Gianluca Bianchino is a multimedia artist living and working in Northern New Jersey. Originally from Italy, Gianluca attended an Architectural magnet school in Avellino before relocating to the US where he enrolled at New Jersey City University to receive a BFA in painting. In 2011 he completed his studies with an MFA from Montclair State University focused on sculpture/installation.

Gianluca has maintained a studio practice for over ten years in Northern New Jersey, for nearly a decade in the thriving arts district of Newark NJ, and currently in Jersey City.

Bianchino exhibits regularly throughout the greater New York area. Recent exhibits include The Painting Center, NY and at Chashama Chelsea Project Space, NY and a solo exhibit at Index Art Center, Newark, NJ which is reviewed in the April 2013 edition of Sculpture Magazine.

Gianluca’s current body of work is inspired by cosmology and physics.  His work can be viewed at www.gianlucabianchino.com

Juan Carlos Ortiz (Whoahn) is a contemporary and multi-disciplined artist based in Jersey City, New Jersey, working in various fields such as illustration, fine art, animation, and character design.

From his background in Illustration, Whoahn produces painting and sculpture to examine the threads of experiences - the distresses and prevalent perceptions - surrounding the western world.  At ESKFF, he restructured his direction through narrative illustration and psychology creating an outlet to depict his fascination with the human condition, specifically with conflict of emotion.

“The human experience and the paths of self-exploration via social connections always have fascinated me. What makes us relatable to each other are the emotions, both past and present, that constantly shape who we are. My art focuses on presenting the relatable yet personal hardships of life, specifically by examining memories of troubled events in my life and evaluating them to understand the effects they have. I combine this with historical symbolism to create the language of scenic imagery.”

In 2013, he received a BFA in Illustration from Parsons The New School for Design. He has exhibited work at Parsons The New School for Design, Gallery Hanahou, Mana Contemporary, JCAST, The Majestic Theatre, Lowes Theatre. He has been featured in 3 X 3 The Magazine of Contemporary Illustration and American Illustration.

From a background in Architecture, Natacha Mankowski employs painting and video to examine the boundary between real and artificial space. She sees space as a power and an information system. She experiments with scale, volume, contrast, and patterns to questions the public on how contemporary digital aesthetics become mapped onto and become part of the space around us. 

The mental spaces she presents in her work contain personal stories, that she actualize into form, color and space. Even if they are emptied from direct human representations, those spaces seems to be inhabited by a presence. Through this, she integrates the audience. She creates dialogues between people, the virtual space and reality, researching what she calls an “archaeology of space”.

Natacha Mankowski holds a Master in Architecture from the Ecole Spéciale in Paris. In 2011, she was the recipient of the Tony Garnier Prize. Her paintings have been shown at 104 in Paris as well as in the Watermill Center in New York, among other. Her films have been played in Toulouse as part of the Transverse Film Festival as well as in Berlin at the Berghain. This year she will be part of Only Lovers, an collective show at Le Coeur in Paris. 

Kevin Wixted’s paintings and drawings have appeared nationally and internationally in numerous exhibitions.  His shows have been written about in Artforum, Art in America, ArtNews, The New York Times, Boston Globe, New York Observer, and the Hudson Review among others. His work is represented in public collections including the State Museum of Pennsylvania, Mississippi Museum of Art, Chase Manhattan Bank, General Electric, Hewlett Packard, Noruma Securities, Societe Generale, and Time Warner.

Wixted’s awards include the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, New York Foundation for the Arts Grant, Cite Internationale des Arts/Paris Residency, Alfred University International Fellowship Faculty Grant/Dusseldorf Germany, Josef and Anni Albers Foundation Residency, MacDowell Colony Residency, Patrick Allen Frazier of Hospitalfield Foundation Residency/ Scotland, and the Excellence in Teaching Award from Alfred University.

Wixted lives and paints in New York City and the North Fork of Long Island. He spends time each year in the Yucatan Peninsula, where he has designed and built a home/studio. Wixted is Professor of Drawing and Painting in the School of Art and Design at Alfred University. He received his MA and BA in Studio Art from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania.

Verdiana Patacchini, ALIAS Virdi.
Virdi's work ranges from painting to sculptures. Departing each piece as a platform for continuous research of materials transforming visual perceptions and poetry into painting and sculptures. Her subject is amorphous representation of the human figure with even classical references; it is through a complex investigation of the quality of colors and a diverse exploration of materials that Virdi reveals her images.

