ShowUp is a groundbreaking contemporary art exhibition, education, and community-building space, creating an innovative environment for underrepresented artists' voices and visions. About: Print: "REACHING UNLIMITED FAME" Artist: Thomas "Kwest" Burns is a painter with roots in Graffiti and Hip Hop culture. His work conveys a variety of socially relevant themes, including commentary on urban life, politics and culture. He began drawing and painting out of a passion to express his ideas and visions. Motivated by themes such as love, oppression, freedom and cultural heritage, Kwest works primarily with acrylic paint, oil, spray paint, and pastels. Thomas has created murals throughout the city of Boston. He presently works as a freelance artist painting and creating murals for youth programs and schools. His goal is to continue to elevate, improvise, educate, and process experiences while enhancing his skills as an artist. Print: "CODESWITCH 5" Artist: Barrington "Vex" Edwards is an artist and community activist from Boston. He attended the Massachusetts College of Art and earned a BFA in Communication Design and a MSAE in Art Education. Barrington taught art at the Boston Arts Academy for nineteen years. He is an award winning teacher and artist, a publisher of comics and graphic media and works as a freelance artist. He currently teaches Art Education at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Barrington consistently works to develop his practice as a maker, social interventionist, and teacher. Print: "ELEVATED" Artist: Ricardo DEME5 Gomez is a Dominican born / Boston-based self-taught artist who takes passion in drawing, painting, and graphic design. As an 80’s kid, Deme was heavily inspired by music, movies, and graffiti culture. His artwork depicts various subjects ranging from portraiture, sports, urban life, and lettering. His work is sought after by established businesses and inventive entrepreneurs alike. Chez-Vous, Fresh Food Generation, Kush Groove, and Chilacates to name a few. He’s also exhibited works at galleries such as the Piano Factory, AAMARP, and Artist’s For Humanity. Print: "WIND CRIES MARY" Artist: Shea Justice is an artist and teacher who works primarily in watercolor and collage. He attended Boston University and Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University. Born in Roxbury, he currently teaches drawing and painting at Lincoln Sudbury Regional High School. His work has been shown in galleries and museums like the Isabelle Stewart Gardner and the DeCordova. He is a member of AAMARP (African American Master Artist Residency Program) at Northeastern University. He continues to participate in the Urban Sketchers art group and cohosts the Family Tree radio program at wrbb radio Northeastern. He is also a member of Violence Transformed, a Boston based arts group that addresses violence and systemic racism through activities like workshops and exhibitions. Print: "GHOST DEINI" Artist: Chepe "Sane" Leña, born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and raised in Jamaica Plain, is an urban artist whose roots run deep in the cultural and visual language of street art. With Salvadoran heritage—his parents immigrated to the United States in the early 1970s—Chepe’s art is infused with a unique blend of cultural identity and urban experience. As a young boy, he often visited Emilio’s, the local bodega, where he first encountered the sights and sounds that would shape his artistic journey. He watched break dancers spinning on cardboard and older kids sharing “black books” filled with graffiti sketches—“ghetto hieroglyphics” that told stories of resilience, community, and creativity. Print: "FUTURA" Artist: Rob "Note" Stull is an accomplished illustrator, curator, penciler, inker, designer and creator of comic books. With a career spanning two decades, he is a comic book industry veteran who has worked for every major publisher in the industry. He is the founder of Ink On OG (little rob)Paper; a production studio specializing in illustration for comic book, magazine and print-based media, and a partner in True Elements Publishing LLC. Stull’s comic book projects include: SPIDER-MAN ADVENTURES, FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN, MARVEL vs CAPCOM 3, IRON MAN, UNCANNY X-MEN, X-FORCE, WOLVERINE and NEW MUTANTS for Marvel Comics. TELLOS for Image Comics. 52, DANCE, NIGHTWING, JLA and FIRESTORM for DC Comics. He was also featured in the ground breaking books BLACK COMIX: AFRICAN AMERICAN INDEPENDENT COMICS, ART AND CULTURE and THE HISTORY OF AMERICAN GRAFFITI. Print: "WYCLEF" Artist: It has been a long time since David "Ds7" Taylor has experienced the thrill of viewing his "graffiti" on the subways of Boston. Unauthorized art in public places at 15 years old was the beginning of Ds7 aerosol art. Painting on clothes was his 1st art job. At 20 years old while studying art @ Museum School of Fine Arts Boston, Ds7's art was displayed at a gallery on Newbury St. Boston, which sold and was noticed by a hair salon owner whom hired Ds7 to paint 6 floor to ceiling portraits. From there Ds7 started his career as a artist and found new love of portraits. Ds7's inspirations come from within, music, film, many travels, associate artisans of their trade and "graffiti". Ds7 technics and styles are original, mastering each technic and or style that he creates then moving on to another to master, repeating that over years. Known amongst his peers as one of the 1st original aerosol portrait artists in Boston, Ds7 has also mastered other mediums of painting portrait.
