

artist edition 01
september 2020
ARINZE
STANLEY
Print On Sale
September 15th - September 21st


MONIKER FOUNDATION PRESENTS
LE BOOK EMERGING TALENT AWARDS
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Moniker Foundation is excited to present the ground breaking EMERGING TALENT AWARDS by LE BOOK - a celebration of leading creative talent.
Established in 2020, Moniker Foundation has been championing emerging talent across the arts. In partnership with the LE BOOK, that showcases and connects creative talent and forms creative networks worldwide, we are proud to launch the EMERGING TALENT AWARDS: An initiative to Spotlight, Celebrate and Nurture new and emerging talent across our industry.
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The LE BOOK EMERGING TALENT AWARDS seek out the best TALENT across six categories in two key segments:
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​NEW TALENT​ - Open to young creative professionals with less than 5 years of experience.
​Celebrating early career creative achievements.
Prize per category - $15,000
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​​EMERGING TALENT​ - Open to full time students.
​​Focused on recognising and rewarding the best creative talent in their academic phase.
Prize per category - $10,000
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A total of twelve prizes will be awarded across the following categories:
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Photography
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Illustration
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Fashion Design
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Styling
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Graphic Effects / VFX
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Content Creation
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Nominations for the EMERGING TALENT AWARDS are open now until March 30, 2024.
AWARDED ARTISTS
DIGITAL ARTIST GRANT
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The Digital Artists Grant (DAG) is offered by The Moniker Foundation in collaboration with our partners, Creative Debuts.
This is a no-strings attached financial support to help digital artists of all ages who are in the early stages of their careers. They can spend the grant on whatever they want – be that make new work, buy equipment or materials, travel, research, visit exhibitions or conferences, or to even just cover some life expenses.
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This grant has been set up to spotlight and support the emerging digital artists of our time. These artists are paving the way for how we appreciate and experience digital art. Working with Creative Debuts we hope to attract global emerging artists that are pushing this new medium.
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AFRANE MAKOF - JANUARY
Akwasi Bediako Afrane (b. 1990) is a Ghanaian artist living and working in Kumasi, Ghana. His works explore the idea of augmentation and extensions between technological gadgets and humans. He works with discarded electronic gadgets which he refers to as “amputees”. He refashions and repurposes these amputees into machines and micro-organisms he describes as “TRONS”, that become potential platforms and media for reflection, engagement, and interactions around the globe through varied available physical and virtual platforms. So, these TRONS are created physically, and also converted into digital models, allowing for experimentations in virtual reality (V.R), augmented reality (A.R), video, animation, and gaming technologies.

SPICECAMVISUALS - JANUARY
Sunahtah Jones, artistically known as SPICECAMVISUALS, is a Black nonbinary lesbian and surrealist digital artist, photographer, and videographer. Her artwork is centered on afrofuturism, deep tones, and tapping into subconscious thought. They utilize softwares like Photoshop, Procreate, and Blender to turn their photography into a multidimensional illustration of the relationships between different worlds.

IN SEARCH OF SAM - FEBRUARY
In Search of Sam is an exciting digital and graphic artist whose works are both unapologetic and provocative. The intricate details, hidden messaging and social commentary within the works warrant the viewer to take a deeper look into the world we live in. His works provides a unique take on current social discourse in an increasingly globalised society.

BRISIA - FEBRUARY
Brisia lives in La Cruz, Elota, Sinaloa where she is the producer of Ajal Game Studio, an indie game studio where they design educational and entertainment videogames. They are a group of 3 where she is in charge of both the creative process and the business management. Brisia studied at UCL EdTech at IoE in London where she was able to learn about the qualities of video games and education and used that experience to create Delphy town - a VR immersive language learning game. Along with this game they chose to change the engine and use Unreal to build a shooter and multiplayer game. Brisia loves making games and the whole process of managing a game studio and hopes to make it her life’s work to keep on creating new worlds.

ALICAN INAL - MARCH
Voxelfish is a London based architect, data artist and teaching fellow. The digital art of Voxelfish feeds primarily from quantitative inputs such as data, algorithms, environment, sensors, archives and APIs. The scale of work ranges from urban to micro and the algorithms behind them range from sonic to biological. Voxelfish believes in simulations and thinks representing reality is to begin to transform it.

