Managing Artists:
Trina Lyn is a Charleston native and a fine artist. She has been entrenched in artistic and educational community events in the Lowcountry for over ten years. It has given her a large pallet of experience in everything from face painting, summer art camps with underprivileged kids, fundraising for local theaters, or even throwing “rock painting parties” for the neighborhood. With contagious enthusiasm and a genuine love for everything creative, Trina has a knack for making others feel at home with the creative arts.
Sean Gallagher works as a freelance illustrator and graphic designer, residing with his family and herd of cats in West Ashley. He has experience as a managing editor in newsrooms and has been a full-time artist for 3+ years.
Supporting Artists:
Michelle Seay grew up on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, where she developed her connection to the sea and created her earliest memories of drawing. Seay is a 1994 College of Charleston BofA Honors graduate, recipient of the Liberace Foundation Award Scholarship, and completed a post-graduate residency at the School of Visual Arts of Manhattan, NY. A certified USCG Captain, Seay spent nearly two decades working offshore in the Atlantic fishing sharks commercially, delivering boats, sailing, owning and operating a charter boat business based in the Charleston Harbor. Seay is an internationally distinguished artist with working private collections throughout the US and Europe. She is passionate about the act of drawing as a daily practice and capturing the world wherever she may be. Local restaurants featuring her work include Ruru’s, Harold’s Cabin, and Coast. She has been a homeowner in the Wraggsborough Garden District on Charlotte Street for more than 20 years and is currently living with her three sons and working in her home studio.
Nysa Hicks is a Puerto Rican American who is strongly influenced by the color and vibrancy of her culture and family. This ebullience combined with the peaceful and harmonious marshlands of the Lowcountry have provided her with balanced inspiration that shapes her artwork daily. Nysa’s works include large-scale murals on both rooftops and walls, portrait paintings and pencil drawings, and abstract paintings on canvas and wood panels. “For me, art is exploration. Like an actor exploring a character, an artist explores its subject and its medium. Bringing art to life is a journey of learning and imagination. Learning how to manipulate a new medium. Imagining the stories and the moments that shaped someone’s face. It’s so much more than just creating something beautiful.” For more information on Nysa and her art, please take a look at her Instagram @NysaCreative and her website www.nysacreative.com.
Rosemary Giusti Dillon is a local Charleston Artist. Her chosen mediums are painting, clay sculpture, and working with recycled materials. Originally from New England, she has lived in Connecticut, California and currently lives here in South Carolina with her family.
Lauren Ridenour has lived and created in Charleston for 6 years. She’s an abstract artist, who uses bold and energetic lines to channel her inspiration and thoughts found in everyday life.
Eileen Szwast explores how the interaction between individuals and their environment can positively affect their community by using her versatility with many materials. Among her favorites are oil paint or pen and ink for paintings and drawings, and bamboo for abstract sculptures. Much of her inspiration comes from the gifts that Jesus leaves for her in the ordinary beauty of her surroundings: sunlight on Azalea bushes, silvery shadows from a full moon, children smiling as they bicycle around her neighborhood. She is fond of passing on this message of joy and harmony by inviting the viewers to become part of the artwork, which is exactly what the IN BLOOM: Awakening Vivian Moultrie Park project does: friends and neighbors can walk side by side among the painted columns. Eileen’s Indigo mural is her favorite because of the abstracted resin bees above the flowers. Their strange triangular shapes remind her of UFO’s, which, as Eileen puts it, “Just makes me laugh whenever I see it.” All in all, Eileen wishes to draw people together with her artwork by reminding them of the simple beauty that is right here, right now. To view more of Eileen’s work, please visit eileenszwast.wordpress.com.
Tami Boyce is an illustrator and graphic designer with a fun and whimsical style, is based in Charleston, South Carolina. “Holding a pencil in my hand has been my passion for as long as I can remember,” she said. “I count myself as an extremely lucky individual because I have been able to make a career out of it. We all live in a very serious world, and I like to use my quirky style to remind us of the love, joy, and humor that is often overlooked around us.” To see more of Tami’s work, visit tamiboyce.com.
