ROBERT MORRIS
(video / multimedia / print / photography / ink)

Robert Morris has a bachelor's degree in fine art from the Savannah College of Art and Design. Since 1998, he's made New York City his home. He has built a reputation of creating stunning imagery through a variety of media including ink, scratchboard, airbrush, photography, music, web sites, print design, motion graphics, and digital compositing. His work generally has a darker edge to it, and pushes the limits of what is possible within any given medium. Since working as a full-time freelance compositor, his work has been publicly praised in publications such as Fangoria, Digit, Cthulhu Sex, The Reel, and Creativity Magazine.

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CHRIS CONTE
(sculpture - stainless steel)

Christopher Conte was born in Bergen, Norway where he began drawing at age 3. At age 6, shortly after moving to New York, he started taking college art classes at Hofstra University following a recommendation from his first grade teacher. While in high school he attended St. John’s University and in the eleventh grade received a scholarship to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. Once at Pratt, he also studied human anatomy at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital through a program sponsored by Columbia University. After receiving a Bachelors Degree in Fine Art (BFA) from Pratt Institute, he entered the prosthetics feild making artificial limbs for amputees in Nassau County, New York.

His sculptures have appeared on The Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel, MTV Networks and in Popular Science Magazine.

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RICH ZIMMER
(video / multimedia)

Rich Zimmer began his professional art career in 1995 at the School of Visual Arts-NYC entering as an illustration major - painting in a surrealism fashion was his brush of choice until he was lured into SVA's acclaimed computer art department discovering his love for digital illustration, motion graphics/dv & design. With a history of the Macintosh under his belt back from high school he quickly felt at home mixing and matching his painting & illustration directly into the computer creating & some could say pioneering some beautiful styles of computer assisted art...Rich Zimmer was the first Computer Art student to be chosen for an SVA gallery show "lonely spaces" in the fall of 1997 ands continued to have 2 more showings the following semester as part of an Illustrated book exhibit.

RZ was hired by several of his professors during his college years, freelance & part time to work on feature film ad campaigns, high end stock photography and eventually recruited to head up a small video outfit on Long Island. Digital Video became a small passion the last 2 years at SVA, motion graphics brought his paintings & design to life, his thesis consisted of an acclaimed short digital film and was the jumping off point for his advertising/design firm...9 years strong the "zdi design group" - clients include VH1, Juma Entertainment, Bravo, & Artisan Entertainment. He stayed close to his roots in 2d design & illustration and with the occasionally corporate whoring he brought his company to the heart of some of the biggest TV production companies on the east & west coast as a design consultant.

For the past 3 years after being swamped with his companies dreams he has started painting, & creating video again from the heart, from where it all started, expressing what he is really all about outside of an ad campaign and on Sept 30th at 3rd Ward you will be able to see brand new media from Rich Zimmer on the screens of CHAMBER

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SWEETS BECKER
(canvas)

Sweets Becker's art is a storytelling of events and people which surround his life. The colors used, illustrate feelings to further enhance the details of those events. A Long Island native, Becker attended F.I.T. in NYC, obtaining his Associates Degree. He then later transferred to the School of Visual Arts, finishing up with a Bachelors Degree. As a High School student, Sweets knew this was the route he wanted to take, as he won numerous awards for his art. He has had showings in art galleries on both costs... New York City and California.

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AMANDA DUTTON
(photography)

Amanda Dutton has been photographing for over eight years with a strong passion for photographing people. With an associates degree in art, she moved to New York two years ago from New Jersey to pursue a career as a photographer. Currently she's working on her Bachelors degree at The School of Visual Arts in New York City. Any given day, you can find her on either side of the camera, as a model or behind the lens. Her current work displays a mixture of darker edged portraiture with fashion photography.

