Meet the Artists

Illumination Spring Showcase 2023 Light Artists

Ekemini Nkanta

Tidal Wave

Ekemini Nkanta is an immersive artist from NYC making sensory experiences with light, sensors & code. Inspired by fantasy illustrations and hidden gems in nature, she brings playful, surreal concepts to life and tops them off with bursts of color. Her work is actively expanding into projections, interactive installations, and augmented reality experiments. She recently graduated from CUNY NYC College of Technology in 2022 with a Bachelors in Emerging Media Technology.

Robert Montenegro

Chrysalis

Roberto Montenegro is a queer Los Angeles born, NYC based digital artist who uses video as his medium. Starting his career as an aerospace engineer for the US government, Roberto now creates and animates original video content specifically designed to inspire and awe audiences for live events and concerts. His expertise ranges from 2D and 3D animation and visualization, stage design, and creative direction in multimedia. For the past 15 years Roberto has worked all over the world on shows for Gay Pride New York, Art Basel, and Ultra Music Festival. He has been the creative director for The Pines Party for the past seven years. Roberto cofounded the Free Radical Design Group with his partner, Guy J Smith.

Sabrina Barrios

HoloDeity

Brazilian, Sabrina Barrios started off as a Graphic Designer in São Paulo, London and Berlin, before relocating to NY in 2009, to complete her MFA at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute (2012). The artist currently lives between Brooklyn and Rio de Janeiro, making participatory and multimedia art.

Recent exhibitions include immersive experiences all over the globe such as Portal Station (MACS Sorocaba Museum of Contemporary Art, Brazil, 2022); Rise of the Missing Planet (NOoSphere Arts, NY, 2022), Frequency of the Invisible (MASM Santa Maria Museum of Art, Brazil, 2019); Beam (Casa Amarela, Brazil, 2018); Epic of Creation (Arteles, Finland, 2017); The Earth Experiment (No4 Studio, Brooklyn, 2017); Ley Lines (Wassaic Project, NY, 2017); Coup D’etat (Staten Island Cultural Center, NY, 2016);

Sabrina has exhibited her paintings at JustMAD Art Fair (Spain, 2016); and Anita Schwartz Gallery (Brazil, 2014 and 2015); videos at Bienal Desde Aquí (Colombia, 2015); and at the MoMA: Abstract Currents (NY, 2013). Residencies/fellowships include The Studios at MASS MoCA (MA, 2017); Arteles (Finland, 2017); The Bronx Museum–The Artist in the Marketplace (NY, 2016);

Sabrina's work has been included in The Fourth Bronx Museum Biennial in New York (2017); and in the Baku Biennale in Azerbaijan (2019).

Janelle Roswell

INTERTWINED

Janelle Roswell is a creative technologist based in New York City. Taking inspiration from fluid movements found in nature, she works to combine robotics, code, and light, to design installations that foster a sense of wonder within a space. Her work focuses on how the integration of creativity and technology can increase empathy, enhance human understanding, and completely redefine the lives we live by transforming spaces through innovative, fun, tech-based art. She holds a B.F.A in New Media from Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada, and is currently attending NYU's School of Engineering for her MSc in Integrated Design and Media.

Asher Young

LIVING MEMORY

Asher Young is a New York-based artist, director, designer, and producer who started his artistic career as a magician and creator of theatrical haunted houses, later expanding into designing and directing theater and music shows. Credits include original works Nevermore, Inferno, Reverie; creative direction for concert tours for DPR and Opia; and large-scale installations such as a projection festival with the Beinecke Library, living artwork for Sotheby’s with collaborators as diverse as A$AP Rocky and the Edward Albee Estate, events with Virgin Voyages, the reimagination of Big Apple Circus, and Pathways at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Asher graduated from Yale University with a degree in Computing and the Arts and received the Susan J. Smith Prize for Outstanding Contribution in the Arts.

Asher is the founding artist of Challenge Your Imagination (CYI Studio), a creative direction, design, and producing studio based in New York, which he leads alongside producer Angeline Wang. The studio creates work ranging from immersive theater to concert tours to art installations. Every piece invites audiences to be the protagonist of the work.

JEVPIC

THE GLACIAL OBSTRUCTION LUMINATION

Everette Solomon aka JEVPIC grew up in a children’s home on the Kentucky / Indiana boarder and was emancipated when he was  15. He immediately moved to Los Angeles where he went to college at The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising and Art Center College of Design. He went on to become an Editor for Paper Magazine, Palm Springs Life Magazine, XY Magazine & Coachella Magazine. His photography, paintings & public art installations have been collected by museums, celebrities and cities. He is currently working on three short films, a writing a book about creative grieving and a dark musical diving into the concept of how imagination can save lives, like it did his.