Born in Orvieto, Italy, Virdi lives and works between Rome and New York. She studied in Rome at the Via Ripetta Academy of Fine Art. In 2011 she was selected for the Italy Pavillon at the Venice Biennale. It is in 2012 that her artwork La Veronica won the second Catel Prize of Rome. Now her work is showed in Europe and USA.

My work is obsessed by research; I feel I am in a fight between my intimacy and the constant necessity to find new solutions.

In the work of Virdi, one senses a search, an existential exploration with no discernible map or direction. The amorphous quality of each work is simultaneously punctuated with symbols, word and vague images representing a dream-like state, while each work possesses a depth and passion in the desire to reveal her journey inward. Nadesha Mijoba. 

“I seek to create an opulent feeling through rendering sparkling surfaces, saturated colors, and textures of our fashion and technology-conscious society. My paintings rely on the viewer’s desire to see pleasing images. Yet, within the lush imagery resides a psychological element – a memory, some light-hearted social commentary, or an ironic or surrealistic aspect that is encountered upon closer inspection.  My most recent paintings combine elements of still life and portraiture.”

Lisa Ficarelli-Halpern is a New Jersey based artist and educator. She received her BFA in surface design from Parsons the New School for Design, and earned her MFA in painting from New Jersey City University. Prior to receiving her graduate degree in fine art, Lisa served as an executive designer for the Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation, overseeing all areas of home design, with particular emphasis on textile products.  Her expertise and affinity for pattern is a consistent, conceptual thread in her paintings and prints.

Ficarelli-Halpern has widely exhibited in numerous solo and group juried exhibitions, in venues including The Shirin New York Gallery, the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, City Without Walls and The Gateway Art Center in Newark, the George Segal Gallery at Montclair State University, and the Zhou B. Art Center in Chicago. She was voted artist of the month by the Arts Guild of New Jersey in June of 2013. She has been featured in Studio Visit Magazine Vol.10 and has won numerous awards, including a Geraldine Dodge Fellowship. Her work is included in the upcoming New Jersey Arts Annual Exhibition, sponsored by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, opening in April 2016 at the Noyes Museum of Art, Stockton University.

Dana Melamed was born in Israel in 1972. She studied architecture and art history at Ort Technicum Givatayim, Isreal in 1990 and graduated from the Tel Aviv School of Visual art in 1995. Since her first solo exhibition "When Dawn Breaks" at Priska C. Juschka Fine Art, New York, NY in 2006, Melamed has had 8 solo exhibitions in NYC and participated in multiple group shows around the world. Her work has been on display in venues such as The Durst Organization (2008, 2010) Lesley Heller Workspace (2011) , Von Lintel Gallery (2013) and Stux Gallery (2014). Her works are part of public permanent collections such as the Frenkels Foundation for the Arts and the University of Michigan Museum, as well as in numerous international private collections around the world. 
The wall sculptures of Dana Melamed are concerned with the urban environment as a many layers product of human endeavor...memory made manifested. However, the link to pictorial spaces is maintained in spite of it's touching the 3rd dimension with occasional low relief structures. In the new works Melamed vigorously occupies real space with accretions of her signature scorched, scarred and painted materials. The resulting wall sculptures become embodiments of a paradox: Graphic elements coax the eye to project into pictorial space but are held in check by a complex structure approximating symphonic music. The textures, details like a Piranesi etching, are parallel to a string section or chorus whose individual voices, though perceptible, are fused into grater melodic line. The sense of construction/destruction that the heavily stressed materials convey is transfigured from industrial mayhem into a parable of human history building upon itself over time

Kristianne is a Filipino-American conceptual artist, addressing social issues in her generation through different mediums. Her creative outlets consist of painting, photography, animation, video, costume designs, and book arts. Her work is also heavily influenced and inspired by art and literary research and creative writing. During her ESKFF residency at Mana Contemporary she learns how to use natural pigments and dyes into the repertoire of her visual language. Her current series of work is a visual commentary on the ironies between hyper-consumerism, quick fashion trends, handmade crafts, and a woman’s body tangled within its social dogmas.

In 2013, Kristianne received her BFA in visual arts from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Kristianne is a recipient of the Anthony S. Guadadielo Scholarship in 2008. Since then, she has exhibited her work at the Mason Gross Galleries, Mana Contemporary, Parsons the New School of Design, Montclair Galleries, the Majestic Theatre, Lowes Theatre, and the Barrow Mansion in Jersey City. In 2014, Kristianne founded K.EIGHT, a line of handmade functional art objects, wearable art and book arts in limited editions.