Fall into Focus
residency program
Cynthia Miller
Illinois, USA

Fiction

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After teaching high school English in Chicago for many years, I now write fiction from my small farm in rural Illinois, where I spend many happy hours with my goose, duck and alpaca friends. Animal welfare is one of my passions, and my stories seek to capture the everyday challenges and triumphs of life as a farm animal. While on retreat at Arteles, I plan to begin experimenting with science fiction. I am inspired by the power of Mother Nature and by the resilience of the human spirit.
Felicitas Butt
Berlin, Germany

Drawing, Installation, Painting

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Felicitas Butt is an independent visual artist whose work explores the boundaries between the physical and emotional realms through various mediums. Working across painting, sculpture, digital art, and mixed media, Felicitas brings her audience into vivid, immersive worlds that provoke reflection on personal identity, human connection, and the natural environment.

Her artistic process is deeply experimental, allowing her the freedom to blend textures, materials, and forms to create dynamic visual narratives. Whether through the fluidity of paint on canvas or the rigid structure of sculpted materials, her work evokes emotion and thought, inviting viewers to engage with the deeper meanings beneath each piece.

Felicitas’s dedication to pushing creative boundaries is matched by her commitment to sustainability and conscious artistry, frequently incorporating recycled or repurposed materials in her work. This approach not only enhances the visual impact of her creations but also reinforces her message of harmony between nature and humanity.
Pei-En Chen
Kaohsiung City, Taiwan

Collages, Graffiti, Photography

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"Is this the end?"

Penn Chen graduated from the Interdisciplinary Art Program at National Kaohsiung Normal University. She enjoys creating visual works and interdisciplinary art. She was also a member of the Taiwan Wild Bird Federation and once held a solo exhibition about the relationship between the soundscape and the birds of her residence in 2022.

October
Adam Zmith
UK

Writing, Podcasts, Theatre

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"I'm a promiscuous writer who makes work about bodies and politics"

Adam Zmith is a writer and podcast producer whose work focuses on sex, queer identity, LGBTQ+ lives, history, art and desire. He is also a performer, of sorts.

Adam is writing one book about UK queer history, another about foot fetishes, a musical and a dance show (with Gary Clarke Company). Adam is the author of Deep Sniff: A History of Poppers and Queer Futures (Repeater Books, 2021), which won the Polari First Book Prize in 2022. In 2022 he wrote and produced The Film We Can’t See for the BBC. Adam co-edited the anthology Unreal Sex with So Mayer (Cipher Press, 2021).

In podcast, he hosts Free Sex, and co-wrote and produced Press Play, Turn On for Audible in 2023. He is a co-director of the podcast production company Aunt Nell, where he has worked on The Log Books (2018-21), Queer Roots and Routes (2023), and more.
Patrick Wylie
Northern California, USA

Writing


I write plays (stage and screen) and children's books. I cultivate my craft in the last quarter of my life, after a 35-year technical career, an endeavor an author friend calls “late work.” I value inquiry over ideology, appreciate the nuances of human experience, and honor artistic integrity. During my residency, my primary project will be “Beauty Ranch,” a play about Jack and Charmian London, who, summoned from Limbo, return to their California home to heal past traumas, thus freeing them to enter the Elysium Fields. Additionally, I will finalize a drama-horror screenplay titled “Stigmata,” about a historic church in the Arizona desert performing fraudulent miracles and the divine retributions delivered by a mysterious traveler. I will submit it to an international contest in October. An artist and I will adapt the screenplay into a graphic novel when I return home.

Alison Lorraine
Perth, Australia

Mixed Media

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Alison Lorraine is an emerging artist based in Perth, Western Australia, specializing in mixed media artwork utilizing alcohol inks, paint, and gel pens. Her creations are characterized by a focus on vibrant colours and emotional depth.

Drawing inspiration from the natural world, personal memories, and dreams, she channels emotional responses and intuition into her work to evoke complex emotions and perspectives.

By capturing both the seen and unseen aspects of her subjects, she aims to convey the energies and intangible sensations that invite viewers to engage in a shared connection and emotional experience.

Chungwen Chu
Taiwan

Writing, Painting, Filming

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"(???????)…(!)"

Made from my own flaws, I use anxiety, doubts, contradictions, and care—yes, care—to reshape reality. I like to keep things simple.

To be honest, I’m not great at any one thing. I often use words, painting, filming, and lately, I’m obsessed with gum printing. I think that’s what makes art limitless—always finding some new “other.”

My work might seem a bit boring, but I’ve hidden some human beauty and the quiet pride that comes from simply carrying on.
Meagan Shein
Ann Arbor, USA

Drawing, Collage, Installation

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I primarily draw with pen and ink on paper painted with encaustic and beeswax. I co-founded Sien Collective and make collaborative work in cyanotype, collage and installation in sewn paper and plastic.

My work is concerned with transparency, what we see and what we don’t; what we remember as opposed to what is perhaps really there. My fascination with transparency evolved from a repeatedly futile attempt to see beneath the surface. I want to make space for possibility and alternative narratives: intersections of history, archetype, mythology and memory.
Peng-Hsiu Chen
Taiwan

Performance, visual art, combined artist

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A Taiwanese human specialising in Combined Artist, focusing on live performance, theatre-making, and visual arts Based in London.

OC’s work often focuses on integrating --the body, materials, visual elements, sounds, and elements of discordance and the bizarre. Liminal spaces. The question marks drive O forward, but finding the questions often takes time.?

Julia Fernández
Madrid, Spain

Performance, Photography

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I am a multidisciplinary artist and teacher. I explore art mainly through performance and like to experiment with new formats and materials. I work with old and found objects as a way to a sustainable and caring art practice. I expand my creative investigation with other people to create collaborative approaches. The topics I explore at the moment are memory, relationships, nature, the environment and feminism.

Yu-Hsien Lin
Taoyuan, Taiwan

Forest healing, Painting, Spirituality

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"Bring people into the forest, bring the forest closer to people."

I am a forest therapist from Taiwan, specializing in leading people into the natural environment to experience the five senses. I am also a graduate student currently studying the impact of forest healing on human creativity.

I like illustration, dancing, meditation, animals, and anything that helps me grow.
Liana Mack
New York, USA

Fiction, Poetry

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Liana Mack is a writer from the Bronx, New York. Her poetry and erotica has been featured in Hobart, Hunger Mountain Review, Sarka, Triangle House Review, Dream Boy Book Club, and dirt child.
Chao Wang
Hangzhou, China

Painting, Printmaking, Ceramics

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"Mountain peaks do not float unsupported." — John Dewey

Chao Wang is a contemporary artist whose work draws inspiration from both science fiction literature and surrealist art. Her pieces are distinguished by a unique fusion of organic and artificial elements, reflecting an exploration of the evolving relationship between humans and technology. Wang delves into how people interact with an increasingly technological society, often incorporating motifs like cogs and machinery alongside biological forms reminiscent of microorganisms.

Fascinated by the strange, unsettling beauty of the natural world, Wang creates intricate, multi-layered compositions that explore the tension and harmony between organic and mechanical forms. Her surrealist paintings evoke a world both familiar and fantastical, blending imagery from the past and present to suggest visions of the future.

Born in Hangzhou, China, and currently living in New York City, Wang's artistic journey began at a young age as she experimented with various mediums and techniques. Specializing in oil and acrylic on canvas, her textured, visually complex works challenge viewers' perceptions of the natural and the artificial. Through her work, she aims to create a visual dialogue between the natural and the technological, exploring the paradoxical connections between these two worlds.
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