Shortlisted Artists

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Nicolás Blanco (2001, Mexico City) is a Mexican visual artist whose practice is primarily rooted in painting and sculpture. He studied a Bachelor’s Degree in Visual Arts at the Escuela Nacional de Pintura, Escultura y Grabado “La Esmeralda” (ENPEG) and furthered his training at the Universidad de las Artes de Yucatán (UNAY). 

As a shortlisted artist in various artist grant initiatives, his research focuses on working with matter in its essence, constructing narratives that emerge from materiality itself and the processes that shape it. He closely observes the behavior of materials and their potential to contain and generate meaning. Through direct experimentation, he seeks to reveal both their physical qualities and symbolic resonances within contemporary art projects. In his work, materials cease to function merely as supports and instead become interlocutors, understood not only as a medium but also as an end in themselves.

Barry Iverson is a former TIME Magazine photographer who covered the Middle East for 27 years from 1981 to 2007. Throughout his career, he photographed all the major events in the region, documenting paradigm-changing moments such as the assassination of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the aftermath of September 11, various coup d’états, archaeological endeavors, and famine. His extensive experience has led to the development of shortlisted artist profiles in contemporary art projects that reflect the complexities of this region.

Iverson is a graduate of the University of Colorado at Boulder. In 1985, after conducting two years of research at Harvard University and the Harvard Semitic Museum, he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to study the history of photography in Egypt. During the 1985-86 academic year, he also taught photography at the American University in Cairo.

His personal work is deeply influenced by the Near East and is rooted in the New Topographics movement of the 1970s, shaped further by photographic history, documentary work, and cinematic influences. Today, Iverson’s contributions to contemporary art projects continue to resonate within the art community, highlighting his role in emerging artist grant initiatives.

Olga Kliukina (Big Kate) is a self-taught mixed media and digital artist whose contemporary art projects seamlessly bridge the physical and digital realms. Combining tactile acrylic painting with digital transformation, she explores themes of change, emotional depth, and the balance between technology and nature. Art is her life—it allows her to process experiences, connect with others, and translate emotion into form. Originally from Siberia and now living in Thailand for over ten years, Kliukina's journey between these two worlds deeply influences her perspective on contrast and adaptation. Her works have been exhibited internationally, including in Barcelona, and she has been featured in Arts to Hearts Magazine (Issue 9) and the International Art Awards, highlighting her status as a shortlisted artist in various initiatives. Through her art, she invites viewers into intricate, ethereal spaces where vulnerability and strength, the organic and the technological, coexist in harmony, reflecting the beauty and resilience of transformation.

Dr. Ryan Montoya, MD is a board-certified Family Medicine physician and the Physician Medical Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade. A Harvard University graduate, he also completed studies at MIT and Johns Hopkins before earning his medical degree and residency at the University of Massachusetts. Dr. Montoya has provided full-spectrum primary care and addiction treatment in Massachusetts, practiced Family Medicine in Bosnia, India, and Russia, and served as Associate Medical Director at Planned Parenthood in Washington, DC.

In addition to his medical career, he is involved in a vibrant artist grant initiative, showcasing his talents as a professional comic book artist and writer, with work published in The New England Journal of Medicine and Scientific American. Trained at the Massachusetts College of Art, the Art Institute of Boston, the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Joe Kubert School, he has also designed luxury luggage for Goyard and project managed contemporary art projects in Copenhagen and Paris. Among his artistic achievements, Dr. Montoya is proud to have been recognized in shortlisted artist profiles, further highlighting his diverse skill set.

Sully Romero Ordoñez is a glass artist and social researcher whose work explores the intersections between memory, identity, and resistance. As part of her engagement with contemporary art projects, her practice is defined using glass as a symbolic medium—fragile yet persistent, transparent yet charged with history. She has participated in the Ibero-American Glass Biennial (Costa Rica 2022, Oaxaca 2024) and in collective exhibitions addressing themes of migration and Latin American roots, inspired by movements such as Impressionism and Kinetic Art—a movement of great influence in Venezuela, the country where she grew up. Through techniques such as casting and pâte de verre, Romero fuses material delicacy with profound social narratives. Her work is nourished by her journey across countries and cultures and by a constant search for reconciliation between beauty and wound. Currently, she is developing They Did Nothing, a project that turns glass into both testimony of Venezuelan resistance and a universal metaphor for human fragility in the face of violence. Recently, she was recognized in shortlisted artist profiles for various artist grant initiatives, highlighting her impactful contributions to the field.

