Sabrina Parsons’ process is quick and intuitive. She prefers not to overthink, letting shapes and figures appear as she moves from one layer to the next. Through color, form, and movement, she creates works that act like Rorschach tests. Rather than telling a fixed story, she is more interested in the emotions and personalities viewers bring to the work. Each piece invites interpretation, allowing people to see different things shaped by their own experiences and perspectives. For Parsons, neutrality is important: the work does not point to one narrative but instead opens space for many. In the studio, she works diligently and cheerfully, always ready to jump into new ideas, help the cohort however she can, and unafraid to cover over or restart. Parsons is a local Buffalo Artist and Educator. She is currently a Teaching Artist for Starlight Studio's With Out Walls program. Her BFA is in K-12 Art Education.

Naija Boles’ surfaces unfold like living organisms, fluid, shifting, and alive with rhythm. Patterns and forms in nature push and pull, a dance somewhere between holding on and letting go. You know he has been working in the studio when you walk in to find new splatters of paint across the walls and floors. The scene is somewhere between a ruptured pulse of blood and breath and going with the flow. Underneath, intricately cut vinyl forms are excavated to reveal preserved, hidden layers. In a “more than meets the eye.” he goes on to describe, “Not so much inspired by nature, as being nature. We are nature, witnessing ourselves unfold,” learning what we can before the messages self-destruct. Boles is a visual artist born and raised in Buffalo, New York. During his residency, he worked on several mural projects with Buffalo’s AKG and Eat Off Art. His

Andrea Wenglowskyj is a commercial, lifestyle and editorial photographer based in Buffalo, N.Y. and available nationwide. She has lived past lives in Brooklyn, Boston, Kyiv, Ukraine and Paris. She has used her Hunt Residency experience to focus on personal work that combines archival photographs, hand embroidery patterns as a signifier that differs by region, and archival materials to explore resilience, heritage, and the continuity of Ukrainian cultural traditions. Drawing from her own family and broader histories, her collages reflect on how memory, identity, and generational knowledge are woven together. She connects past and present, from the embroidered shirts preserved in Ukrainian churches in 1970s diaspora, to the increasing popularity of embroideries in today’s era of Ukrainian solidarity. A renaissance of tradition that wont die out with the buildings and structures. Centering on the female figure, she engages with archetypes of Ukrainian women, donned in traditional folk costumes, as welcoming, strong, and an unattainable ideal. Through collage and silkscreen she unearths these portrayals, reflecting on the lived realities of women across time: the pressures of post-Soviet scarcity that resolved in a pride to always look your best, the contemporary question of women’s roles in preserving and transforming cultural identity, and how it connects to what she’ll pass down. These collaged works are sites of personal and collective memory, honoring tradition and interrogating its weight.

Quaid Baker is a Buffalo-based artist who uses crisp, cut-paper forms to reinterpret familiar symbols that resonate universally, like the shape of a white plastic chair, basic yet iconic, familiar yet open to interpretation. By reducing images to their essence, he prompts reflection on societal hierarchies and perception—asking, for instance, is this a rich person’s backyard or a trailer park? For Baker, the X-acto blade functions like a permanent marker in its finality, lending his compositions a clarity that balances detail with restraint. Drawn to curves he describes, “Freehand cutting makes it more loose and inline with the style I want to achieve. It’s all one piece of paper not a bunch of small pieces." He loves transportation which inspires his bold graphics as well as cartoons, pop art, graffiti, old cut-out advertisements, direct to dvd movies, and the adolescent feeling like you’re getting away with something. Always in the studio, even on lunch breaks, the shapes emerge from his mind and dreams with the mild sense of dread and fatalistic edge, feeling relief when it’s done. Imbued with a humor and humility, his work is a comic relief for everything going on in the world.

Nia Jael Bronner’s practice reflects the freedom and fulfillment that arise from creating for oneself. An awarded poet and pianist, she got her start in the medium of paint in 2023, and came to beadwork in a moment of happenstance, a handmade bucket hat in 2024 left her with extra beads, which she decided to test on canvas. What began as an experiment quickly unfolded into a practice rooted in discovery, motivation, and joy. A full-time lawyer turned artist, her work positively affirms and celebrates her own existence, the existence of people who see themselves in her characters, and the existence of aliens. Each beaded surface and painted form carry this ethos: that you can do anything you want to do in life, and that art itself can be a vessel for claiming that truth. In this way, her practice invites viewers to recognize themselves in her characters and to share in a divine celebration of being. “Just do all the things.” Nia Jael Bronner has a Juris Doctorate Degree, from Saint John’s University, and BA in Psychology, History and Public Speaking with a minor in Sociology also from Saint John’s.

Shelby Kittinger explores the intersections of identity, physical and emotional inheritance, and the authenticity of emotion. Her work examines the interplay of nature versus nurture, stitching together elements inherited from her parents and her environment to trace how these forces shape who we become, ultimately asserting our independence from them. Kittinger’s pieces navigate social, political, and cultural nuances, for example, what happens when the resources to explore the foundations of creativity are stripped away? Her practice is both cathartic and revelatory, rekindling connection to the self and affirming a simple, profound truth: I am me, regardless of you. If you find her painting in the studio, there’s always a friendly chat waiting to leave you feeling understood and unburdened, similar to her art’s content.

Sarah Field Sonnenberg merges feminine figures, flora, insects and landscape through lush oil paintings that intertwine the beauty of growth and belonging. Texture and metallic paints create a dream-like quality as her work evokes cycles of connection between women, nature, and society. Over the course of the residency her paintings have grown in depth, integrating background and foreground more fully, revealing a greater narrative in her compositions. Sonnenberg is a Buffalo-based oil painter, muralist, and art educator, active in her community, and advocating for inclusion and diversity in the arts.

Together, the artists of UNEARTHED remind us that creation is not simply about what is made, but what is unearthed—to oneself, to others, and to the community at large. In supporting these artists, Hunt Residencies continues to build a foundation for discovery and exchange, nourishing Buffalo’s downtown arts ecosystem with fresh voices and new visions.

As Cohort VIII concludes, Hunt Gallery also welcomes the incoming Cohort IX—Quincy Koczka, Amy Capalbo, Victoria May, Westley Olmsted, Shanel Kerekes, Sarah Barry, and Yames Moffit—who will move into their new studios, marking an evening of accomplishments and new beginnings.