Artist: Colette Wright Adams

Date: 2024

Dimensions: 22x28

Medium: Ink, pastel, marker & pencil on Archival Hot Press paper

Colette Wright Adams
b. Mitchell Field, NY, 1953
After living and studying in France, Nebraska, Switzerland and New York the artist received a BFA from the University of Michigan, cum laude. In 1979 she completed a MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in painting. Her mentors were Ray Yoshida, Richard Loving and Martin Prekop.
She continues to work professionally as a painter and drawer. Along with raising a family the artist spent 10 years in the film business, primarily as a writer. Since 2006 Adams has had an active practice as a curator. She is the founder and past director of the Uptown Arts Center (2010-2020); collaborated with 10,000 Ripples and Indira Johnson on a residency, among other projects. Colette created "Insight Portrait", "ArtSpotBox" and "Rotisserie Poetrie", all art & community projects, garnering support from a variety of nonprofits.
Colette's current art studio is in Albany Park, Chicago which also houses BringWonder Arts, a community and art collaborative, bringing free and low cost art experiences to the public.

Artist: Ashley Dequilla

Date: 2023

Dimensions: 18" x 24" x 2"

Medium: watercolor, photo transfer on oak panel

Ashley Dequilla (b. 1987) is an artist-filmmaker and archivist of Negrense, Tagalog and Ilonggo descent. She holds an MFA in Moving Image ('23) and is completing her MA in Art History ('25) from the University of Illinois Chicago. She is a Co-Curator Partner and researcher of the Philippine Heritage Collection at the Field Museum of Natural History. Ashley is the de facto archivist and collection manager for the Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago, securing the National Film Preservation Foundation award in 2024 and 2025 for 16mm home movies by Nicholas Galutera Viernes (1902-1991).

Artist: CJ Hungerman

Date: 2024

Dimensions: 20" x 20" x 2"

Medium: Acrylic, spray paint, ink, marker on canvas

CJ, originally form Pittsburgh, completed his graduate degree at Northern Illinois University. Since then he has been a self-employed artist that has and is creating large-scale vibrant murals throughout the United States. He has been in countless group and solo shows within the United States and also in a variety of countries in the world. CJ has been awarded grants, prizes, fellowships and has had his artwork produced for a handful of clothing lines.

Artist: Flor Hernandez

Date: 2024

Dimensions: 20 x 24

Medium: White charcoal, pastels, acrylic markers, glow in the dark paint on canvas

Professional interior designer by day, artist and photographer by soul. As a true Aquarius, I live somewhere between the clouds of imagination and the roots of the earth, always chasing meaning in the mess. Middle child energy, equal parts peacekeeper and rebel, balancing harmony and disruption in every brushstroke.

I mix mediums like life mixes moments; unexpected, layered, and sometimes beautifully chaotic.

My art translates feelings into color, thoughts into texture, and chaos into something coherent.

Artist: Cat Gilbert

Date: 2023

Dimensions: 24 x 24

Medium: acrylic on canvas

Hailing from the deep South, my first artistic experiences are rooted in nature. From swampland to red clay hills, my toys were moss, flowers, dirt, and berries. During my formative years I moved from the South to the plains of Nebraska, and the cliffs of Maine. Each ecosystem was deeply different and inspiring.
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I have worked in gardens (P. Allen Smith), publishing (Martha Stewart) and design. I hold a BA in Fine Art and Philosophy and have exhibited in many shows throughout the US. My focus is currently on paintings that showcase expressive and imaginative floral landscapes.

Using these imagined landscapes and plants (inspired by real plants), I create fantastical, bold natural worlds rooted in color theory. Inspired by my time at a fabric and wallpaper company, as well as working with gardening influencers (P. Allen Smith, Martha Stewart), pattern, color, and plant life become an essential focus to communicate more powerful feelings that force the expansion of the viewer's mind to understand the visual emotions.

Artist: Felix Ssuuna

Date: 2025

Dimensions: 30x40x1

Medium: Mexed media of acrylics on canvas mixed with a sack, loofah and threads.

Felix is a physical planner by professional, he did not attain formal art education, he is a self tought artist who has been painting since 2005 using the knowledge he got from high school and he started serious painting in 2021

Artist: Adrienne Smith

Date: 2024

Dimensions: 24" x 12" x 1"

Medium: Acrylic and ginkgo leaves on canvas

Adrienne Smith is a professional artist. She has a B.S. in fine art from Illinois State University, and a B.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her home studio-based business, Adrienne Smith Fine Art, specializes in paintings, prints, wheel-thrown ceramics, and custom picture framing. Her art is inspired by her love of nature, modern art and design, her Scandinavian heritage, and Zen philosophy.