Pooja Shinde (1992, India) is a Mumbai-based printmaker and visual artist whose contemporary art projects focus on etching as a means to explore layered narratives of urban architecture. Guided by the philosophy of wabi-sabi, her practice embraces transience, erosion, and the subtle beauty found in imperfection and time-worn surfaces.

Shinde completed her BFA in Painting (2016) and MFA in Printmaking (2018) from Sir J. J. School of Art, Mumbai. She has received several honors, including the Young Artist Scholarship in Visual Arts from the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, which is part of an artist grant initiative. Her work has been exhibited in galleries across India and internationally, and she has participated in various workshops, printmaking camps, and artist residencies, being recognized in shortlisted artist profiles throughout her career.

In addition to her studio practice, Shinde serves as a visiting faculty member at different design institutes and conducts workshops covering a range of printmaking techniques. She currently lives and practices in Mumbai.

Estifanos Solomon (1995, Ethiopia) is a contemporary visual artist from Ethiopia, currently based in Addis Ababa, who explores themes of passion, conflict, and personal narrative. His artistic journey commenced at the Russian Centre for Science and Culture (2014), where he honed foundational skills in art. Following this, he earned a diploma in painting from Entoto Polytechnic College (2018) and subsequently a Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking from the Addis Ababa University Alle School of Fine Arts and Design (2022). 

As a shortlisted artist in various artist grant initiatives, Estifanos utilizes painting and printmaking to weave together storytelling and personal experiences, creating contemporary art projects that invite viewers to engage in deeper emotional and societal reflections. His practice extends beyond the studio; he has taught in an art academy and led workshops in his studio. He specializes in guiding beginners, fostering their creative confidence, and encouraging exploration of diverse styles, from realism to abstraction.

Vera Tepliakova (2003, Russia) is a visual artist currently based in Georgia. After leaving Russia in 2022, she has independently continued to develop her artistic career, contributing to various contemporary art projects. Tepliakova, known for her innovative approach, works primarily with oil painting and shaped wooden panels, which she meticulously cuts and prepares herself. Her practice embodies a rich experimentation with material and form, reflecting her interest in emotional expression and social context. As a shortlisted artist profile in notable artist grant initiatives, she aims to further enhance her creative exploration.

Beyza Dilem Topdal (1991, İstanbul) is an artist and a researcher whose practice is rooted in an interdisciplinary interrogation of bodies, technologies, and materialities. As a shortlisted artist in an artist grant initiative, she draws on critical theories of cyborg, technoscience, multispecies assemblages, and new materialisms to generate new forms of kinship by following the natureculture encounters. Her contemporary art projects deconstruct and reconstruct local narratives, focusing on other-than-humans and speculative fiction, using various creative technologies in a research-based approach. 

Her practice moves between digital and material processes—from video, artificial intelligence, 3D sculpting, and interactive media to embroidery, 3D printing, and found objects. Across these media, Topdal-İrez constructs “speculative archives” that blur fact and fiction, asking how ecological memory, technological intervention, and material imagination might reshape the ways we live with other-than-human worlds.

Jingyi Zheng (1992, China) is an artist and researcher whose work explores the intersections of ecology, technology, and urban transition. As a shortlisted artist in various artist grant initiatives, her practice focuses on 'edge ecologies'—fragile forms of non-human life that emerge within vacant lands, fenced lots, and other suspended zones of the city. 

Through installation, video, and site-based study, Zheng investigates how plants and materials act as perceptive and archival agents within systems of speculation and redevelopment. 

Working across digital and physical media, she develops what she calls 'ecological texts,' structures that document how nature persists amid cycles of possession and erasure. Her contemporary art projects examine the politics of naming, maintenance, and visibility within these transitional urban landscapes, revealing how ecological resilience intersects with economic and social uncertainty.