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Featured Artists at the Freelancers Union Art Showcase
The Freelancers Union and Freelancers Hub are proud to present our Self-Portrait Art Showcase, a curated collection of works by talented freelance artists who have turned their gaze inward to share personal and thought-provoking reflections through their art.
Join us for the opening reception on April 8th at The Freelancers Hub to celebrate these incredible artists and their work: RSVP today.
All events at the Freelancers Hub are made possible thanks to the support of NYC Mayors office of Media and Entertainment.
Featured Artists
Jia Ying Lin – Reflections
Bio: Jia Ying Lin is a contemporary artist based in New York City. With a multidisciplinary background in science, art, and business, her curiosity bridges logic and creativity, exploring the intersections of identity and emotion through visual storytelling.
Her paintings have been exhibited at the Russell Janis Gallery, where she continues to push the boundaries of dynamic compositions, innovative techniques, and material exploration. Driven by curiosity and a passion for experimentation, Jia’s evolving work reflects her commitment to capturing the complexities of the human experience.
Artist Statement: My work explores themes of memory, adaptation, and cultural duality, shaped by my curiosity and creative uncertainty. Using oil, acrylic, and mixed media on textured surfaces, I create surreal, symbolic narratives that reflect the tension between personal identity and collective experience. I invite viewers to navigate the space between reality and abstraction, encouraging reflection on their creative passions and inner selves.
Adina Farinango – Nuka 2023
Bio: Adina Farinango is a Kichwa-Otavalo artist who uses art as an act of resistance,healing, and self-expression. Her art practice serves as a means to navigate and strengthen her own identity as an Indigenous woman within the Kichwa diaspora. Influenced heavily by the resilience and strength of matriarchs in her community—past, present, and future—she seeks to Indigenize spaces, centering the reclamation of space through a matriarchal lens. She is currently based in Lenapehoking (New York City).
Artist Statement: As a Kichwa Otavalo woman, my work in digital illustration, photography, embroidery, and animation celebrates Indigenous identity as an act of reclamation. Rooted in personal, ancestral, and collective memory, it connects with ancestors across time, shaping my expression. Exploring diaspora and the idea of home, I honor the love and strength passed down through my mother, community, and ancestors. Through a matriarchal lens, my art embodies resistance, joy, and Kichwa Futurisms. Despite colonialism’s impact, our art endures as a source of resilience and vision, and my practice invites others to celebrate its enduring strength.
Catherine Walsh – Dance While You Can
Bio: My name is Catherine Walsh or CatsndBats. I am 32 years old. I was born in California but I grew up in rural Ireland. I studied to be a ballet dancer in London and worked with a ballet company there on graduating. I then moved to New York to continue my career as a professional ballet dancer. While in New York, I was given a point and shoot camera and I began photographing my daily life in the city that never sleeps. When the pandemic happened I decided to stop dancing professionally and focus on photography. I went to Pearse College in Dublin and did a photography course during the pandemic. Which gave me the opportunity to be a part of a photo exhibition. I created a body of work titled ‘Danced while I did’. The work overlaps snapshots from a visual diary of my professional working life as a ballet dancer with recent self-portraits.
Artist Statement: Ballet is the only thing I have felt certain about in my life. My first love. I gave myself to it fully. There is an inevitability about this life, this career. I got to a point where the dedication started to fade and I wanted to explore other opportunities. Yet, I still needed it in my life and I can’t let go of calling myself a dancer. It was my identity. Since ceasing my professional dancing career I am realizing this. Once a dancer, always a dancer. The self portrait belongs to a body of work which overlaps snapshots from a visual diary of my professional working life as a ballet dancer and more recent self-portraits. With this work, I am trying to grapple with and resolve the inevitable nature of aging in my chosen profession of dance, transitions between careers, but also the natural transitions of life.
Eesha Suntai – Phenominal
Bio: Eesha Suntai is best known for her gazing portraits and still life paintings that demonstrate her ability to combine classical inanimate objects with modern or organic subject matter, and evoke strong emotions through the use of a vibrant color palette. With both oil and acrylic painting mediums, her contemporary interpretations offer a deeper narrative that focuses on identity, joy, and trauma. Within the confines of Eesha Suntai’s paintings there are nods to Black culture, which she believes, “Adds another invisible layer to story-telling that compels me to continue painting”.
Eesha Suntai has participated in art exhibitions around the NY & NJ area since 2017. In 2021, she was selected for a solo exhibition at The Augusta Savage Gallery, located at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Last year, her painting “Can I Call You Jimmy?” was selected as the headliner piece for the 2024 Queens Rising exhibition “Say It Loud: Unsung Heroes” at Culture Lab LIC, and was on view for the duration of National Pride Month. Most recently Eesha Suntai has participated in Artist Exhibitions at Flushing Town Hall, Brooklyn Art Haus, and Kente Royal Gallery, respectively. Eesha is also an active member of the KAC Gallery of Fellow Artists.
