Francesco Gioia
location: London, UKGioia [b.1991] is an artist working with photography and collage.
His work draws from diverse influences, spanning avant-garde experiments, surrealistic expression, film, collage, and Bauhaus studies. This fusion of styles and techniques shapes a visual language that is both introspective and personal. A recipient of numerous international awards, his work has been published in The Guardian, The Washington Post, and other major publications.
He has exhibited across the UK, USA, Africa, and Europe and has published a monograph, 57, with Parallel Editions.
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Thandiwe Muriu
location: Nairobi, KenyaThandiwe Muriu is a Kenyan artist known for creating surreal illusions in a unique mix of vibrant textiles, cultural practices, and beauty ideologies. Working with the kitenge fabric, a distinct African cloth, she makes her subjects both disappear and serve as a canvas of reflection to the questions of womanhood, identity and its evolution over time. Her illusions are completed by handmade accessories, constructed from reimagined objects associated with Kenyan daily life. Merging history and the present, Muriu pairs each work with an African proverb, expressing the collected oral wisdom of generations past even as she communicates culture in a visual form.
Born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, Thandiwe discovered photography at age 14, experimenting with her father's old Nikon camera. Self-taught, she immersed herself in books and video tutorials, learning from every resource she could find, as Kenya did not have any formal photography schools. By age 17, she was working professionally, and by 23 had shot her first solo advertising campaign. By 2019, she was photographing campaigns for some of the largest companies in East Africa.
As the sole woman operating in the male-dominated advertising photography industry in Kenya, Thandiwe repeatedly confronted questions around the role of women in society, the place of tradition, and her own self-perception. These experiences inspired her first work, the Camo series, a project of cultural reflection. Camo was the catalyst for her to push new boundaries in her photography, leading her into a deeply personal artistic journey.
Even though she is still a young artist, Thandiwe is a rising star of contemporary photography. Her works are part of significant museum and public collections like Collection Gervanne + Matthias Leridon, Fondation Gandur pour l’Art, and UHODA Collection, as well as being a Rockefeller Foundation Residency alumni, among others.
She currently resides in Nairobi, Kenya where she teaches workshops and regularly travels for assignments.
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Blaise Cepis
location: NY & LA, USACepis is an established photographer and director known for creating work that is bright, warm, playfully absurd, subtly opulent, and a touch surreal—a celebration of the exaggerated human condition and the unique traits that make people unforgettable.
After graduating from Parsons School of Design, Blaise began his career as an Art Director at leading agencies like JWT, Mother, and Sid Lee, shaping campaigns for iconic brands such as Vespa, Cadillac, Red Bull, PepsiCo, Absolut, and Smirnoff. Since stepping behind the lens, he’s seamlessly blended his commercial experience with fine art sensibilities to craft work for an impressive roster of collaborators, including Calvin Klein, Adidas, Standard Hotels, Virgin Hotels, Away Travel, Remy Martin, Velveeta, Bombas, Chevrolet, Headspace, Parade, Impossible Foods, The New Yorker, NBC, and Vice.
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Derrick Ofosu Boateng
location: Accra, GhanaDerrick Ofosu Boateng (Accra, 1998) is an award winning fine art photographer and founder of the African Art movement ‘Hueism’. Inspired by the wisdom of African proverbs and the richness of the continent, he creates vibrant images that veer between visual poetry and color therapy.
Boateng employs his unique chromatic language, stark silhouettes, which translate as lessons learned from proverbial storytelling to challenge negative and limited perceptions of African culture. Since the beginning of Derrick’s artistic journey, his photography and post-production have been entirely iPhone-based. Boateng’s work brims with energy, color and meaning, which are also the leading principles of Hueism.
As a teenager, Derrick Ofosu Boateng started taking pictures with his father’s phone. This is how he developed his taste of image-making and how he taught himself about digital photography and its possibilities.
In 2017, he started sharing his work on social media, which enabled him to build a platform to share his vision of Ghanaian life and represent daily experiences & lessons. Boateng’s work proposes a kaleidoscopic and colorful portrait of his country from within.
More recently his work was featured in magazines (Vogue, Bazzar, The Guardian), album covers (A beautiful revolution part 1 & 2 for Common), and even a symbol of struggle and empowerment during the war in Sudan with one of his self-portraits. If Boateng’s life could be recounted as a success story, it is first and foremost about the humility of making, the joy of sharing and positive documentation of life on the African continent.
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Lauren Greenfield
location: Los Angeles, USGreenfield is an American artist, documentary photographer, and documentary filmmaker. She has published three photographic monographs, directed four documentary films, exhibited in museums, and published in magazines and other publications.
In January 2016, Greenfield was honored by the International Center for Photography with the "2016 Spotlights Awards" (annual award honoring female artist in visual arts using photography or film). In December 2015, Greenfield was named the "Most Awarded Director in 2015" by AdAge for her work on #likeagirl. In July 2015, Greenfield was named one of the top 10 directors in Adweek’s Most Creative 100 People of 2015. In September 2015, she won the Emmy Award Best TV Commercial for #likeagirl. In January 2012, Greenfield was awarded the Sundance Film Festival Directing Award, US Documentary 2012 for her feature documentary film, The Queen of Versailles. She has been honored three times by American PHOTO magazine, starting with being named one of five "Breakthrough Artists" in the July/August 1995 issue. In 2003, American PHOTO magazine named her one of the "The 25 Most Important Photographers Now". In April 2005, she shared the third spot of the "100 Most Important People in Photography", again in American Photo magazine. She has been twice nominated for the Best Director Award by the DGA (Directors Guild of America) for Documentaries in 2012 and for commercials in 2015. She has received many photography awards and grants, including the Art Directors Club Gold Cube for Photography, National Geographic Grant, the ICP Infinity Award for Young Photographer (1996), a Hasselblad Foundation Grant, the NPPA Community Awareness Award, and the People's Choice Award at the Moscow Biennial.
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