View the full bodies of work, artist profiles and art pricing in the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal magazine issues. For commission and purchase inquiries, contact artists directly.
View the full bodies of work, artist profiles and art pricing in the ArtTreasury Collector’s Annual magazine issues. For commission and purchase inquiries, contact artists directly.
- Susan B Borgersen
- Mary Kandalian-Aslanian
- Chelsey Clammer
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Lev L. Spiro
Lev L. Spiro captures water in its mystical form. There is a calm that holds strength. A stillness that carries motion. His images do not imitate nature; they manage to meet the invisible connection between flora and fauna. Fog. Ice. Reflection. Surface. What we see is not staged, not embellished, but held.
The works reverse the usual hierarchy between humans and the environment. There is no dominance here. Water leads. It takes the centre stage. The compositions remind us that power can be quiet, that transformation doesn’t always begin with noise. The eye is pulled into mirrored depths, into layers of air and water. What begins as the surface becomes space. The captured landscapes feel older than memory, and they do not wait for meaning to be given. Instead, they offer something more ambiguous: a visual space in which we can feel both peace and estrangement. Through his images, nature offers moments of beauty but does not explain itself. The viewer is left to search.
Each frame is a scene with no fixed narrative. The viewer is invited to enter and to place their own meaning. There is room to breathe and drift. Lev’s use of light and tone builds a visual atmosphere that feels both weightless and full. This openness is where the connection to the theme of water becomes strongest. The works do not show water’s force through waves or storms, but through presence. Lev emphasizes the strength of still water and the continuous soft roar of falling H2O. These images do not shout; they wait, and in that quiet, they make space for us to stay.
His approach shares the precision and restraint that can be found in works of Imogen Cunningham. Both artists honour form by not interfering with it. There is trust in what’s already there. This approach to art creates a sense of duality that runs through Spiro’s work, between awe and distance, clarity and mystery. He invites us to stay inside these contradictions and, in doing so, returns the viewer to something often forgotten: the act of looking with uncertainty.
A career in film and television shapes Lev L. Spiro’s vision. His work has appeared in solo and group exhibitions across North America, as well as in publications that value stillness as much as clarity. He now teaches photography with a focus on emotional storytelling through the natural world. As a director, he has long practiced the art of timing; the framing of breath between action and reaction. This cinematic sensitivity is reflected in his photography. There’s atmosphere instead of story—presence instead of plot.
Lev L. Spiro is the Gold Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for artists. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
https://www.levlspiro.com
Kate Hawkes
The Water Waits
The water waits
in her wandering bed,
Threading along edges of rising hills,
Over rocky floors
Through parched desert…
Follow a river as it moves through land, season, and presence in The Water Waits by Kate Hawkes. Like water itself, the poem shifts without warning, follows its own course, and continues restlessly. There is no commentary; only close observation, and a language that trusts sound as much as sense.
The structure of the poem mirrors water’s rhythm. Sentences return like swirls, and scenes reappear, shifting fluidly. The pace remains steady, even as the current intensifies. There is no declaration, no climax, only change in its quiet and irreversible form. The river, featured in this poem, is no longer gentle or still. It rises. Its path widens. It grows, and the land around it shifts. Water leaves behind new forms, silence, and absence. There is no abrupt build-up in written structure but a gradual weaving development. As the writing develops, the nature of the water begins to change. There is no symbolic or metaphorical stamp; the river is not something else. It is water in its real and physical terms: unpredictable, alive, present. Humanity appears, but not at the centre. Horses, birds, trees, and people move quietly through its orbit. The speaker does not direct. The river acts on its own terms.
That autonomy echoes Hawkes’ broader approach to working, which blends the grounded with the lyrical, placing the practical alongside the poetic. Her language moves with the current; it flows loudly as if meant to be spoken and perhaps even heard across a stage. The river brings comfort, but also erosion. It welcomes life and carries it along, and when loss follows, it does not stop. What shifts is not intent, but direction.
This poem exists outside of linear time. It does not fix itself to a single era or crisis. Instead, it moves like something older and one that is no longer waiting. The calm here holds weight. The climate crisis is not future tense. The message arrives without being explained. This is not a warning. It is a witness.
