Influence

Born and raised in the Netherlands, Rory Coyne received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the State University of New York College at Fredonia and his Masters of Fine Arts from University of New Mexico. Throughout his education he focused on studying the techniques of classical masters, such as Rembrandt van Rijn and John Singer Sargent. After completing his masters, he moved to Chicago. Once a resident artist at the River East Art Center Coyne continues to develop his professional career as an artist and teacher at his art studio located at the Zhou B. Art Center. In his work, Coyne creates allegories that speak to issues of private contemporary society, often using animals to signify emotions and reactions in relationships. The subjects in this collection are therianthropic figures; some animal parts morphing into the body elegantly, while some protrude instead.

Tristan Hummel received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Chicago. After school he founded Art on Track, the largest mobile art gallery in the world and has been the curator of several art exhibits across Chicago. Hummel created this collection by taking magnetic resonance images (MRIs) of damaged bicycles through an ExRay machine. He then enhanced the color and design of the images with post-process imaging software.  His collection explores a fictitious character who discovers a bicycle damaged in an accident, laying helpless on the street. The character, drawing solely on his own experiences with healing, immediately picked up the bicycle and took it to the hospital. Misunderstanding the difference between object and person, taking his natural tendencies completely out of context, the character juxtaposes his experience of being injured and going to the hospital with the current situation.  

Aaron Straus received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Chicago. Along with Tristan Hummel, Straus founded Art on Track and has been the curator of several art exhibits across Chicago. The work exhibited consists of 60 photographs taken of trees and digitally manipulated onto an acrylic lighbox. Through this work Straus explores the topics of technology, green materials, man’s desire to be close to nature in the urban landscape, and different experiences of God: the manifest and literal versus the intangible and internal. Straus derived at the concept for this piece when noticing the connections between tiny patches of life forcing their way through cracks versus the pristinely manicured curbside gardens in the streets of Chicago.

Martin Bernstein received his Bachelors in Fine Arts from University of Michigan. Well accomplished in his career, Bernstein has had numerous solo and group shows worldwide including those at Guggenheim Gallery, Laguna Beach Museum of Art, Cincinnati Art Museum, and Santa Cruz Museum of Art. His work has been featured in publications such as Rolling Stone Magazine, Seventeen Magazine, Town and Country Magazine, New York Times Newspaper, and Penthouse Magazine. Along with being acquired by several museums, his work is in the notable collections of Bonyce Knowles, the China Barrett Collection, Internal Revenue Service, and the Cincinnati Bell Telephone Co., Cincinnati, OH. Bernstein’s work has been installed publically at The Bel Air Hotel in California, The Palms Casino Resort in Navada, Peninsula Spa in Beverly Hills, MGM Grand in Navada, Atlantis Resort Paradise Island in Bahamas, Grand Tiara Hotel in Japan, and the World Trade Bank in California. His body of work consists of the manipulation of everyday objects through the layering of other unrelated objects. In his own description of the work, “There is a parallax view effect that takes place changing all things because we are perceiving these things through our own unique experiences. What this individual perception provides is the context, the depth beneath the surfaces we view; hidden histories unseen, but always present and always effecting everything we view.”