Rae Weekes with HEART is a nonprofit that provides visual arts, music, and performing arts mentorships and community engagement for adults with disabilities who want to grow and develop as artists. At HEART, we have created a center where artists of all abilities work together to create something that enriches and transforms the community. HEART is a creative and adventurous family of artists, performers, and all-around creative misfits. Since 2014, we have helped adults with disabilities create compelling art, lasting relationships, community support, accomplishment, acceptance, a higher self-esteem and a sense of purpose and meaning. At HEART, we transcend our abilities through collaborative art.
Ingrid Sibley is weaving her way through various worldwide Black port cities to create a story which is at once connective and diverse. Calling on her education as an art director, and with deep experiences across the fields of language, advertising, performance, education and writing, she pays homage to the scattered descendants of her ancestors while retracing and studying the cultural meccas of a stolen people. With a keen observance of the past, present and future, she creates sacred spaces while personally reckoning with vortices of group trauma. Each city requires a unique outpouring of artistry, resulting in a documentary montage forming a connective vision of a seemingly divided diaspora.
Kate Barattini is a local artist inspired by her love of surfing and the charms that radiate from the natural world. She dabbles with digital art and primarily works with the ever flowing layers of acrylics. She’s grateful for her expression of visual art through these mediums to get ideas out of her head and shared with the world.
Paisley Addams is a single mother working full time, and residing in North Charleston. She loves artistic mediums of all types, and being creative in whatever way she can-whether it’s through her day job or artistic projects coordinated through Enough Pie. In the past, she has created art for the Free Verse Poetry Festival and the crosswalk paintings on Upper King Street. She’s excited to be a part of the Vivian Moultrie Project, and to share art with the community again. Paisley was also a touring musician, and continues to make music when she can.
Riivo Kruuk is an Estonian American artist from Ft. Lauderdale, FL. He was born and raised along the Northern East Coast of the U.S. and moved around the United States before settling in Ft. Lauderdale in 2010. Just recently having moved to Charleston after graduating from Florida Atlantic University with a BFA in painting, he is finding his feet in the local art world. He specializes in hyperrealism, representation, and portraiture. He has shown work in Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, Boca Raton, Boyton, and now Charleston! He is inspired by cartoons, street art and graffiti, soccer, hip hop culture, renaissance and baroque paintings and sculptures, and languages. Recently he has done work with Baselhouse Muralfest in Wynwood Miami, The Organic Bean Co Coffee Shop, All-n-One smoke shop, Skoogies Mt. Pleasant. Riivo Suave is creating representations of his inspirations and surroundings one piece of art at a time.
Moses Sanchez is a prominent Mexican painter. His early works are found in restaurants such as Henry’s on the Market and Crave Italian Oven and Bar. Sánchez is a self-taught plastic artist, and became a full-time artist in 2018 after returning to Charleston.
Sarah Stewart
Charles Edwards
Videographer:
Jorge Arroyo, of Small Galaxy Productions is a King Street local connected to downtown Charleston’s music & arts scene. He wants to see downtown Charleston connect even more artists with community growth through social media to show a larger base of what Charleston has to offer. His services include shooting 4K video to editing & promotion. He has collaborated with many bands to make their visions come to fruition, including local bands Susto, Babe Club, The Mobros, and The High Divers.
Photographer:
Adam Chandler with more than 15 years experience as a professional photographer, Adam specializes in creating images that beautifully capture his subjects and tell the unique stories of what they do. After spending six years in Orlando as the in-house photographer for Hard Rock International, Adam moved to the Lowcountry in 2011. He worked as the staff photographer for the Charleston City Paper and has since been fortunate to work with a variety of awesome local clients including the Coastal Community Foundation, Enough Pie, Lowcountry Local First, CHARLIE Magazine, DIG South, and Charleston Wine + Food Festival.
Adam’s work experience also extends to the realm of education having developed and taught a range of photography classes at Seminole State College in Orlando, FL and, in recent years, teaching digital media with Yo Art, Inc. Adam’s broad range of experience as a successful image maker is most vividly demonstrated by viewing his work at www.adamchandlerphotography.com.