Light Grey Iceland Residency 2016 : TEAM BASALT
August 5 - August 10, 2016.
The Light Grey Residency Program: Team Basalt included a diverse team of concept artists, photographers, illustrators, and fine artists from different areas of the globe. The TEAM BASALT residents hail from the United States, England, Denmark, and France. Throughout the program, the artists traveled through Northern Iceland visiting some of the most active, geothermal, and remote locations. Our day excursions included hikes around boiling mud pots, sleeping volcanoes, basalt caves, geothermal pools and more. Equipped with our sketchbooks, cameras, and hiking gear, we set out on an adventure of a lifetime to explore, document, collaborate.
Read more about our 2016 artists in residence teams below.
TEAM BASALT: Bill Robinson, Casey Hunt, Claire Hummel, Hadi Jalali, Irene Koh, Jess Nicholls, Lissa Treiman, Matthew Cicanese, Nadia Enis, Tuna Bora, Ricardo Bessa, Roger Glen Young Jr, and Adam Hoppus.
Jess Nicholls
Jess Nicholls is a Production Designer/Art Director and Illustrator living and working in Copenhagen, Denmark. She graduated from The Animation Workshop in 2015 and has worked on feature films, commercials, exhibitions and illustrations, primarily in the animation field, for clients such as Lego, ILM, Art & Graft and United Visual Artists. Jess also co-developed and took on the role of Creative/Art Director on ‘Tsunami’ – a short film about the 2011 tsunami in Japan, which, amongst other international film festivals, was part of the Cinéfondation Selection at Cannes Film Festival 2015.
Bill Robinson
Bill Robinson is an illustrator and designer based in Los Angeles, with experience across animation, games, and publishing. He has illustrated over twelve books for children and worked with clients that include Disney, Dreamworks, Universal, Random House and Little Brown Books. Most recently he has been the illustrator of the Anna & Elsa chapter books based on the hit movie, Frozen. He can also regularly be found at comic conventions like San Diego Comic Con and Emerald City Comic Con, where he sells his books and artwork.
Claire Hummel
Claire grew up in LA, went to school in Rhode Island, and ended up in Seattle where she now lives with her two snakes, Xoco and Rodney. She spent a substantial chunk of time in the games industry, and now spends her days working as an interactive production designer at HBO, on a lot of cool projects she wishes she could talk about. She finally learned how to say Eyjafjallayökull during her last trip, and is psyched to figure out how to pronounce the rest of Iceland's glaciers during this one.
Photo by Roger Young
Tuna Bora
Tuna Bora is a multi-diciplinary illustrator who caters to visual storytelling across many fields. Additionally she works in print, gives lectures, and participates in gallery shows. Her independently published books are sold through select galleries worldwide.
She is currently working as the production designer on Patrick Osborne's Pearl at Google ATAP.
Photo by Irene Koh
Hadi Jalali
Paris-based programmer turned concept artist, Hadi works primarily in film, advertising, and theme parks. He's worked with Lionsgate, Rhythm & Hues Studios, Mirada, Thinkwell, and Sweetrush, among others, and is massively addicted to movies and music, though what he gets the most nerdy about are menswear and technology.
Photo by Irene Koh
Roger Glen Young Jr
Motion Graphics Artist and Illustrator currently employed at Funimation Entertainment in Dallas, TX. He's had the opportunity to work for a number of clients like Gatorade, Wendy's, Spy Optics, Leap Frog, Mary Kay, 7-11, and more. Roger's father was in the military, so as a child he was fortunate enough to travel to various parts of the United States and Europe at an early age. In his spare times Roger loves to experiment with motion graphics, illustrate, read, and play video games.
Photo by Irene Koh
Ricardo Bessa
Ricardo Bessa is a Portuguese illustrator currently living in London. He's done work for editorial, publishing, animation and advertising, for clients such as Puffin Books, HBO, MTV, Boom! Studios, The Telegraph and Financial Times, to name a few. His work is a mix of western comics and Japanese animation and video games, peppered with his own experience growing up in a small Portuguese town.
Photo by Roger Young
Irene Koh
Koh is an illustrator and comic artist based out of easy breezy Del Rey. She was born in Seoul, spent her childhood in Tokyo, was raised in Connecticut, and acquired both education and a nice vintage at the Rhode Island School of Design, where she received her BFA in Illustration ('12). She previously did visual development for video games, but has more recently settled into comics, with clients including DC, Marvel, and IDW.
Photo by Matthew Cicanese
Casey Hunt
Visual Amalgamist | Philosopher Hobbit | Oneiric Wanderer
After graduating BFA in Digital Media from Otis College, Casey pulled a stint as one third of the directing collective ‘Three Legged Legs’, leaving a humble body of audio visual madness in his wake. After its dissolution, an extended sabbatical led to co-founding the radical indie dev space ‘Glitch City’. Since then, he’s been contributing Narrative & World Building / Level Design / Miscellaneous Artistry to the Kickstarted Indie Game : ‘Hyper Light Drifter’.
Casey is interested in the creation and enrichment of meaningful culture. To that end, he has been exploring the power of story and mythology, while also actively engaging with Depth Psychology, Jungian Analysis, and Dreamwork.
Matthew Cicanese
Matthew Cicanese is an explorer, conservationist, and award-winning documentary artist from Tampa, Florida. He earned his Bachelor of Science degree in Environmental Studies at Florida Southern College, and then went on to earn his Master of Fine Arts degree in Experimental and Documentary Arts at Duke University. Matthew’s work revolves around the notion of seeing the world through a different perspective. He illuminates the beauty and biodiversity of the the forgotten microcosms existing all around us. Though macro photography is his strongest and most practiced medium, Matthew enjoys working with a vast array of storytelling methods — from aerial drone cinematography to multimedia narrative film-making. He is driven by innovation and constantly pushes the limits of his work through new methodologies, perspectives, and mediums.
Photo by Irene Koh
Nadia Enis
Nadia Enis is an illustrator, designer and teacher living in Berlin. Working for the entertainment industry for 7 years now, she is mainly active as AD and Art Lead for Character Design in the game development scene for the past 5 years now. As part of her educational work she gives talks about design theory to professionals and holding workshops for companies and events on a regular basis.
Photo by Jenny Bookler
Lissa Treiman
Lissa Treiman was born and raised in sunny Los Angeles, and she has never managed to escape it. She attended the CalArts character animation program, where she made four short student films (two of them are un-watchable, two of them are ALMOST watchable). Since graduating in 2007, she has been working as a story artist at Disney Feature Animation, contributing to such films as 'Tangled', 'Wreck-it Ralph' and 'Big Hero 6'. She recently made her first foray into published comics, working with John Allison (of 'Scary Go Round' and 'Bad Machinery' fame) as the artist for the first six-issue story arc on 'Giant Days', published by Boom! Studios.
Lissa loves dogs. All dogs.
Photo by Irene Koh
Adam Hoppus
Adam Hoppus is a Product Designer and Illustrator living and working in Minneapolis, MN for Target Corporation. He graduated from Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2004 with a degree in Animation, Illustration and Graphic Design. After a brief career in animation he switched gears and became Product Designer for Target Corporation working on multiple product categories including apparel, bedding, toys, party décor and even pharmaceuticals. He has won multiple internal design awards, has several design and utility patents and is now one of the lead children’s product designers at the company. Outside of work he participates in gallery shows around the U.S. and is currently working on his first board game for his own game studio.
Photo by Irene Koh