Light Grey Iceland Residency 2019: Team Ice Bear
July 24th - July 29th, 2019
The Light Grey Iceland Residency Program: Team Ice Bear includes a diverse group of character designers, visual development artists, animators, comic artists, designers, and more. The Team Ice Bear residents are from various cities around the United States, United Kingdom, British Columbia, and France.
Throughout the program, artists adventured through Northern Iceland, visiting some of the most active, geothermal, and remote locations. The day excursions include hikes around boiling mud pots, sleeping volcanoes, basalt caves, geothermal pools and more.
Read more about our 2019 artists-in-residence teams below:
Team Ice Bear: Celine Choo, Taylor Stone, Cindey Chiang, Rebecca Shieh, Alexandra Lillie, Alexandra Kern, Casey Uhelski, Julie Robert, Alexander Newman, Rachel Newman.
Celine Choo
Cambridgeshire, UK
Website
Celine is an illustrator based in Cambridge,UK. Shes worked as a video game artist and toy designer for the majority of her career in London. Recently she transitioned into freelance full time to concentrate on passion projects that involve food, adventures and cute animals! Currently, she's taking the time to experiment and develop her work.
‘I can't wait to adventure into the beautiful landscapes of Iceland and seeing what the experience may bring. I love to travel and every new environment can add something different to your work. Looking forward to breaking bread, sharing and learning from the other creatives taking part!’
Taylor Stone
Vineyard Haven, MA
Website
Taylor is a cut paper illustrator from Martha's Vineyard. After becoming a SCAD grad in 2013 she returned to New England and began experimenting with papercutting. Now she makes intricate cut paper shadowboxes and sculptures, and has even created and published her own limited edition artist book - mostly focusing on fantasy and nature-driven subjects.
‘The community! Coming from a small island, I can't wait for this chance to meet and learn from other artists around the world! (And the setting ain't bad either...)’
Cindey Chiang
Vancouver, BC
Website
Cindey is a Taiwanese-Canadian artist from Vancouver, Canada. Since graduating with a BFA in Character Animation from CalArts, she has worked on a variety of projects- from animating on the Beatles Covers ad for Apple in Los Angeles to working on The Angry Birds Movie as a Visual Development Artist in Vancouver. She is currently working as a Designer at Skybound Entertainment. Apart from drawing, Cindey enjoys arts and crafts, drinking coffee, and eating ice cream. She also likes animals and all things cute!
‘I'm looking forward to gaining new knowledge and inspiration from exploring Iceland with a group of creative individuals!’
Rebecca Shieh
Irvine, CA
Website
Rebecca Shieh is an illustrator, visual development artist, and soon-to-be-graduating art student located in Los Angeles. She specializes in designing environments and has previously worked at Pixar Animation Studios. In her free time she enjoys watching movies, reading comics, plein-air painting, and petting dogs.
‘I'm looking forward to connecting with and inspired by other artists while being immersed in a mystical and magical landscape!’
Alexandra Lillie
Pasadena, CA
Website
Alexandra is a Background painter and visual development artist interested in finding a way to spice up the animation and games industry with her style and taste. Located in Los Angeles, she is a graduate of Entertainment Arts at Pasadena Art Center College of Design. She enjoys spending quality time with her cat, playing D&D, and day dreaming about living the life of an equine themed TV show for young adults in her spare time.
‘I had the privilege of coming with the team to Norway last summer and it honestly rocked my world. It was the first time I'd ever traveled that far on my own and it was such a needed boost to my confidence. I'm excited to explore this new place, and meet all new people!’
Alexandra Kern
Saint Clair Shores, MI
Website
Alexandra is a digital illustrator & animator. She enjoys nothing better than breathing life into magical worlds, creating characters, and telling stories through art.
‘I greatly look forward to discovering and capturing the mystical world of Iceland's natural landscapes while being surrounded by inspiring, creative people. ‘
Casey Uhelski
Chattanooga, TN
Website
Casey is a freelance illustrator and graphic designer who lives in Chattanooga, TN with her 1 cat and too many plants. She's the illustrator of the KeeKee's Big Adventure series and a shirt designer for The Yetee- where she's launched her own line of black cat and slice of life themed merchandise.
‘Hiking and hunting for rocks! I love finding unique rocks in new places I visit. Being a freelancer can be a little isolating, so going on a trip like this with other nature-loving creatives is really exciting.’
Julie Robert
Paris, FR
Website
Julie Robert is a french animator, director and videogame developer based in Paris.
After a graphic design diploma, they graduated from Gobelins in character animation & animated film making in 2015. Since then, they have been working as an animator and storyboard artist in various french animation studios, on tv shows and feature films, as well as regularly attending game jams. Their personal work revolve around self-love, lgbtq representation and care. They are currently developing short movie and tv show pitches as well as short narrative video games and comics.
‘I'm looking forward to a fulfilling break in my usual routine. Getting new perspectives both from the landscapes and everyone else's practice!’
Alexander Newman
Philadelphia, PA
Website
Alexander Newman was born in Oshawa, Canada, to Jamaican parents in 1992, and spent his childhood moving between locations in the Northeastern United States, China, and the Midwest. He graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute with a BFA in Photography in 2017, and has since relocated to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he currently lives and works. His work is heavily influenced by the power of the geographic site. Diasporic identities, the uncanny nature of modernized landscapes, and the presence of ancestral power in physical space are all elements which inform his practice. As a visual artist who works primarily with film photography, he sees this medium as a tool to create a complete and infinite observation of space, a process which allows one to pass through a deeply layered present, informed by both memory and spiritual power. He is a part of an artistic collective, In Rapture, where he is the principal photographer, and his sister, Dr. Rachel Grace Newman, is the creative director.
‘I had the opportunity to travel to Iceland in the Summer of 2017, and was awestruck by both the unique landscape, national history, and the folklore of Icelandic culture. I felt a strong desire to return to Iceland one day with the specific intention of creating work within the environment there. ‘
Rachel Newman
Washington, DC.
Website
Rachel Grace Newman is an artist and art historian hailing from Toronto, Canada with family roots in Jamaica. She is currently the A.W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. She specializes in the art history of the colonial Caribbean and contemporary art practices of the African diaspora. In 2016, she received her Ph.D. from Stanford University, where her dissertation centered on the art history of the Atlantic world, examining the role of landscape as an imperialist tool in the representation of sugar plantations and the Transatlantic slave trade. Her art project, In Rapture is a collaboration with her brother, Alex, who recently completed his BA in photography at the San Francisco Art Institute, in which she works as the creative director. Using large-scale styled portraits and narrative photography, their work examines ancestral connections to geographic sites in a world impacted by the forced and voluntary migrations that took place under colonialism.
‘I'm looking forward to weaving the magical landscape of Iceland into fantastical scenes!’