#### Maria Yakovleva
[Maria Yakovleva](https://www.cohart.com/artbyleva/profile)'s artistic journey began in early childhood with preschool art classes and evolved into professional-level training by age nine. After earning a master's degree in academic art in Russia and continuing her studies in the United States, she discovered that technical skill alone couldn't capture the emotional depth she sought to express.

The pivotal moment in Maria's work came with her exploration of dancing figures—capturing the essence of movement in a still medium. This challenge pushed her to break free from conventional techniques and embrace a more personal, transformative approach. "Art is a long journey of discovering your true self — always unknown, always unexpected," Maria reflects. "It's almost as if art has a life of its own and takes you to places you weren't expecting, but in the end, it feels like you needed to go there."

Her work now focuses on creating spaces where viewers can both see and feel the emotions within each piece, bridging the gap between artist and audience through shared emotional experience. "Cohart has been an invaluable tool for me as an artist, especially at art fairs. It streamlines the entire payment process, making it easy and convenient to use," Maria notes, appreciating how the platform eliminated her previous concerns about payment methods and technology updates.

Through her dancing figures and intuitive approach, Maria transforms the fluidity of human emotion into powerful visual experiences that speak directly to the soul.

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#### Cookie Moon
[Cookie Moon](https://www.cohart.com/cookiemoon/profile) brings scenes and moments to life through a simple, handmade style with a bright palette, drawing inspiration from modern art, people-watching, and her global travels. Her work focuses on themes of travel, still life, and nature—all filtered through the unique lens of nomadic living.

For the past year and a half, Cookie has embraced a nomadic lifestyle with just one suitcase: half filled with clothes, half with pastels. This portable studio has traveled with her from sublet to sublet across various cities and islands worldwide. Each location inspires her to depict its essence through simplicity: food, objects, landscapes. "The small scale of the work is a testimony to this lifestyle, a commitment to creating with what I can carry," she explains.

Each piece serves as a fleeting impression—an attempt to preserve a moment, a table, a window, a feeling—before moving on to the next destination. Her intimate works capture the essence of temporary homes and passing experiences, transforming the constraints of nomadic life into artistic opportunities.

"I'm excited that Cohart offers me a one-stop shop for managing that whole picture for uploading, presenting, and selling my art," Cookie shares. "It's so easy to get lost in different websites, programs, notebooks and post-it's—the clarity makes a lot of room for creativity."

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#### Rick Secen
[Rick Secen](https://www.cohart.com/ricksecen/profile) is a Brooklyn-based artist who has been working primarily in oil painting since 2015, creating compositions that embrace the chaos and rhythm of life. His works are saturated with light and atmosphere, each carrying a distinct sense of story and wonder.

Rick pursues four distinct themes in his current body of work: _The Material World_ explores the tension between materialism and our connection with nature; _Guiding Lights_ depicts emotionally complex figures in solitude, surrounded by radiant light; _Brutality Refined_ brings visceral truths about human nature to the refined surface of oil painting, often through food imagery; and _City Witness_ captures the moments, people, and energy of urban life.

"I attempt to bring a sense of wonder to the canvas," Rick explains, reflecting his belief that artists should reflect their time and place. His paintings tackle both the beautiful and uncomfortable aspects of contemporary existence, from spiritual disconnection to the raw realities of human nature.

"I'm excited to use Cohart as the spearhead to my artist outreach," Rick shares. "The profile that I can create has all of the information that new collectors would want to see. In a succinct way collectors can see who I am, what I'm about, what I'm up to, and most importantly... how to easily make a purchase."

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#### Lee Ellis
[Lee Ellis](https://www.cohart.com/leeellis/profile) is a British multi-media artist based in Bristol, who embraces an insatiable desire to create across various mediums—from printmaking to drawing and painting. His bold and expressive style is characterized by the striking juxtaposition of bright colors against dark subjects, creating works that are both visually arresting and emotionally complex.

Lee's practice thrives on experimentation and play, working with everything he can find in the studio. "The process of creating is energetic and often frantic. Starting off chaotic and as the paintings progress I become calmer. It's incredibly cathartic," he describes, highlighting the therapeutic nature of his artistic process.