Artist Statement: I am a black female Artist from Queens that specializes in painting on medium and large scale surfaces, utilizing different styles and subject matter. My painting style is largely influenced by the Fauvism movement, where the Artist uses bright color to create a dramatic expressive reaction. With both oil and acrylics, I utilize color to promote calm and healing, while simultaneously interweaving complex issues of identity and self- awareness, specifically affecting Women and the African-American community.
Shan Graf – In My Own
Bio: My name is Shan Graf and I was born and raised in Montana. I am about to graduate with a BFA focusing on painting and drawing. I am also receiving a minor in small business and entrepreneurship.
Artist Statement: Born and raised in Montana, I reflect on my life through the art that I create as a form of escapism. I am currently in the undergraduate program for a Bachelor’s Degree in Fine Arts as well as a minor in small business and entrepreneurship at Montana State University.
My artwork is heavily influenced by personal struggle and escapism. My artistic practice focuses on experimenting with oil paint to create two-dimensional works that blend impressionism and realism. Color is a central theme, where I use vibrant colors to enhance emotional depth by emphasizing and modifying elements to evoke specific feelings. Influenced by personal experiences—such as growing up in Montana, political views, mental health, and childhood memories—these aspects inform my subject matter and color choices, adding depth and relatability. This integration allows me to create art that resonates emotionally with viewers, reflecting both personal perspectives and universal themes regarding queer experiences.
Daniel Jackson – Indigo Pulse
Bio: Daniel Jackson is a Philadelphia-based visual storyteller and the owner of Embassy: Interactive, a photography and video production company. Through his work, he captures meaningful moments and uplifts diverse narratives. His creative journey began in music, leading to the launch of Embassy: Interactive in 2011 to spotlight talent online. By 2015, the company shifted its focus and evolved into visual storytelling, expanding its scope and projects. Dedicated to serving the community, Jackson collaborates with creatives, nonprofits, and small businesses, delivering tailored services. His work transcends documentation, emphasizing stories with impact. Offerings include promotional videos, headshots, music videos, event photography, and social media content, alongside addressing pressing social issues in Philadelphia. Collaboration and community empowerment remain at the core of Jackson’s mission.
Artist Statement: “Indigo Pulse" captures a pivotal moment of reflection and renewal during the extended isolation of 2021. The deep blue tones in the portrait embody the emotional weight of navigating through depression, while also symbolizing the strength it takes to emerge from that shadowed state. Taken during a quiet pause in work, this self-portrait tells a story of resilience, vulnerability, and the transformative power of self-awareness. It stands as a testament to finding light and rediscovering creativity, even in the midst of life’s darker chapters.
Dara Feller – Homebody
Bio: Dara Feller is a photographer/multidisciplinary artist living in LA. Her practice focuses on portraiture, self-portraiture, and live music photography. After receiving a BFA in Studio Art from Chapman University, she utilized her experience in multimedia studio practice to creative direct, style and build her own photoshoot sets. Dara’s work can be seen in publications such as Polyester Zine, Galore Magazine, Business Insider, and Pass the Aux, as well as an artist feature in SD Voyager Magazine.
Artist Statement: “Homebody” was born through a literal interpretation of the expression. The eyes being “windows to the soul”, the capacity of the mouth to be “open” or “shut” like a door. Through this exploration we come to evaluate the idea of the self— are we our body, or do we simply inhabit it?
Tiffany Kehinde – Celebrated, Not Tolerated
Bio: Tiffany Kehinde is a fashion and beauty photographer and videographer known for her bold use of color, texture, and light manipulation. Her journey into photography began at New York Fashion Week (NYFW), where she captured the energy of runway shows for brands and publications—an experience that jump-started her career and sharpened her eye for high-fashion imagery. Inspired by the beauty in everyday objects, Tiffany transforms common materials into dynamic visual elements, incorporating gems, rhinestones, colorful gels, prisms, and holographic props to create striking images. Her experimental approach to light—whether through projection, distortion, or reflection—adds a dreamlike quality to her work.
Artist Statement: "Celebrated, Not Tolerated" is a declaration of self-worth, and an invitation to always choose spaces that celebrate you, and not tolerate you. This work speaks to the importance of belonging, of being welcomed wholeheartedly rather than reluctantly included. It challenges the viewer to reflect on their own environments, and the relationships they nurture—are you surrounded by those who are eager to share space, to uplift, to break bread with you? Or are you lingering in places where your presence is not even acknowledged.
