Daniel Eugene is an artist, designer and poet from Bethany, CT currently residing in the Westville Village neighborhood of New Haven, CT. His current project, #NHVdrag, Volume No.1, Partners Café, which you will find for purchase at this years New Haven PRIDE block party, is the first in a four volume photo-book series dedicated to creating a printed document of the outstanding drag performance community in New Haven, CT. Eugene believes the social contributions of drag art in New Haven are indispensible to the cultural fabric of the City. It is Eugene’s intention that #NHVdrag serve to remind us of a more accurate Normal representative of the possibilites of remarkable human variety. This variety, here made explicit in photographs, might serve to uplift us out from a terrible past of willful and oppresive homogeny and help build our imaginations towards a future history characterized by brilliant inclusion and celebration of our myriad humanness.
Tony Ferraiolo. Art has played a very important role in my healing because it allowed me to take all the emotions I had bottled up inside, and instead of inflicting this pain on myself as I did in the past, I was able to release it onto my canvas. The art I have created over the years tell a story of my life, through my gender transition and through my journey to heal old wounds. Some of my work is created very rapidly and spontaneously, while others are carefully executed. But all are a representation of emotions revealing openness and pain evident only in the human heart. In 2008 I founded several support groups for transgender youth and their families. Some groups are using art to express their emotions. Examples of these works can be found in my book “Artist Expressions of Transgender Youth”.
Jonathan-Joseph Ganjian is a Connecticut based fine artist and consultant. Through J. Joseph Studio he sells original modern oil and mixed media pieces with a commitment to narratives of transformation, change, and marginalized narratives. His current project, The Gold Series: 50 Painting exploration of HIV, is slated to wrap in 2018 with a pending project through Nordstrom, who will be commissioning the final pieces for their new Men’s Store in Manhattan. More about his art can be found at www.JJosephStudio.com. Through his firm Jonathan Joseph Consulting Jonathan pursues a diverse array of projects ranging from luxury womenswear strategic planning to advising international portfolios of client companies across half a dozen sectors. He is also an active ambassador for NYC based anti-human trafficking organization Beauty for Freedom. More information at www.JonathanJosephConsulting.com.