Chris Hyndman is a Canadian-born painter who lives and works in Chicago. His work has been featured in New American Paintings, Manifest’s International Painting Annual, and exhibitions at the Institute for the Humanities at the University of Michigan, Susanne Hilberry Gallery, Wasserman Projects, and IBIS Contemporary Art.

Hyndman’s paintings in Under the Surface are based on images of curtains, suggesting shallow stage-like spaces in front of which viewers might pose and perform as well as stand and look. “I think about the curtains in a way that one might think about color, as a type of veil, frame, or screen that helps present an experience while simultaneously acknowledging its artifice or feint—the filtering or obfuscation of realities lying behind. One can also consider painting, generally, in these terms, and that maybe one of the reasons we so readily conceive of paint as color, is our awareness of its role in creating veils that present and hide simultaneously.”

Breonna Chyann Phillips creates graphic motifs that conceptualize ideas of nostalgia, home and social issues. Growing up in Detroit, Michigan she uses her ideas of home to inspire the imagery in her work and fabrics. Working as seamstress before attending College for Creative Studies motivated her choice in a career in Fiber and Textiles. While working with the Community Arts Partnership with CCS teaching in the same after school art programs she participated in as a child, she felt a driving force to address challenges faced with Detroit public school systems and the environment around her which is a common theme in her work. After traveling to Zimbabwe and Chonoi University with College for Creative Studies to learn traditional methods of batik and dying, she uses these techniques to touch on a deeper aspect of home, foundation and Identity. Using her diverse range of skills, she has been able to work with local brands like Detroit VS Everybody in developing merchandise and now works as Studio Assistant for Shayla Johnson Owner of Scarlett Crane a large Screen printing and Textiles studio in Detroit.

Lorena Cruz Santiago is an artist working across photography, video, and installation informed and inspired by her family’s indigenous origins in Oaxaca, Mexico. Her work covers topics of migration, assimilation, labor, and more recently, collaborative image-making with her parents as a form of indigenous autonomy. Cruz Santiago holds a BFA in Photography from Sonoma State University (2016) and an MFA in Photography from Cranbrook Academy of Art (2019).

Virginia Rose Torrence co-owns, operates and teaches at Ceramics School, a community ceramics studio and Artist Residency in Hamtramck MI. Virginia’s art practice is sometimes making pottery, and sometimes making sculptures. She received her BFA in Craft/Ceramics from the College for Creative Studies (Detroit, MI) in 2013 and her MFA in Ceramics from Alfred University (Alfred, NY) in 2016. Virginia lives and makes art in Hamtramck, MI with her partner Henry Crissman, two dogs, two cats and a parakeet.