Mycha Bueche – Because of Your Hair
Bio: Mycha is a Texas-born, Brooklyn-based artist whose work is anchored in a distinct exploration of color. The novel vocabulary of her palettes ask viewers to reconsider the assumptions they bring to different hues—how memory, culture, and personal experience shape the way we interpret narrative.
This tension between surface and meaning mirrors the way Mycha constructs a contemporary folklore through form and composition. Drawing from Art Deco graphic design, the folk art of her Latine heritage, and Catholic iconography, she creates visual altars that enshrine memory and myth as inseparable parts of our histories.
Artist Statement: Influenced by Frida Kahlo’s Self-Portrait with Cropped Hair and the transformative hair slicing moment in Mulan, this self-portrait pays homage to queer transformation. It speaks to the ways we reshape ourselves—physically, emotionally, and spiritually—in the pursuit of identity, community and intimacy.
John De La O – Year in Review
Bio: I was born and raised in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I attended Fort Hamilton High School, Kingsborough Community College as a Fine Arts Undergraduate, and went on to receive my Bachelor’s degree in Illustration at the School of Visual Arts.
My exhibition experience spans over twenty years, including ten plus years with the Con Artist Collective, and five years plus with Solas Studios, both located in Manhattan. Before, during, and after these tenures, I alternately showed my work at various galleries, fairs, and group shows, including the Armory Art Far, Art Basel Miami, Bushwick Artists and Fleas, and Art Revolution Taipei. Throughout this time, I also participated in several smaller exhibitions, in and around both Manhattan and Brooklyn. I have a dedicated client base who both frequently purchase and commission work. Publications include various independent magazines, as well as the alumni catalog for the School of Visual Arts.
Artist Statement: My paintings reflect the outside world and pop culture, but also my inner world, as well as my cultural identity and personal experiences. I implement painterly and expressionist elements to highlight the human hand at play, and my love of painting and drawing. My goal is to draw the individual into my unique visual language, using a variety of inspiration. As an artist from Brooklyn, and while studying art in New York City, pop art, collage, traditional drawing and painting, and abstract expressionism all became a natural visual language for me to communicate through.
Arthi Sundar – Mask Off
Bio: Arthi Sundar is an Indian American artist, art historian, designer and engineer who goes by the alias @123arthi. Her artworks blend classical portraiture with surreal elements, using graphite and charcoal to explore emotion, distortion, and the human psyche.
Artist Statement: Sundar’s work delves into the complexities of the human psyche through realistic portraiture in graphite and charcoal on bristol. Influenced by Renaissance, Rococo, and Surrealist art movements, she infuses her portraits with elements of romanticism, abstraction and distortion,evoking emotion beyond the literal. Her art bridges classical techniques with modern themes, often drawing inspiration from science fiction and video games to reimagine identity and expression.
Mask Off, 2021: A post-pandemic self-portrait, Mask Off, captures a moment of emergence. The artist portrays herself as both fragmented and whole, shedding the remnants of isolation and stepping into a renewed sense of self.
Svetlana Dubkova – I like me. My wife likes me
Bio: Raised in NYC as a first-generation Belarusian-American immigrant, Svetlana Dubkova found escapism in fantasy and imagination growing up. This manifests in her dreamlike photographic portfolio, which fuses feminine surrealism, vivid color-play, organic formations, and repetitive form. Her work is futuristic yet nostalgic all at once.
Artist Statement: You wanna hurt me? Go right ahead if it makes you feel any better. I'm an easy target. Yeah, you're right, I talk too much. I also listen too much. I could be a cold-hearted cynic like you... but I don't like to hurt people's feelings. Well, you think what you want about me; I'm not changing. I like... I like me. My wife likes me. My customers like me. 'Cause I'm the real article. What you see is what you get.
Juan Reyes Jr. – “Untitled”
Bio: 33 year old easily-startled portrait artist.
Artist Statement: I am following the unrelenting impulse to depict things through drawing, with no clue where it comes from and even less of an idea where it leads– but I certainly won’t stop chasing it. This relationship is one of the most prominent & unchanging facets of the way I see myself, so when depicting myself I chose the materials I feel most drawn to: canary yellow Canson paper, and a Nataraj Ruby HB pencil. The good thing about chasing this impulse is that whenever I’m able to capture something, it frees us both.
See the Art in Person
This showcase is an opportunity to witness the diversity of self-expression through the lens of talented freelance artists in our community. Don’t miss the chance to engage with the artists, explore their work, and reflect on your own sense of self!
Join us at the opening reception: RSVP Here
We can’t wait to see you there!