2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. It took almost a year for 36 states to ratify it into law. But on August 18, 1920, my foresisters woke up with the right to speak their voice into the policies and the people that steer this nation. Finally, they could vote.

Marilyn Artus is a visual artist based in Oklahoma, and her work explores the female experience and women’s issues. She has created shows that explore the suffragist era in the U.S., pays tribute to an assortment of women in U.S. history and continues to collide the many different stereotypes that women navigate through on a daily basis.

Imagine if the famous artists of the past had access to Instagram! In this week's episode of the Artist Next Level Podcast, I have the opportunity to chat with artist Laurence de Valmy. She is known for her paintings featuring Instagram posts from artists of historical significance.   

Laurence de Valmy is a French born artist, who lives and works in Philadelphia area. She studied art both in France and in the USA. At first, she pursued a career in business in parallel of her artwork and has been a full time artist since 2015. 

Her current work titledPOST series, depicts fictional Instagram Posts of the past of famous artists and invites us to reflect on the links between artists through times and the relationship between Art and social media today.​

The artist combines her knowledge in art history and her skills in painting to appropriate iconic artworks and share their stories. Each artwork, created with acrylic, is a clever juxtaposition of an original painting and an imagined conversation historically accurate yet humorous.

Phil Irish makes paintings that are both fierce and beautiful. He is known for cutting paintings into fragments, and installing those pieces to make architecturally scaled collages that engage your senses and your mind.

Ontario artist, Phil Irish, has taken some dramatic turns in his creative practice.  Very much a painter, he began to scale up his work to an immersive scale. Creating painterly collages that interact with architecture has opened up new opportunities and collaborations.  These shifts have also involved rethinking business aspects of his work, from venues to funding.  With the ecological and spiritual themes that underlie his work, artist residencies have also been a critical research opportunities - including the Banff Centre and on an arctic icebreaker.

Phil Irish holds degrees from York (MFA) and Guelph (BA). His work has been shown at public museums, artist-run-centres, and commercial galleries across Canada, and in touring group exhibitions in the USA.

Juan de Lascurain is an artist/designer from Mexico City. Six years ago while sitting at a table he picked up a black marker and a pen and did his first painting without realizing that it would change his life forever. A few days later a lady saw it and asked him if he was an artist.

He had never painted anything in his life, he spent his youth playing tennis and competing in triathlons around the world. Today, his commercial brand called Dream Big is being commerialized around the world and he continues to paint. He has participated in numerous biennals, solo exhibits and just started to get invited to paint murals in Colombia and France.

Some of his collaborations include companies like, Emaux de Longwy, Cultural department of Monterrey Mexico, Cultural department of Cali, Colombia, Museo Diego Rivera, Art Basel, Tuuci company and others.