His portraits are deliberately scarred and warped, filled with flaws that represent mental and physical scars—the rawness of humanity that each person experiences. These imperfections are then "masked" with vibrant colors and patterns, mirroring how we all present curated versions of ourselves to the world. The work explores the universal human tendency to cover up our vulnerabilities while still acknowledging their presence beneath the surface.

"Oooohhhh, well I love the personalised website and the support of the team for social media posts and including my work in the Cohart weekly digest," Lee enthusiastically shares. "I'm also very excited to get the mailing list together through Cohart."

Through his energetic process and thoughtful color choices, Lee creates powerful visual metaphors for the human condition—celebrating both our flaws and our resilience.

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#### Diane del Barrio
San Francisco-based artist [Diane del Barrio](https://www.cohart.com/delbarrioarts/profile) is a passionate visual artist who rediscovered her love for painting after a dynamic career in healthcare, travel, and customer service. Drawing inspiration from her diverse life experiences and deep appreciation for beauty, she creates expressive works that reflect emotion, color, and movement through abstract forms with organic flow.

Driven by emotion, intuition, and a profound connection to color, Diane's work explores themes of transformation, memory, and inner landscapes. She values authenticity and creative freedom, allowing each piece to evolve naturally without rigid plans—guided instead by feeling and spontaneity. "Through my art, I hope to evoke reflection, peace, and personal connection in the viewers," she explains.

Her approach mirrors her life philosophy: embracing change and finding beauty in unexpected places. The transition from her previous careers to full-time artistry reflects the same organic evolution she allows in her paintings, where each brushstroke follows intuition rather than predetermined structure.

"What I'm most excited about with Cohart is the opportunity to connect directly with a community that truly values creativity and personal expression," Diane shares. "I love how easy it is to share my work and tell the story behind each piece—something that's often missing on other platforms." She particularly values the collections feature for grouping work by theme or color palette, which helps visitors engage more deeply and witness the evolution of her artistic series.

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#### Alex Z. Wang
[Alex Z. Wang](https://www.cohart.com/alexzwang/profile) is a New York-based abstract artist who creates works that explore movement, memory, and emotion through layered textures and luminous color. His practice centers on capturing the atmospheric and intangible—those quiet shifts and lingering impressions that exist in the space between stillness and movement.

Alex Z.'s work is rooted in emotion and intuition, drawn to moments of transition that often go unnoticed in daily life. Whether working with layered oil on canvas or creating spontaneous gestures in ink, he seeks to translate what cannot be spoken but is deeply felt. His pieces capture the tension inherent in these liminal spaces, where memory intersects with present emotion and movement suggests both arrival and departure.

The luminous quality of his color palette serves as a bridge between the physical and emotional realms, inviting viewers to experience their own moments of recognition and reflection. Each layer builds upon the last, creating depth that mirrors the complexity of human experience and the accumulation of memory over time.

"I seek to translate the intangible: what can't be said but is deeply felt," Alex Z. explains, highlighting his commitment to making the invisible visible through his artistic practice.

"I'm excited to use Cohart to connect more directly with collectors and share the stories behind each piece in a more personal, meaningful way," he shares. "I've found the Moments feature especially helpful—it's a great way to share behind the scenes to show myself more holistically."

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#### John Musgrove
[John Musgrove](https://www.cohart.com/johnmusgrove/profile) is a San Francisco-based artist who has long been captivated by the beauty of his neighborhood, primarily working in oils to capture the city's essence. More recently, he's shifted toward exploring his complicated feelings about contemporary life through mixed media pieces that incorporate vintage road maps, scholastic dictionary images, and found photographs.

John's artistic philosophy centers on intuition over intellection. "Following your instincts is the best approach. I try to do that in the studio," he explains. "Thinking, planning and preparing are necessary but the most important thing is to pay attention to that voice inside that's suggesting something, and to go with it."
His journey began in earnest with cityscapes, responding to the amazing beauty and light in San Francisco, particularly the Sunset District. With his "antennae up" and always searching for the next composition, he created a beloved body of work celebrating this cherished place. The joy and privilege of documenting his home through paint became a foundation for his artistic practice.