Artist: Nxvember Gordon

Date: 2025

Dimensions: 24 x 36 x 4

Medium: Canvas, acrylic, spray paint, markers, texture on canvas

Nxvember Gordon is a visual artist whose work walks the line between vulnerability and defiance, drawing power from personal memory, pop culture, and the emotional archives of Black experience. A one-of-one artist, Nxvember's practice is rooted in storytelling, symbolism, and reinvention. Each piece is a standalone narrative-layered with collage, brush, spray, and text-that captures a world where beauty collides with struggle, and survival becomes poetry.

Artist: Pamela Staker

Date: 2014

Dimensions: 15 x 22.5"

Medium: Oil on gessoed paper

As is true for many artists, Pamela Staker has been making art ever since she could hold a crayon. She also went to school for it. Her mom, a painter who focused on realism, still life, and folk art taught her from a very young age. Staker loved painting and reading and found out in school that she also had a talent for math. Staker attended the University of Illinois, where she had a short stint as a math major. Pamela notes, "I always liked my math teachers and thought maybe I would teach too. It became clear by sophomore year that my first love was still art, so I transferred to the art department, where I received my BFA in painting." Early in her career, Pamela was awarded several grants, including an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship and a CAAP Individual Artist Grant from the City of Chicago, Department of Cultural Affairs. Her paintings are represented in numerous private and corporate collections, including The Sophy, a boutique hotel in Hyde Park, Chicago, IL; the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN; Capital One, Chicago, IL; WeWork, Chicago, IL; and Cascade Hills Country Club, Grand Rapids, MI.

Artist: Roberta Van Haitsma

Date: 2025

Dimensions: 36 x 24 x 1.5

Medium: Acrylic on canvas

Roberta VanHaitsma is a visual artist and teacher who delves into stories told through different media. The process of working through abstraction is particularly compelling to her as our personal stories often intersect as they are part of the common human experience. She has shown work throughout the Midwest and this is her third show with DIFFA.

Artist: Joe Kotas

Date: 2025

Dimensions: 56"x38"x1"

Medium: Acrylic, charcoal, pumice gel, glass bead gel, Black 4.0 on canvas

Joe Kotas is a self-taught artist based in Chicago. He works in paint, performance, film, photography and sculpture. His aim is to make artwork which is interesting to look at and contains elements of humor, pathos and sensuality. He is a co-founder of the art movement known as "Pseudorealism."

Artist: Jack Flora

Date: 2021

Dimensions: 35x60x2

Medium: Acrylic on canvas

I am a classically trained artist and graduate from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Born in South West Virginia and raised in folk and outsider arts. My work creates a personal visual vocabulary of queer magic through the use of symbols and images. My work aims to usher in love, community, and unity consciousness.

Artist: Karen Fike

Date: 2022

Dimensions: 40 x 30 x 1

Medium: Acrylic Mixed Media on Canvas

Karen Fike is a Chicago-based visual artist whose work explores identity, transformation, and emotional resilience through layered figurative abstraction. Her paintings are known for their textured surfaces, iridescent glazes, and shifting light-revealing different facets over time. Balancing strength and vulnerability, her work invites viewers into an intimate conversation about what it means to endure, evolve, and be seen.

Artist: Sam Bean

Date: 2025

Dimensions: 24x36"

Medium: Acrylic and Spray Paint on Canvas (full poem in Marker on back of Canvas)

Sam Bean is a Chicago-based conceptual artist who lifts borders between visual and literary mediums. Her current works, which layer original poetry into dynamic compositions, call on the soul in a contemplation, navigation, and discovery of what it means to be alive. Each piece contains excerpts from a complete poem that is inscribed on the back of the canvas. Bean plays with conceptual underpinnings of joy, pain, grief, and growth that welcome the wandering eye and provoke the visiting mind.

Originally from the East Coast, Bean attended a magnet arts high school before crossing the country to expand her studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and eventually relocating to Chicago. Bean's work, both visual and literary, has been seen in The Santa Barbara Independent, WORD! Magazine, Woman Made Gallery, The New Haven Art Showcase, Lagunitas Gallery Chicago, and here at DIFFA Art For Life in previous years.

Artist: Anna Lentz

Date: 2025

Dimensions: 24" x 20" x 1.5"

Medium: Acrylic on canvas

Anna Lentz is a visual artist and arts educator living in Dundee, IL. She studied anthropology, women's studies, and studio art at Saint Mary's College, Notre Dame, IN as well as community art at California College of the Arts in Oakland, CA. She earned her MA in Art Education at School of the Arts Institute, Chicago, IL. Her research interests include community-based art education, hospitality, and vernacular art. Anna currently processes her emotions and life happenings through painting and sewing vibrant colors and shapes. She also explores the natural worlds of her woodland home where she practices conservation and agroforestry.