There is a quiet kinship with the work of Virginia Woolf, evident in the layering of outer world and inner rhythm, in the trust that meaning will emerge without being pointed out. Hawkes moves through that balance with assurance. The poem does not shout. It invites attention and holds it.
Kate can be heard reading her poem on her website www.wellnesswithkate.com.
Originally from Australia and now based in Arizona, Kate is a published author, playwright, and founder of Red Earth Theatre. Her work spans stage, page, and screen, often exploring ecology, memory, and the body in place. Kate Hawkes’ background in performance, teaching, and theatre direction weaves through her writing. Her experience working with stories, particularly those drawn from real lives, communities, and bodies, has shaped a language that listens first.
Kate Hawkes is the Gold Writer of the ArtAscent Water call for writers. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
www.wellnesswithkate.com
KAM
Playful and sharp, light and warm-hearted: KAM’s work cannot sit still. It winks and stares back. It moves through human spaces with a kind of visual mischief, a rebellious presence that doesn’t shout but absolutely won’t be ignored. At its centre: Lucky the Ghost. A softedged, hard-hitting figure who travels through landscapes of water, knowledge, and meaning.
In Murky Waters (as seen on the cover page), we follow Lucky through a modern story and vision of Loch Ness. Folklore ripples beneath the surface; monsters and myths are to be discovered. All is guided by a deeply rooted curiosity and how an image can be loaded with meaning. The unknown becomes magnetic, and Lucky becomes a gentle guide through wonder and the subconscious territories of water. What lives beneath is not only what we fear, but what we hope for. Reflection becomes a form of storytelling.
The second piece, Dropping Bye, slips from myth into critique. A challenged river: engineered, industrial and filled with chaos. Lucky floats face-down among what remains: echoes of aquatic life, fragments of discarded culture. Pop icons, graffiti, the gloss of surface with the weight of what’s lost below. Here, joy and consequence press against one another. The lines stay clean, the colours precise, but the message remains: we have turned nature into a stage, into characters that must do as they are told, and in the act of creating our story, we have forgotten what nature once meant to us.
And yet, there’s humour: Lucky’s face does not accuse, it observes. KAM lets the character exist as both a mirror and a question. With Mickey Mouse hands and comic-book clarity, Lucky is both recognizable and slipping through one’s grasp. A composition of nostalgia and disruption. A traveller between realities. Lucky appears in plain sight and disappears just as fast, leaving behind only a question mark that can be translated to a gut feeling.
In this work, pop culture and philosophy intersect. Animation meets awareness. The influence of artists like Murakami is evident, but never copied. KAM moves between digital formats and physical worlds, between commercial ideas and conceptual depth. Illustration here is a medium of rebellion, a charming one that bites where it’s needed.
There is no lecture in these images, but a provocation to encourage thought. Lucky is not a mascot; it is a reminder. A figure drifting between joy and justice, with its Mickey-Mouse-like hand pointing right back at us. We don’t watch Lucky. Lucky watches us. And that makes all the difference.
KAM is a multidisciplinary artist and designer whose work spans illustration, animation, and conceptual design. Creator of Lucky the Ghost and the animated series Bread and Circus, KAM blends pop surrealism with cultural critique: always playful, never passive.
KAM is the Silver Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for artists. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
https://kamofficial.com
Miguel Barros
One can be sceptic of art’s potential to bring actual changes. However, its influence is subtle, making us more aware of specific issues, such as our impact on water resources. For instance, Miguel Barros turned his painting into an instrument of spreading ecological awareness
The featured series of works by Miguel presents a formal exploration of colour, texture, and composition, unified through a palette dominated by blues, violets, and deep blacks, occasionally punctuated with warm ochres and reds. All the works are created with mixed media, including oil paint, recycled plastics, paper, textiles, canvas scraps, and found objects. The author merges the fragments into organic, flowing forms—repurposing materials that might otherwise become waste. This technique reflects both the natural cycles of transformation and a personal commitment to sustainability.
