Arts IC | ArtiFactory - Imagine a place to create

Free Admission – 120 N Dubuque St., Iowa City, IA

Kenna Gage

Kenna is an artist who works mainly in sketchbooks. In these sketchbooks she bounced between different mediums, (some of her favorites being watercolor, charcoal, chalk pastel, and inks), inspirations, and styles in order to complete pieces. Working in sketchbooks has allowed her to do all of these things without a fear of messing up her art, “no matter how good a sketch is there is always another page.” She takes inspiration from music. Mostly the 2010s hipster scene and the 1990s grunge scene. Film inspirations are the especially dark comedies and the Czech new wave movement. Along with modern culture. She is going abroad to study art this summer in Prague, Czechia. Currently, her work is teaching art classes at Maroger Fine Arts. Creating art for herself, as a form of self expression, benefits her own happiness. She hopes the viewers of her art will see her many inspirations, whether stupid or deep there are in the world.

Lisa Acherkan

Lisa is an artist who has gained inspiration from many sources. Those inspirations eventually brought her to apply and be accepted to the School of Visual Arts for 3D Animation and Visual Effects in New York. One inspiration was the globally renowned show, Arcane, released in Fall of 2021. After viewing this show, Lisa was struck with a realization that a completely turned her future career around. Becoming a professional artist is now her goal. The passion was always there to be nurtured. Lisa, now graduated from High School, is moving to New York City to pursue this passion in the arts. She will be developing her skills and creativity to one day inspire other young artists.

Lisa has always found great inspiration in Japanese animated shows. A few of her works appreciate the characters and that art form. Also inspired by the paint-like art style from the show Arcane she uses bright and high contrasting colors in her artwork. This was the driving focus in her AP Art investigation. As college portfolio season rolled around, Lisa dove into the communities that focused on similar goals to hers by learning how to draw figures from life and express creativity with characters in their environment.