Recently, John has pivoted dramatically, drawing from his longtime collection of vintage road maps, mid-century scholastic dictionaries, and found photos. These elements serve as tools for making sense of today's complex world. "Following my instincts, without too much overthinking, has led me in all kinds of surprising directions, which is exciting," he notes.

"I'm pretty new to Cohart but right off the bat it's been inspiring to get a more in-depth look at artist's process than on other online platforms," John shares. "And there is a real sense of solidarity and support among the artists that I hope will lead to real connection and community."

Through both his luminous cityscapes and thoughtful mixed media explorations, John creates work that bridges the beauty of place with the complexity of time.

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#### Blake Brown
[Blake Brown](https://www.cohart.com/blakebrownart47/profile) is a Virginia-based multidisciplinary artist who creates vibrant, culturally rich works that fuse contemporary expression with historical symbolism and emotional depth. Through bold storytelling and layered textures, his art invites viewers into intimate reflections on identity, memory, and meaning.

Blake's artistic practice operates as what he calls "a unified act of remembering, resisting, and rebuilding." Drawing from music, memory, and everyday experiences, he masterfully mixes the sacred with the street, the abstract with the ancestral. His works carry a powerful duality—designed to feel both intimate and confrontational, accessible yet challenging.

"I want each piece to feel like a whisper and a scream at the same time: familiar, disruptive, and unforgettable," Blake explains. This philosophy manifests in his layered approach, where contemporary techniques meet historical references, creating visual narratives that speak to both personal and collective experiences. His multidisciplinary background allows him to move fluidly between mediums, always in service of the story he's telling.

The emotional depth in Blake's work stems from his commitment to authenticity and his willingness to confront complex themes around identity and cultural memory. Each piece serves as both personal expression and broader commentary, creating space for viewers to engage with their own experiences of belonging and resistance.

"I'm most excited to continue using Cohart to connect directly with collectors and share the deeper stories behind my work," Blake shares. "The ability to present my art in a clean, curated space while building meaningful relationships has been one of the most valuable aspects so far."

Through his unified practice of remembering, resisting, and rebuilding, Blake creates unforgettable works that challenge viewers while honoring the complexity of contemporary identity.

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#### Andrea La Valleur-Purvis
[Andrea La Valleur-Purvis](https://www.cohart.com/alavalleur/profile) is a British-American artist who explores themes of resilience and belonging through abstract metal sculpture, transforming unyielding materials into powerful testaments of human perseverance. Her work reflects our capacity to find beauty and energy even in life's most challenging moments, drawing from her unique multicultural perspective shaped by growing up across the UK and Germany.

Andrea's fascination with how cultural boundaries shape identity stems from her British-American household and extensive travels, providing her with a distinctive lens for examining displacement, adaptation, and belonging. This multicultural foundation informs every aspect of her practice, where each sculpture becomes a meditation on our ability to adapt and transform.

"My work transforms unyielding materials into testaments of resilience and belonging," Andrea explains. "Fueled by curiosity and an unrelenting hunger for meaning, my life and work are forged with grit and shaped by story." In manipulating resistant mediums like metal, she mirrors the human experience of persevering through difficulty to find moments of grace and connection.

Her sculptural practice embodies the very themes she explores—taking hard, inflexible materials and coaxing them into forms that speak to vulnerability, strength, and transformation. Each piece invites viewers to recognize their own capacity for renewal and to find beauty in the tension between struggle and strength.

The physical demands of metalwork align with her conceptual interests, requiring both technical skill and emotional endurance. Through this challenging medium, Andrea creates works that honor the complexity of contemporary identity and the universal human experience of seeking belonging.

"Cohart is my go-to tool for submitting to professional exhibit opportunities," Andrea shares. "Creating private previews is so simple and saves lots of time preparing applications."

Through her abstract metal sculptures, Andrea transforms the weight of displacement into monuments of resilience, inviting viewers to discover their own strength within life's tensions.

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Meet a standout group of Pro artists who are pushing boundaries and leveling up their careers.

Meet a Select Group of Pro Users from July

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