The artist employs a mosaic-like assemblage technique, layering fragments of recycled materials to create dynamic, abstract forms that evoke icebergs, underwater currents, and marine topographies. The interplay of light and dark, as well as opacity and translucency, generates spatial depth and tension, while the tactile surfaces—achieved through mixed media collage—invite closer inspection. Overall, these works function as both aesthetic compositions and environmental meditations, fusing formal abstraction with ecological symbolism.
A recurrent visual element of Miguel’s pieces is their grid-like structure. The artist subtly engages with the principles of the modernist grid while simultaneously reinterpreting and subverting them. The modernist grid—championed by artists like Piet Mondrian and later formalized by Rosalind Krauss as a symbol of autonomy, order, and the flatness of modern art—embodied the ideas of rational structure, repetition, and a detachment from the natural world. Miguel’s representations of actual marine forms introduce a sense of organic movement and entropy, contrasting with the grid’s traditional associations with control, stability, and flatness.
By integrating themes of ecological fragility and environmental decay, the painter transforms grid into a dynamic field of rupture and renewal—where nature’s fluid unpredictability visibly undoes the human impulse to structure. In doing so, his work reinterprets the modernist grid as a space not of rational purity, but of poetic disintegration, making it relevant to contemporary ecological and aesthetic concerns.
Miguel Barros, born in Lisbon in 1962, is a painter whose life and career span multiple continents and cultures. Holding citizenship from Portugal, Angola, and Canada, Barros embodies a transnational identity that informs much of his creative work. After spending a significant period of his life in Luanda, the capital city of Angola, he eventually relocated to Calgary, Canada, where he currently resides and continues his artistic practice. His academic background is rooted in design and the built environment—he earned a degree in Architecture and Interior Design from IADE in Lisbon, completing his studies in 1984. Since then, Barros has shifted his focus entirely to the visual arts. His art is held in over 20 countries, namely Portugal, Angola, Canada, Brazil, Japan, and South Africa.
Miguel Barros is the Bronze Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for artists. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
https://www.miguel-barros.com
Dakin Roy
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see the full body of work and exhibition, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
https://www.dakinroy.com
Stephanie Dobson
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see the full body of work and exhibition, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
https://stephaniedobson.myportfolio.com/work
Theresa Gage
Sink Your Teeth
Every year, my family attended the annual City Light picnic at Cottage Lake. Our close relatives joined us, and everyone brought food to share. Mom and Aunt Penny competed over their chicken recipes. Aung Penny bakes chicken wings in teriyaki sauce, whereas Mom fried chicken until the skin was crusty. Both deserved blue ribbons, and their chicken was exquisite…
Distinguished Writer of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
https://worldofwordsandcraft.godaddysites.com
Stacey Chen
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see this in more detail and the full exhibition, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
Ljubica Simovic
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see the full body of work and exhibition, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
Madeliene Sieffert
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see this in more detail and the full exhibition, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
https://madeliene.art
JC Sulzenko
South Shore Suite Triptych
She walks the shoreline
below dunes, high as ten men.
Geese mutter, shuffle.
She ascents the soft, steep slope
past trees grown tall without soil…
Distinguished Writer of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
www.jcsulzenko.ca
Jennifer Cunningham
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see the full body of work and exhibition, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
https://jbcunninghamstudio.com
Regina Petrovna Klimkina
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see this in more detail and the full exhibition, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
https://Reginaklimkina.art
Anna M Cullen
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see this in more detail and the full exhibition, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
https://www.amcullenart.wordpress.com
Tanya Adèle Koehnke
Refreshment
Glacial tap water
gushes into glass pitcher
torn packet
pours black-cherry powder…
Distinguished Writer of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
Alison Lake
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see the full body of work and exhibition, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
www.alisonlake.photography
Lisa Roy
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see this in more detail and the full exhibition, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
Tanya Adèle Koehnke
Wishing Well
Buttercups and clovers
ring the cobblestone well
deep dark dank.
Desert groundswell
echoes my name…
Distinguished Writer of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
Santford Overton
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see the full body of work and exhibition, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
Arijeet Mitra
Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Water call for entry. To see this in more detail and the full exhibition, grab a copy of the 2025 ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Water issue.
https://arimitra90.wixsite.com/curatistudio