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LOUIS GUIDONE
(photography)

Louis Guidone began shooting people (with a camera, don’t panic) at his grandparent's 50th anniversary party at about 8 years old. Handed a new 110 camera by his parents, this was his first paid gig. A music lover since grade school and a member of the chorus, his two future passions were to be discovered later on. He composes original songs in his bedroom studio until dawn whenever he has the chance, and started a music electronic technology program right after graduating high school. He began a strong interest in photography as a model for friends and seeing the paper hit the developer in the darkroom. “Oh wow I look like a psychopath... I love it!” This passion was dormant for years, and has become his main form of expression. It all came back to life one day when he bought 2 old single lens reflex cameras in a thrift shop off 8th Street, and began shooting on weekends until they both fell apart. Little did he know that he was building up a portfolio. After giving up on an extremely physically demanding job delivering everything from refrigerators to cast iron tubs, he decided to go back to school full time. In 2000, he received his A.A.S. in Commercial Photography at F.I.T. in New York City, with high honors. He put in 12 hour days on Park Avenue and on location as an assistant. He has been published several times since and has made some friends as well as some enemies down the road. "I am so bored of fetish models and their baggage right now. If I wanted to deal with massive egos and backstabbing gossips all the time I would go work in a goth club."

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ARTHUR SKOWRON
(drawing / paint / photography)

Arthur Skowron, graduated from the High School of Art & Design reveiving the valedictorian of art. He later went on to received his BA in Fine Arts from Queens College. As for his work, he has been featured in several one-man shows, as well as over three dozen group exhibits, throughout the US and abroad. His favorite mediums are painting, printmaking, and black & white photography. He is also a member of the Emotionalist Art Movement.

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MELISSA MURRAY
(drawing / paint)

My art is an aftereffect of my strong belief that it is necessary to remove myself from our pre-subscribed society. Capitalism, consumerism and mainstream passivity have distorted many peoples boundaries of what is right and what is not. This upsets me deeply and in turn is represented in my paintings, drawings and photographs. Aside from visual artists, musicians, writers, activists and free thinkers have inspired me in my daily life, thus, inevitably being infused in my work. My art deals with the masochism and struggle to maintain an individualistic mentality in a world of abuse and consumerism.

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TALISSA MEHRINGER (MISS ROT)
(paint / illustration)

Talissa Mehringer was conceived in the faraway metropolis of Munich from whence she was imported an exported to many lands in a big wooden crate sealed with nails. She traveled to the jungles of Brazil and was initiated into the Canela tribe but was eventually shunned and resided in the giant-centipede-malaria-infested Tanzania. After exhausting her resources, she traveled to the U.S. in a big pimped up submarine to plan and undertake an expansive multimedia effort to conquer the world. She incorporates a large range of mediums in a fine art oriented blend of traditional illustration, film/video production, music, collage, digital art and mixed media focused around a darker aesthetic.
Her paintings and illustrations utilize classic cross-hatching techniques with textured layers of collage, paint, and grime to tap into the phantasmagoric realm of the subconscious while her music seeks to provide an auditory equivalent of the personal imagery inducing quality of the visual arts. Her film and video work is a culmination of these artistic intentions by merging audio visual elements in a visceral rhythmic harmony.

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ART MISTRESS
(drawing / digital art)

Art MIstress's real name is Zabrina Carpio-Egan. She started drawing and won her first award at age 5. Always having a hard time expressing herself in words, Art seemed to be an outlet where she could express herself and utilize her creativity to bring fantasy into reality for just a moment. Everything she knows and has developed she has learned on her own with a lot of work and personal studying. Her digital software knowledge came from reading and trial and error. Her love for the Comic book "Lady Death" and "Purgatori", and her fascination with vampires and horror films, influenced her style to the "Dark" side of art.
The last 2 years she has been in a few publications and has had 2 interviews and recognition on web based magazines. With this she was given a new alias that reflects her art work, her admirers have given her the name “Art Mistress”. She is known through web sites including her own by this name. Finally, Zabrina thanks her mother, without whom she would have never known what perseverance is. She is the strongest women Zabrina has ever known. She has always pushed her to do what she believed in the most, even though she had many disappointments along the way, and inspiration comes from her own two children who make her understand everyday how the simplest and sometimes strange and not so perfect things can be so beautiful.

