Announcing the Featured Artists for the Freelancers Hub Fall 2026 Art Show
The Freelancers Union and Freelancers Hub are proud to once again present our Freelancers Hub art show, this time highlighting work focused on Wild Imaginations.
Join us for the Opening Reception on October 21 to celebrate the incredible work created by the members of our community. RSVP to join us.
All events at the Freelancers Hub are made possible thanks to the support of NYC Mayors office of Media and Entertainment.
Clementine Martinez
Clementine Martinez is an illustrator and printmaker living in Brooklyn. She has been involved in a number of public art projects, including painting two Sing For Hope pianos, designing a mural to cover HESCO barriers on Roosevelt Island, and, most recently, painting a series of twenty spheres for the Hudson Square BID that helped direct pedestrians along a walk to the waterfront while taking them on an illustrated tour of the neighborhood’s history. She is a member of the printmakers’ Society of American Graphic Artists, and is currently working on a comic book for a cancer research organization.
Artist Statement:
My prints focus on subject matter from the natural world. Humans, animals, and places are deconstructed and reconfigured in imitation of the strange paths nature takes, creating something fictitious instead. I’m interested in the natural world that exists and the natural world we imagine, and how this perception is a reflection of our desire and innate curiosity to understand nature better, while also respecting the mystery of the natural world.
Ava Buccino
Ava Buccino is an Illustrator/painter from the New York and New Jersey area. She does fantastical illustrations that focus on ecology using both traditional and digital processes. Ava studied Illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design. If interested in purchasing and pieces, email avalbuccino@gmail.com. You can find more of Ava’s work at avabuccino.com.
Artist Statement:
Ava Buccino is an Illustrator from the New York and New Jersey Area. Ava works in the fantastical, creates creatures, and plays with world-building. At the Rhode Island School of Design Ava was able to do research on Gall wasps and other parasitic wasps that live in Rhode Island. This research and general love of insects made Ava want to mix different animals that have similar behaviors but look wildly different to create new creatures that then fill a different theoretical ecological niche. Additionally she likes using very involved processes with sculpting the creatures before painting them to really be able to understand what they would look like. In the final image making processes she works in tandem with digital and traditional workflows.
Ellen McDermott
Ellen McDermott, is a New York based commercial photographer known for her beautifully lit interiors, moody still life, dynamic portraiture, lifestyle and object d’art. She deliberately sets out to seduce as she draws the viewer into an altered universe of light and depth. Using the study of light and shadow, Ellen creates dimension that holds the viewers interest. Starting with composition then laying in light so it interacts with the subject matter she creates a very calculated and timeless photograph. Ellen’s work can be seen in numerous Ad Campaigns, Publications, Corporate Assignments and Private Collections throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Clients include, RALPH LAUREN, Polo, Polo Kids, RL Fragrance, Quadrille, Iconix Brands, Brookes Bros., Chicos, Christies, Sotheby’s, Elle Decor, House Beautiful, New England Home, Cottages and Gardens, Home & Garden, Sophia Cashmere, Hound House among others.
Artist Statement:
Wild Imaginations: When Fantasy coincides with Magical Realism in telling a story This series was commissioned by Hound House CT with Creative Director Collin Robison to showcase their line of fragrances and candles www.houndhousect.com. Coming from a fine arts background, Ellen McDermott builds her work on strong composition conveying the narrative and transforming the viewers perception and experience. The extraordinary blends seamlessly into the ordinary transporting the viewer effortlessly from the mundane to a distant mythical realm. Shot with the Hasselblad’s medium format X Series, Ellen uses natural light with additional fill lighting by Profoto. The post work is equally important in achieving the clarity and unworldly drama through the use of light and shadow.
Thomas James Vasquez
Thomas Vazquez, also known as TJ, is a New York 3D artist and motion designer with a background in fine arts and illustration. A true native New Yorker, TJ balances freelance creative work with teaching art at a nonprofit and recently joined the NYC DOE as a substitute teacher.
Beyond the work itself, TJ has set his sights on something bigger — turning himself into a brand. One that's rooted in New York culture, animation, and the kind of creativity that feels alive and fun.
Give him a follow on social media, and if you see him around, grab one of his business cards; you might just get a friendly neighborhood surprise.
Artist Statement:
Drawing inspiration from pop minimal art and illustrators such as Stephanie Savard, this artwork features a "leaf guy" crafted for the autumn season. Created in Photoshop with bold shapes, vibrant colors, and textured, runny ink brushes, the piece offers creative versatility and expressive depth. A palette of fall hues, including rich reds and oranges, evokes a quintessential autumn vibe, while subtle blues nod to Halloween in October.
Susie Oh
Susie Oh is a Korean-American author and illustrator based in Brooklyn. She studied illustration at Pratt Institute, and her debut picture book, “Soomi's Sweater”, was a silver medal winner of the 2020 Key Colors Illustrators Competition.
Artist Statement:
I'm a storyteller. Whether it's following the emotional ups and downs (and cute foibles) of childhood in picture books or exploring ecological and cultural histories in my personal mixed media art, I draw and am drawn to narratives.