Artist: Rielly Marquez

Date: 2022

Dimensions: 48" x 36"

Medium: Acrylic on canvas

Born and raised in Denver, CO I now reside in Chicago, IL where I continue my path as a visual artist. With a BFA in studio art and a minor in Sexuality Studies from Metropolitan State University of Denver, my artistic journey is a fusion of passion and purpose.

During my time in undergrad, I discovered the power of merging my artistic expression with sexuality and queerness. This amalgamation not only liberated my creative spirit but also sparked a commitment to represent queer and sexual realities.

Name: Colette Wright Adams

Date: 2025

Dimensions: 36" x 36" x1.5"

Medium: Water-mixable oil on primed cotton canvas

After living and studying in France, Nebraska, Switzerland and New York the artist received a BFA from the University of Michigan, cum laude. In 1979 she completed a MFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) in painting. Her mentors were Ray Yoshida, Richard Loving and Martin Prekop.
She continues to work professionally as a painter and drawer. Along with raising a family the artist spent 10 years in the film business, primarily as a writer. Since 2006 Adams has had an active practice as a curator. She is the founder and past director of the Uptown Arts Center (2010-2020); collaborated with 10,000 Ripples and Indira Johnson on a residency, among other projects. Colette created "Insight Portrait", "ArtSpotBox" and "Rotisserie Poetrie", all art & community projects, garnering support from a variety of nonprofits.
Colette's current art studio is in Albany Park, Chicago which also houses BringWonder Arts, a community and art collaborative, bringing free and low cost art experiences to the public.

Artist: Alicja Swiatlon

Date: 2024

Dimensions: 7x7x1

Medium: Acrylic on raw canvas

Originally from Poland Alicja Swiatlon graduated from the University of Arts in Poznan, Poland with Distinction, earning her MFA in Painting, as well as MFA in Art Education. Already as a student Alicja launched a successful career as an artist. She has been exhibiting paintings ever since. Her paintings are studies of colour, inspired by nature and feelings and brought into abstract form. In the years 2008-2013 Alicja worked as a volunteer in South Africa, some of her paintings are inspired by memories of this beautiful country. She moved to Calgary, Canada in 2013 where she worked as an artist as well as an Art Instructor. In summer 2021 finally she moved to beloved Salt Spring Island to live close to nature and continue
her career as an artist. Alicja was the Finalist of the Salt Spring National Art Prize 2023/2024, one of the most important art competitions in Canada and is the Finalist of the Parallel Art Show this year. Alicja Swiatlons' paintings are in private collections in Europe, South Africa and North America.

Artist: Patsy McEnroe

Date: 2007

Dimensions: 16" x 20"

I began pursuing photography as a hobby. I took photos of lighthouses, trees, architecture, landscapes and, of course, skylines with car streaks. At that time, I never imagined that one day photography would become my career. In 1998, I earned my degree in Commercial Photography from the Ohio Institute of Photography and Technology in Dayton, Ohio. I then moved to Chicago where I thought I could land a job right away. Not quite!
Working your way up is always a humbling experience, but it turned out it was also a great way to learn the business. Sometimes "photography" actually means mopping or vacuuming floors, carrying heavy cases, burning your fingers on hot bulbs, and running around to labs. But - finally - I got a big break: an opportunity to work with one of the most prestigious architectural photography firms, Hedrich Blessing Photographers. This is where I learned my craft.

Artist: Maja Kerin

Date: 2019

Dimensions: 30" round

Medium: Fine Art Acrylic Glass Print

Based in Monaco, award-winning photographer Maja Kerin crafts evocative works that reach beyond the visible, revealing the subtle, mystical threads that connect all of life. Renowned for her distinctive 'painting photography' style, her imagery moves beyond documentation, becoming contemplative explorations in colour, light, and form - each designed to stir emotion and awaken the spirit.

Drawing inspiration from the quiet wisdom of nature and the hidden poetry of urban spaces, Maja approaches each subject as a spiritual encounter. Her lens becomes a conduit between the seen and the unseen, capturing the subtle energies, rhythms, and harmonies that dwell beneath the surface of ordinary life.

Artist: Susan Keats

Dimensions: 20x20

What happens when a woman reaches an age where she is cast aside, her talents, value and life experience ignored. There's an underlying resentment that grows into silent fantasies.

My work offers a whimsical view of our inner thoughts and emotions. Topics such as fear of change, day dreams, annoyance, or desire to be magically transported elsewhere are depicted in a dreamy, fantastical way. I find inspiration in Outsider Art and all forms of art that tell a story. As a child my mother shared a book called "A Boy A Dog and A Frog." It was a picture book with beautiful illustrations, but it had no words to read. It gave us, the kids, the opportunity to interpret the images and tell the story, even though we could not read yet. I have always been drawn to art that tells a story, and this book had a large influence on me. The stories I paint may not be the stories others see, and for me, that is the joy of it.