Nostalgia Issue Prompt: Reflect on an experience(s) from your past and tackle it from a different angle. What did you go through? How did it affect you at the time? How has it shaped who you are today? You can answer this prompt in any medium of art of your choice.
"Fifteen years ago I lost a woman I loved for eight years. She commited suicide. Passion is a theme that is very important to me. I think everything that happened in my life after is linked to that moment. I used elements and landscapes to mix them with couples or a sometimes only a woman. We usually see passion ephemerally, like a fire, or waves hitting a rock on the shore. But in other points of view passion lasts for so long that we can imagine couples becoming mountains, old landscapes"
I am fascinated with social landscapes and the interaction between people and modernity. Through my work, I seek to capture the vibrant energy of streets and cityscapes, focusing on the interplay between people, space, and history. I believe the dynamic colors in my photography highlight the distinct cultures and histories that shape each environment.
My art is a mix of chaos, emotion, character. I’m drawn to faces and distortions to express what I have no words for. My art usually explores playful imagery with an edge, like unsettling cartoons. I love the mess of creating art; the imperfect lines, marker colored hands, and smudged ink all feel more honest and real than anything polished. Whether I’m just sketching with pencil or going in with ink and marker, I like to embrace the weird and raw. For me, art is about the process of creating, it’s about putting pen to paper and letting ideas spill onto the page.
Since the pandemic, many people have abandoned or neglected their dogs for various reasons. The author, a passionate dog lover, finds this trend heartbreaking. Dogs hold immense significance in her life—they provided companionship and emotional healing during her struggles with depression. Now, she has an opportunity to raise awareness about the importance of dogs and advocate for better treatment of pets. Through a unique artistic approach, she creates a series of paintings titled The World of a Dog, depicting daily life from a dog’s perspective.
Despite the inevitable passage of time, every person carries an ever-present connection to their inner child and the experiences of their youth that have contributed to shaping their identity. In “Core Memory”, the grayscale hands and weathered books symbolize the wisdom of age, contrasting the vibrant reflection that represents the innocent dreams and unbridled curiosity of childhood.
I met you face down in the river. Lips blue as you bled into me, one death rattle mixing with another. Funny how I thought we should reconnect, that it had been a long time since I’d last pulled you out and glanced at your frozen face. We could have been friends, twins even with how much people said we looked alike. But then I remember the crimson in the tub and the dirty laundry you used to leave in my room, soiled things that put grey in my face. And I realize that's why I put you in that river in the first place, a sinking weight drifting with the current. Maybe someone else down the line will rescue you, pull you out of that cold water, but I really hope not.
The excerpt is about learning how to let pieces of yourself go that are harmful or even detrimental, and how I am better off for it regardless of how painful it is to let go of a part of yourself you feel like you need
I've submitted two poems, one in Polsih (my mother tongue) and in English since I wanted more people to understand my poetry. Both have similar meaning (I tried to translate the poem as closely as possible). I wrote this because I was inspired by the theme of January-February 2025 edition of Polish Vogue Magazine (which was art containing mirrors and overall use of them in art). Additionally, I've done some self-reflection lately and it definitely had an impact on how the poem turned out.
My poem reflects on past heartbreak—both “half-hearted” and “whole-hearted”—and explores how healing is not a straightforward process but one filled with relapses, masked pain, and inevitable returns to the source of hurt. Through fragmented lines and enjambment, my poem mirrors the emotional dissonance of moving forward while being pulled back, illustrating how past experiences shaped my understanding of healing. Ultimately, it reveals that healing is not about erasure but about learning to live with what once was.
Amusement parks, expecially those in small towns (where i grew up), have always struck me with a sense of grudging melancholy. The painful scrape of happiness long rusted, until the tulips have whithered and we try to leave for the first time, knowing even when we die, our headstones will still be dragged back into those sun-dried lawns, and we'll just be remembered as love-struck, foolish children
The image, featuring dim lighting, warm chandeliers, and a quiet bar scene, symbolizes reflection and nostalgia. It could represent a moment of pause, processing a significant experience, or finding solace. The contrast between shadows and light reflects the internal journey of confronting memories and the extraordinary personal meaning of even ordinary places. The scene symbolizes how environments shape us, how moments linger, and how we grow through our surroundings and experiences.
Decades into economic reform, consumerism has become a major part of life in China. As a largely atheist country with deep roots in Buddhism, our belief system is entangled with worship of communist leaders, the secularized Buddhist religion, and a rise of commodity fetishism. Portraying imagery of Guanyin, Mao, and pop culture symbols in the aesthetic of glitch art and hyperpop, which are styles closely related to mashup and remix, I aim to explore the complex identity of contemporary China.
What I like most about the creative processes behind my work is the challenge of merging aesthetic and formal coherence with the surrealistic concept of seemingly impossible and dreamlike images. This paradox is what keeps me invested, restlessly searching for that one missing piece that somehow perfectly complements the overarching concept while simultaneously representing a harsh contrast to the symbolic order of everyday perception. I’m not so much interested in the gaping blank spaces and intentional visible breaks found, for example, in the Berlin Dadaist collage movement of the early twentieth century. Instead, for the majority of my pieces, I aim for a sort of seamlessness that conceals the analog cut-and-paste process behind it as best as possible to create a new coherent (sur-)reality more akin to what a classic photomontage would do.
Chayel uses color and form as an avenue to explore identity, experiences, and mythical realities. Her acrylic paintings represent human awareness as a transcendental being that journeys through playful realms of emotion and energy. These liminal spaces and the character they follow are often de-constructions of biological material. She uses mark-making as a way to shape streams of consciousness and cellular content that lay present in bodies. In her work, she aims to express a place for black individuals to whimsically dream and exist outside of the context of race and imposed stereotypes.