Xiaoran Lei
Xiaoran is the fiber artist behind HeartFelt Layers, a practice that transforms wool fiber into wearable works of art through traditional needle-felting techniques. Growing up in a lotus-farming village in China, Xiaoran developed a deep sensitivity to landscape, seasonal change, and the rhythms of manual labor. These experiences continue to inform her artistic language. Drawing inspiration from art history, nature, and folklore tales, Xiaoran creates pieces that blur the boundaries between fine art, craft, and fashion. Using loose wool and barbed felting needles, she builds the design "layer by layer," mirroring the way an artist applies oil to a canvas.
Artist Statement:
These hand-felted berets explore wild imagination through fantastical worlds where ordinary reality gives way to myth and wonder. Forest Fox places a mysterious fox among an enchanted woodland of vivid leaves and mushrooms; Alice Tea Party evokes the playful absurdity of a storybook world; and Rainbow Unicorn transforms a dreamlike landscape into a whimsical encounter with a mythical creature. Through layered wool, needle felting, and intricate handwork, the collection turns the beret into a miniature world—inviting the wearer to carry a little magic, mystery, and imagination into everyday life.
As wearable arts are both tactile and visual, we encourage all visitors to touch and feel the texture and the nature of the fibers.
Raquel Malta
Raquel Malta is a multidisciplinary artist from the lower Hudson Valley, inspired by the many natural creatures and features she continues to encounter over the course of her life. With a primary focus on wildlife, she aims to recontextualize preconceived notions of the world around her into something fresh, approachable, and charming. Her ultimate goal is to inspire education, consideration, and change. Her work ranges from gouache painting, sculpting with paper and foraged materials, and layered paper illustration. Raquel’s background in sculpture, nurtured at the University of the Arts, largely influences her artistic practices.
Artist Statement:
Nature is my greatest inspiration, and an exploration of behavior and expression closely follows. When painting from life or illustrating from the imagination, I push the boundaries of the shapes, colors, and my own shortsightedness in order to create a new narrative. While my paintings retain a higher level of realism, I infuse my illustrations with my ongoing endeavor to fill my world with humor and whimsy. My Halloween series explores re-contextualizing classic monsters into everyday passersby as they exist in my own imagined world: heartfelt, mundane, and silly.
Olivia Konys
Olivia Konys was born in Syracuse, NY and attended Rochester Institute of Technology ’16 to study publishing. Her artwork explores messy mediums, including: mixed media collage, oil pastels, acrylic painting, and editorial photography. Her fine artwork is influenced by Willem de Kooning, George Condo, Keith Haring, and Guerrilla Girls – though her greatest painting teacher is her father. She works with advertising agencies as an Art Director and Designer. She has lived in NYC for a decade.
Artist Statement:
The base of this piece is abstract and emotive with a limited color palette, exploring the emotional landscape between travel and connection. “Pisces in Venus” later emerged from a tarot card pull during a full moon in August where a depiction of a firefly shining against a vulture reflected the artist’s spirited follies through the year.
Josiah Callaway
Josiah Callaway is an avid storyteller and illustrator who was raised in the wilderness of Tennessee. His passion for stories led him to Savannah College of Art and Design where he earned a degree in sequential arts. Josiah enjoys creating whimsical monsters and caricatures in a variety of mediums, including watercolor, ink, and Photoshop.
Artist Statement:
Everyone has a story to tell. An artist’s work is a narrative of their journey through their imagination. Through the chaos of creativity, an idea is born. The artist must face the monsters within and have the courage to believe in their work - apparently it’s easier to face your fears if they wear silly hats and bowties.
John Smalls
John Smalls is a visual artist, designer, and art toy creator whose work explores themes of identity, family, humanity, freedom, and lived experience. His practice is informed by years of creating, traveling, and engaging with diverse cultures, experiences that became the foundation of his artistic education and continue to shape his perspective. Drawing from both personal observation and the shared experiences of others, Smalls creates work that reflects the emotional and social realities of everyday life. Through painting and visual storytelling, he seeks to create images that resonate across cultures and invite meaningful connection.
Artist Statement:
My work explores the human experience through painting, character design, and sculpture. Drawing from everyday life, relationships, martial arts, travel, and personal observation, I create work that reflects how people connect, adapt, persevere, and find meaning in the world around them.
Kathleen Krawlowec
Kathleen Kralowec is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, tattooer and independent creator based in New York. Working across drawing, painting, digital art, sculpture, tattooing, comics, games and speculative fiction, she creates vivid narrative worlds exploring transformation, identity, nature and the supernatural. Her projects include independently published oracle decks, comics, zines and more than a decade of professional work in games and animation.
Kralowec holds a BA in Studio Art with a minor in Philosophy from Scripps College and an MFA in Digital Arts and New Media from UC Santa Cruz.
Artist Statement:
Drawing from my own psychological history and also from mythology, pop culture,
surrealism and esoterica, my work is largely about transformation and encounter, as in apparitions of the divine or supernatural, or relationships between species. Such meetings rewrite and blur boundaries, foster metamorphosis, and in the end enable exploration of the self.
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Originally published on Freelancer Union Blog
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