ANTÓNIO BAÍA REIS - MARCH
"In my boyhood, there were so few cameras that everyone knew who had them. I had a borrowed one. And it was with it that, very early on, I started to become interested in photography (...) From then on, my lens was never satisfied with the bread-and-butter portraits. And everything has served me: landscapes, flowers, animals, and the seasons of the year and of man." (António Reis Baía, 1986 - excerpt from the original text written by the photographer for the catalogue of his '30 years of revelation' exhibition, which took place in the Salão Nobre of Casa do Douro between 11 and 17 August 1986. Unfortunately, it was his last). Much like my grandfather, who through the lens of his old cameras found the beauty in the mundane, I too seek to find the unexpected beauty in the intersection of diverse worlds. From combining an objective scientific mindset with artistic and creative practices involving theatre, performance, and other art forms, to making use of technologies like virtual reality and other emergent technologies and tools to generate an impact on society, to uncovering new theoretical and practical paths within media and communication, or by testing new approaches to innovation in education or science communication, "everything has served me"."

LAURA SHEPHERD - APRIL
"I’m a digital artist and designer based in London. My digital toolset comprises digital painting, 2D vector manipulation and 3D sculpting and modelling to create onscreen images, animations, and augmented reality experiences. I’m exploring human to human energy transfer in a practice I call virtual psychedelics. I’ve been playing with the notions of flower power for many years and more recently these concepts and ideas have evolved into psychedelic experiences that stimulate a momentary transcendence for the viewer. It’s about expanding consciousness without the use of psychoactive substances and instead drawing on the energy that is inside us or within our grasp; the energy that creates ecstasy, that conjures our dreams and fantasies. In my most recent work I have been experimenting with a kind of generative art, whereby I use procedural transformations to create random results. My digital drug pattern formulations are distorted into totally unexpected psychedelic biomorphic portraits - it’s digital alchemy."

ONKGOPOTSE MAY - APRIL
"Born and raised in the townships of Soweto. I'm a cinematographer and photographer. All I can think about is bring actual analogue practice into a digital space. It’s not easy shooting your story on film and following through with the actual processing of the film equipment needed to support the cameras, which only high production companies can achieve but I've always relied on doing with what you have and applying the know-how and practice."

BOSUN OMOLOSO - MAY
"I started my art journey professionally 7 years ago. I drew and painted traditionally for about 3 years before switching to digital. Now I am a full-time computer graphics artist. I'm conversant with multiple design software, and I create 2D and 3D designs and Animations on different subjects, using different styles. I am a Surrealist. I have huge love for science fiction and fantasy, which influences my art, so I tend to create artworks that doesn't follow the rules."

KHOSANA - MAY
“I am a female British-Yemeni illustrator, based in Sheffield, with a love for detail and texture. I enjoy creating bold, colourful imagery that also has meaning and power. I’m interested in fashion, feminism, food, and sport. I studied illustration at Sheffield Hallam University, graduating in 2020. My work is mainly digital, but I like to incorporate handmade textures into it. I typically use Photoshop and Procreate to bring my ideas to life.”

JOANA BURD - JUNE
“My name is Joana Burd, I am an artist and researcher of new media art from Brazil. I am currently doing my PhD at Faculty of Fine Arts at Universitat de Barcelona, where I am also collaborating as a teacher in the disciplines of Sound Art and Audio Visual experimentations. I am very interested in the haptic aesthetics and how we are living with the new technologies of touch.”

KAREN OKPOTI - JUNE
“I am a computational artist which is the intersection between art and technology. I also began playing the harp a year ago and pole dancing 3.5 years ago. I love expressing myself through different mediums in this way. I am currently about to start a series called 'Chapters'. This will be weekly short stories in the form of film told in one of these mediums (pole dance illustration/animation and the harp). I have always been someone who is multidisciplinary and I am determined to combine all of my passions to tell important stories and push my creativity as far as it can go My works typically discuss topics surrounding spirituality, ecology and technology.”