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GRETCHEN ADREON
(canvas / abstract)

The inner self reveals what our fundamental character is and who we are. It speaks the truth. My painting is a representation of that. Invisibility to most, is the absence, emptiness, or lack of. Invisibility can also represent absolute presence maybe not visibly seen but certainly felt and understood. In my paintings I try to leave open space, a place of freedom. A space where the thoughts I lay a foundation for can be interpreted and carried on by the viewer or even remain unsaid. I choose abstraction because it is raw, without boundaries or pretense. What is not seen or only implied is as, or more important than what is seen. Sometimes the most profound statements are made with the fewest words. My hope and what I continuously work towards is that my paintings in their simplest form can relay the deepest complex

Gretchen received a bachelors degree in Mass Communications/Photography and also a bachelors degree in Philosophy that she feels created an immense impact on the thought process and emotional content of her work plus individual study with artist/teacher Anton Weiss in Nashvillle, TN where she lived prior to moving to NYC where she now lives and works. She has shown in multiple shows and won several awards for her work.

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BRIAN RAWSON
(photography)

Brian Rawson is a 26 year old art photographer from Long Island who has the best job in the world.... he works with a bunch of naked chics willing to dangle from trees nude, and explore abandoned urban territories in the name of his photography. Along the way he became the first Rawson receive a college degree, that being in Commercial Art and has also photographed swimsuit calendars, magazine covers, major corporate advertisements and celebs including Whoopi Goldberg and Miss Piggy. Brian has been doing a lot of art shows this year and he only uses new work each time. Brian's last show was a huge success and the Dark Arts Festival promises to be another step in the growth of Brian Rawson's art and photography. Brian also has more shows scheduled for October and November. You may visit his website, www.BrianRawson.com to
view his latest work.

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CANDICE COLACINO
(photography)

PoizonApple Productions is the artwork of Candice (Candy) Colacino from Northern NJ. Candy specializes in dark photography, but also creates drawings, paintings and tattoo art of a dark nature. This could be the reason for her obsession with hunting for strange and unusual props to work with. The pieces are made to reflect horror, gothic, and fetish scenes with a jolie/laide contrast; beauty meets blood, innocence meets sin, delicacy meets dirt. Because of this, she often seeks out models who do not fit the conventional stereotype of what a model "should" look like. Contortionists
and fire-breathers often frequent her set, as well as just regular people who have emotion behind their eyes. Candy has even been known to stop people on the street who have "inspiring faces", and ask them to model. Some shoots turn out better than others, but the main objective here is fun and passion for dark art above all else.
PoizonApple Productions has enjoyed doing pictures for bands, clubs and DJ promotion. There are several people walking around the Northern New Jersey area with PoizonApple originals tattooed on their bodies. Currently, Candy is working in contract with a popular dominatrix for fetish pictures for her members-only website. She hopes to do more work with fetish fashion and art, and hopefully have a good US based fetish magazine of her own one day (since all of the good ones seem to be from Germany). Until that happens,
Candy looks forward to any new and interesting projects she can get her hands on, just as long and they really are new and interesting. No weddings or family portraits done here....unless one wants them blood-spattered!

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ELI LIVINGSTON
(sculptures)

Welcome to the Monster House Laboratory...
the place where visions, dreams and nightmares are manifested and created. The proprietor is notorious sculptor, effect artist (and otherwise mad scientist) Eli Livingston.

Eli has been perfecting his craft for over a decade. He is best known through his projects in the commercial toy industry. While working freelance with various toy companies, he has procured a variety of Characters, Villains and Superheros alike.

Eli's Client list isn't limited to just toy companies. In the theatre and film industries his work on the blockbuster film DOGMA has helped to bring his artistic talent to the public's eye.His projects with clients, H.R Giger through agencies like Barany Artists, Ibanez Guitars and SilverTone, have gained him recognition in the commercial and fine art fields as well. His abilities range from character and creature design, initial concept sketches to final airbrushed product, large or small. Whether the medium be wax and clay sculpts, fiberglass and silicone molds, latex prosthetics: on location, as part of a team or working at in his studio; the articulate precision of Eli's work is second to none. Meticulous about detail and perfection, he does not rest until he is satisfied with the quality product he's creating. In his spare time he continually searches out new exciting projects and challenges his own imagination to breathe life into the artistic visions of his own reality.

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