Light Grey Iceland Residency 2018: Team Loft
August 8th - August 13th, 2018.

The Light Grey Iceland Residency Program: Team Loft includes a diverse team of illustrators, visual development artists, animators, authors, photographers and creatives. The Team Loft residents hail from the United States, Italy, Mexico, and Brazil.

Artists traveled through Southwest region of Iceland, exploring diverse geological formations, sea trolls, glacial waterfalls, basalt beaches, and geothermal pools and smoking vents. 

Read more about our 2018 artists-in-residence teams below:

TEAM LOFT: Anoosha Syed, Brigitte La, Caitlin Ono, Cristina Vanko, Ellen Shershow, Delaney Januzzi, Irma Del Valle Nachon, Jessica Mao, Marcella Tamayo, Michael Fong, Miho Tomimasu, Sam White, and Sussana Selici

Brigitte La
Irvine, CA
brigitte.la

Brigitte La is a designer-illustrator from Southern California with a personal rule to always say yes to ice cream and aims make work full of charm. She received her BFA in graphic design at California State University in Long Beach, worked on projects for a variety of clients ranging from Sephora to Experian, and participated in two Adobe Creative Jams.

She is currently an art director and resident koala at Column Five Media as a part of a larger design team working on motion graphics, branding, digital marketing campaigns, and shenanigans. As an art director she hopes to explore ways of instilling inspiration, personal growth, and enthusiasm to those around her. In her spare time she likes to take walks, watch Project Runway, and doodle.

Delaney Januzzi
Lake Oswego, OR
delaneyjanuzzi.tumblr.com

Delaney Januzzi is a visual development and comic artist from Portland, Oregon.  She grew up in the Pacific Northwest until her passion for visual storytelling took her to Los Angeles where she studied character animation at CalArts.  After graduating, she returned home to take an extended backpacking trip on the PCT where she realized how much she missed the outdoors.  Between hiking and freelance, she spends any extra time working on her own comic and indulging in additional hobbies such as baking, writing, and cat-petting.

Jessica Mao
Burlingame, CA
jessicamao.com

Jessica Mao is an illustrator and animator from Toronto, currently working in San Francisco creating artwork for games. She is a Sheridan Animation graduate, with focus in painting, color styling and art direction, especially in how lighting and mood can influence the feeling and story of a scene. In her spare time she likes to explore storytelling mediums, such as learning how to make games, journal comics and working on her original fantasy graphic novel project.

Marcella Tamayo
São Paulo, Brazil
tama-yo.com

Marcella Tamayo likes to create things. She works mostly with illustration and animation, drawing and writing. She is the co-creator of Anna Bee animation project (MTV Brazil, 2011) and was part of the art direction team of Vivi Viravento animated series (Discovery Kids Latin America, 2017).

She is currently trying to spend more time in sunlight getting vitamin D and doing her best to sleep more. She is also developing a new animation project and painting for fun. Marcella was born and lives in São Paulo, Brazil.

Michael Fong
South Pasadena, CA
michaelfongstory.blogspot.com/

Michael is a story artist based in LA working primarily for animation. He has bounced between TV and feature projects and endeavors to learn more about all kinds of storytelling. Also attempts cycling and traveling whenever possible.

Miho Tomimasu
South Pasadena, CA
mihotomimasu.com

Originally from upstate New York, Miho is currently living and working as a Background Painter in Los Angeles at Nickelodeon Animation Studios.  She is always inspired by nature, so when she's not at her desk you can find her plopped outside under a shade with her gouache set.  

Anoosha Syed
Frisco, TX
anooshasyed.com

Anoosha Syed is a Pakistani-Canadian illustrator and visual development artist. Growing up in the Middle East, she later graduated with a degree in illustration from Switzerland, and has since gained a love for traveling.

Her past clients include Simon & Schuster, Random House, Macmillan and Walmart, while her work has been featured on Buzzfeed, the Nerdist and Huffington Post.

Ellen Shershow
Oakland, CA
jadorelechien.com

Ellen holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and a Master of Fine Arts in Photography from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. A Conceptual artist by training, in 2009 Ellen left a decades long career in the arts non-profit sector to pursue her own business. Convinced that one should be able to make a living doing the things that she loves, she combined her passion for fine art photography with her deep love of dogs. Today she runs a thriving pet photography studio in Oakland, California.

Currently, She serves as President of the SF CameraWork Board of Directors. She previously served as the chair of the SF Camerawork Benefit Auction where she transformed the annual benefit auction and raised over one hundred thousand dollars for this important Bay Area institution.  Before joining the crew at SF Camerawork, she served as president of the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery to support emerging artists and provide expertise and contacts to promote their work.

Susanna Selici
Pescaglia, Italy
susannaselici.com

A walking explorer of the world, her artistic ongoing research gravitates towards illustration and storytelling, mainly with the aim of crafting books, beloved lifelong companions. Besides nurturing her book projects, she maintains a regular sketchbook practice, invaluable help in exploring and understanding the world and in releasing and comprehending emotions. With that in mind, and as an advocate of the fact that everybody can draw and that anybody can benefit from it, she started teaching drawing as a mean of exploration and self-expression to people of all ages and backgrounds. That happens in the school she works at in Lucca, whose principal aim is to teach Italian language and culture (in the broadest possible sense) to people from all over the world.

She lives in her dream self-renovated and self-decorated little home in the Tuscany countryside, very close to the mountains she loves.

Sam White
Kansas City, MO
samwhite.carbonmade.com

Sam White is a freelance Artist and Illustrator whose main interests lie in Environmental illustrations and storytelling. Sam never went to a traditional art school, instead opting to go the self-taught route. Lately Sam has been spending more time exploring and expanding upon his personal project Solstice in his sketchbook and through his illustrations .

Irma Del Valle Nachon
Xalapa, Veracruz
tallerlasemilla.com

Irma Del Valle Nachón is an architect who has worked on a diverse range of projects. Her portfolio includes project supervision of heritage conservation, industrial, retail and interior design. She is co founder of Taller La Semilla, the design studio through which she develops architectural projects, that involve a multidisciplinary team, working closely with local craftsmen and regional materials, transferring fading traditional skills into modern architectural design. In 2015 she started the research project Auf sand Gebaut at the Bauhaus Dessau, Germany where she highlights the environmental cost of glass production worldwide.

Caitlin Ono
San Francisco, CA
caitlin-ono.com

Born on a tropical island, Caitlin Ono is an illustrator living in the foggy neverland city of San Francisco. Her work typically consists of botanical wonders and shadowy friends.