. Her pieces are mainly built from old taxidermy, found objects and almost all recycled material. Currently residing in Portland Oregon, Brooke spends her days addictively gluing, sawing and sewing any one of her many projects.
Brooke’s work is on permanent display at Cannibals Gallery in Portland Oregon, and has regular shows in and around Portland as well as out of state


Andy Pawlan
“I have been creating sculpture, art furniture, and fiber art for over thirty years. Irony and whimsy dominate my art. Resurfacing found objects is a way for me to express dicotamies like inner meaning versus outer meaning, façade versus core, child-play versus grown-up despair. The objects are chosen for their relationship to our present culture and their sculptural interest, positive and negative spatial relationships, and scale. Using glass seed beads that are both translucent and iridescent accentuates the play of light on the object and gives one the richness one finds in tapestries and mosaics. Gluing one bead at a time on an object satisfies my obsessive nature and gives each piece a power. The patterning and color relationships are mostly derived from nature, particularly felines, reptiles and insects.”


Derek Gores
Derek has gained national attention for his collage portrait series, recycling magazines, labels, and found materials to create the works on canvas. The series showcases Gores’ contrasting interests in the natural beauty of the figure, the angular design aesthetics of fashion, and a fearless sense